Just seen the following advertised and wondered if anyone could offer their experience on earlier Red Kite MTB events – don’t want to go to a rubbish event in the west of Wales….

The Little Devil – 60k MTB Challenge – Nant-yr-Arian MTB Centre

Thanks 🙂

I can tell you they are good at putting Sportive arrows up, and not taking them down after their event.

From the deathly silence, I’m guessing peoples experiences aren’t that good then…

Won’t be booking the entry then 🙁

Try it and find out. It might be great.

Haven’t personally done any of their events but we know Neil and he seems well-organised and professional. His background suggests he knows what he’s doing with these events.

Several of our regular customers have done various enduros, marathons and sportives they’ve organised, and feedback has always been good.

The enduro series this year has had a significant sponsorship investment and I can only imagine it’s going to be bigger and better.

I don’t want to diss them too vociferously, as the event I did last year wasn’t bad or dangerous. It just seemed stunningly bad value compared to a normal bike ride, and the organiser wasn’t taking it very seriously as a race.

Terrible value for money is (to some extent) a feature of #enduro events generally of course.

Haven’t personally done any of their events but we know Neil and he seems well-organised and professional.

Well I don’t now him. I can tell you that myself and at least one other person emailed him after he put a sportive on up this way as to when they were taking down the hundreds of arrows that they’d put up. The emails were ignored.

It’s the best part of a year since the event, and many are still there.

That’s not professional.

I did the last enduro event in the 2014 series, it was my first race so I can’t compare to other organisers’ events.

I really enjoyed it, no problems with organisation or timing. The course had to be rejigged because recent bad weather had turned all the hand cut trails into muddy nightmares so, instead of 43km we did stages which were all in and around the trail centre we were at near Llanwrtyd Wells (rather than a long loop out and back). The amended format worked well and meant you could clean your bike off between stages (super claggy mud) and also repair any mechanicals or just go for a cuppa and a slice of cake.

In total there were 5 stages, we raced 1-3 the first day and then 1-5 on the second day. 1 & 5 were both hand cut/natural trails rather than trail centre reds. You could practice stage 1-4 on the first day before the timing started.

All stages were enjoyable, stage 1 had to be changed after the first day because a traverse half way through the stage was really slippery. Stage 5 was raced blind and because of this was in really good condition and also the best stage. Stages 2-4 were sections of the red route, great fun, not too difficult and you could go hell for leather on them.

Everyone gets together for dinner in the evening, a pasta ‘party’ which was good fun. It was nice to meet everyone and discuss the days antics.

I’m missing the first event this year because of holiday but will be at the rest of the events. Other friends are signed up for the first event in March.

In terms of value, it’s £50 for 2 days racing. When I was looking the only other option was an enduro in the quantocks which was a 1 day affair but only £10 cheaper. It’s all relative – I decided I’d rather race a couple of days and make a weekend of it.

If it’s your first foray into racing it’s quite a good series to get into 🙂

Edit – Can’t comment on the sign removal as I live a long way away. Bit disappointing for those living nearby though.

I’ve done some of the events, mainly winter xc and a bit of marathon, and they’ve been decent. Some of my mates are doing the nantyarian one.

It’s the best part of a year since the event, and many are still there.

Bit disappointing for those living nearby though.

Agreed, and I’ll make sure this gets fed back to Neil. I’m sure this wouldn’t be intentional and – knowing how small business works – I can understand emails getting overlooked. But yep, it’s not great and hopefully not something that will happen again.