Hiya

I’ve been asked to help organise a MTB race in a woodland near Glasgow.

As you are aware there are quite a lot of races happening in Scotland, kids races, Xc, DH , 12 hour, 24 hour, enduros etc……

I’m looking for a wee bit of input from some singletrack forum users.

Do you think i Should I should try and organise 1 large event or do you think I should try and hold a series of evening grassroot type races.

At the moment I’m leaning towards a series of evening races, fun , friendly, not as competitive, just ride out after work kinda thing. The purpose of the event is to raise the profile of the wood to help use gain more public support for building trails and I think the series of evening races would differentiate it from other events.

If you live in the area do you think you’d participate it the event/events

Cheers in advance for your help.

Ritchie

I would speak to British Cycling and see how they can help, I can imagine that they would have someone in the local area who would help, have links to various bodies etc. It takes away a bit of the personal element but you may also get a bit more of a professional looking event which may raise the profile of the venue.

Just made sure that you let people know about the event and that it does not clash with other dates , look on here
http://www.entrycentral.com/index.php?scrType=events
and see what happens.

I’d suggest you look at the Edinburgh48 races (see ERC) for an example of good grass roots organisation. On a week night (or 3) in the summer so doesn’t clash with other XC races etc. Cheap entry and good crowds.

I think a laid back event on weekday evening during the summer could be a goer.

I’d be up for it, someone needs to be last after all!

I’d be interested.

whereabouts ? Lennox ?

Remember organised events need Insurance etc, so you might be best aligning with one of the Bike Clubs, who carry the required cover

Hi Ritchie, which area is this in? Feel free to email me, I’m always interested in local events.

Richie,

Which forest? If you’re talking about Lennox then I’d be interested. What about a trailquest type event? Less racy and all abilities can enter. Map skills can offset lack of fitness etc.

The Edinburgh Road Club 48s were great fun. Course within the city, cheap to enter, friendly. Proper grassroots racing – we should have much more of this sorto thing.

Scottish Cycling will be able to help if you’re going down a racy route – events@scottishcycling.org.uk

I’d be interested as well.

I’m up for this too. A series of short events would be fun. I’m quite intrigued about where it could be…

Bike clubs don’t tend to carry that insurance in general…they get it when they put the event on and pay the levies…they get it as part of their affiliation to the Mothership (BC)…so it would be much easier for the club to get required insurance but it isn’t normally carried by the club.

Midweek series sounds like a great idea.

You could try paging Mossy through the Braveheart forums with regards to running the races through TLI, he always seems keen to push that as an easy way to promote events.

I think kids want to be competitive as do many adults, so keeping something competitive would be a good idea rather than making it all potted sports that ‘even’ the fat kids can win! The types of events would really depend very much on the venue and demographics plus the aims of the organisation.

If it’s Lennox forest then you know my opinions; very little information has been made available to the potential users so we really don’t know what to do to help or get involved!