So im looking to enter my first enduro race in the SES, the last round in largs for a taster. Just noticed thst the price is £50. Why does it cost this amount of money, im relatively new to this so it could be a misunderstanding. Im 17 and £50 is a reasonable amount of money with my part time job.

any explanation would be great thanks

Jack

Dunno. I was contemplating entering the Tour de Ben Nevis in September, but its £50, and I can ride the same route any time I please. Is the craic of the event worth £50? I’m not convinced.

The organisers of an Enduro will need to pay for use of land event is held on, timing, marshals, advertising etc and will also want to make some money or at least not make a loss.

Races take a lot of time and effort to set up, hell of a lot of organising goes into it not to mention getting marshals, ambulances on site, timing etc. especially an enduro race where there multiple separate stages.

Races are quite different to organised rides too, no idea why anyone would pay to potter around in a big group either off road or on it.

Just be glad you’re not getting into motorsport!

They are pretty steep in price.

But its down to the organiser to set a price and if it fills up regularly then they can charge what they want.
If they are not getting the entry then they will have to drop the event or lower the price.
As its a popular sport with middle aged men with a lot of money then I guess the events are quite full.

yeah it’s a surprising amount of effort. i was involved in setting up for the national MTB champs when i was about 16. There was a group of us who took a week off work, marked out the courses, shooed the cows out from the camping fields, hired a JCB to build jumps, a couple of vans to lug things around, then you have stuff like getting the marquees up, sound systems, portaloos, bars, catering, timekeeping, yadda yadda yadda.

I got 3 free t-shirts for my efforts although i imagine people get paid for it these days 😉

Land hire costs a lot. My favourite event, 10 at Kirroughtree, was cancelled when the Scottish Forestry Commission doubled their rates and made it too expensive to run.

I would love to get into a few Enduro races but the cost is indeed high, especially when you consider the transport and extras that undoubtedly are incurred.

The Scott Mtb marathon guys manage to put on a great event for what I consider to be a decent £30-35 with free camping.

Im 17 and £50 is a reasonable amount of money with my part time job.

True, but £50 will always be a lot to a 17 y/o working p/t – ie a night out can easily cost that (taxi, drinks, food, club, taxi).

Get into fell running for VFM. £7 for multi hour events and all the cake you can eat afterwards. Result.

It costs so much because people are willing to pay it.

Or LDWA for similar value.
MTB events are expensive for a variety of reasons.
They don’t have the club infrastructure of other sports, so no free volunteers to run them.
They can’t make use of public land or subsidised facilities like other many other sports.
They tend to be run for profit – nothing wrong with that – but it will cost.

It costs so much because people are willing to pay it.

Be interested to know what you are implying there.

Enduro is always going to be expensive sadly, for a full-on event like the SES especially. Mostly what makes it more expensive than other events will be the requirements of it- lots of manpower before and during, several sets of timing kit, etc. Higher risk of injuries too you’d expect which brings along with it more costs. TBH a lot of the work is done by volunteers or for token amounts

Enduros are also more expensive just because of the relatively small number of entrants- an XC race can have several times more people so spreads the cost, I think an SES race runs at about 400 people. And that’s enough to rip the arse out of a wet trail so arguably is too many.

Be interested to know what you are implying there.

I presumed he meant that people generally charge what the market will stand.

Sancho – Member
They are pretty steep in price.
But its down to the organiser to set a price and if it fills up regularly then they can charge what they want.
If they are not getting the entry then they will have to drop the event or lower the price.
As its a popular sport with middle aged men with a lot of money then I guess the events are quite full.

So races like the PMBA Enduro series the entry fee is £40/race. How much do you reckon you could do it for?

So races like the PMBA Enduro series the entry fee is £40/race. How much do you reckon you could do it for?

Have you not seen Kevs new yacht & private jet?

I’m genuinely interested. I think £40 per race is pretty reasonable, I wouldn’t expect organisers to make no profit.

If someone could put on some West Yorks enduro races at good venues for say £10 a race I’d be there racing 😉

Oh I agree, to put a 6 race series on for £72k (300 riders at £40 a round) and still make a profit is some damn good work!

I was told that uplifts cost about a grand, as well as st johns, who are a private medical service, charge another grand to be on standby for the weekend but they do a very valuable job. Marshals get paid however much the race entry is, they use 22 for innerleithen sda so that’s 22x£70 (£1540) to pay marshals alone.

Most of the SDA staff are volunteers because they enjoy doing what they do and it’s the only race series in scotland.

People are willing to pay or that is price at which the organiser deems it worthwhile.

Plenty of Mtb events have stopped when deemed uneconomical.

The road race scene relies on volunteers giving up time to organise and run things. Each club does 1 or 2 events and you get a season. A lot of work goes in to it for the love. I’ve never really seen this amongst mountain bikers.

The CX league I’m secretary of charges £7 to race. An extra £7 insurance for a day licence. We give out £15, £10, £5 in a couple of categorys for winners. Each rider who finished the league get’s between £10 and £20 back as a prize. The amount depends on funds. Each race is organised by a few people for free. Marshals, time keepers, first aiders etc. all free and we aim to break even.

Pay a few people and that £14 rises, pay for a venue and it goes up again. Provide timing and a venue that isn’t a bloke in a field and up it goes. Then make enough profit to keep a business afloat.

OP – dunno if this is a feasible option but you could try contacting the organisers and offer yourself as a marshal for a couple of races in return for a free entry?
RM.

Not quite the same but I used to organise the edale skyline fell race. Maximum of 500 entries.

Costs were fairly low really, but in my last year we had 85 helpers and marshals (all volunteers) for part or a full day. I’ll leave to to work out the cost of actually paying them if it was a commercial event.

There are some fixed costs that you incur as soon as you start an event such as adverts, insurance etc

There are some costs that increase with the number of people attending such as toilets, first aid etc

There are some costs that increase with the length (days or distance) of the event such as staff and land hire.

I had no real idea about any of this when I organised the first Big Bike Bash but thought that the costs don’t increase much once you have got the whole thing set up whether you have one race, two races or, in the case of the BBB, about 40 events happening in the same venue.

£50 for an adult for one race may seem a lot but £60 for an adult for three days with 40 events, a music and beer festival seems better I think.

Okay, we are not trying to make a living out of it, we don’t pay staff and give money to UK Youth instead but I think other events should try to put more things on using their existing facilities to add value to their events.

£50 is really too much .. dont the organisers think.. its 4 grand for a bike another 400 for the riding gear a couple of hundred for the bike rack and the cost of audis and vw vans today.. i m surpised that anybody enters at all.. especially when so much fun can be had on here for the price of fresh air.

It is not that expensive, you know. Once my parents went tot the festival that cost them more then 5000$…I was like:WHAT? WHY??

I KNOW! I MEAN, WHY?

This spammer came on STW. What she posted next will scare you! #3 is AMAZEBALLZ.

I’ve only done two, both PMBA but I thought, considering the effort & cost that must have gone in, they were good value.

After all, a Hope cassette expander costs more and your not even allowed to race without one…

I just re-read that.

Largs???

FINALLY SOMETHING IS HAPPENING HERE! Guessing it’ll probably be up Kelburn then.

Anyway, might consider it depending when my hernia op is though HT may be a bit ambitious. Mind you, it was back in the SDA’s as well so why change the habit of a lifetime…

Mtbo is about 15 quid. The colne valley ride is 17 (and for charity). I just did a fell race for 4 (ditto,with free entry to the local fair).

I think everyone knows that the race organisers are driving round in super cars and blowing their noses on 20 pound notes…

Or things cost money, for example want accurate timing?
http://www.raceresult.co.uk/en-uk/shop/ActiveSystem.php
£2500 or £250 hire for a weekend plus chips.
Want to get some toilets?
They cost money
Want to run an event then you need to pay for insurance
All that tape that marks the course? Costs money
All the time to setup? That is time that the organiser puts in and isn’t doing a money earning job.
Want marshalls? You will at least need to feed them or give them something unless you have a load of gullible friends.

£50 sounds like really good value. Looking at a couple of events that cost a lot more than that.
http://wildsidemtb.com/index.php/entry/entry-information $620Au/£325 for 4 days.
http://www.hellfirecup.com/ $445Au/£235 for the 4 day event

There’s a wide range of prices for events, some IMO are too expensive. So much so that I’d rather ride/race in Belgium or France, as entries are silly cheap and yet fully loaded.
I still can’t get over the Gent Wevelgem, for 8 euros. Electronic timing, free Etixx food and drink at start and en route, waymaked, some closed sections, police control in towns, free images and video, goody bag, free bike wash, free security bike parking, two free bottles and the HQ was a bar when we got back.
Road racing is £10 here which is fine, my races in Belgium are 5 euros.

run things. Each club does 1 or 2 events and you get a season. A lot of work goes in to it for the love. I’ve never really seen this amongst mountain bikers.

The Beastway series in London is like this. Primarily organised by Hackney GT and 1 of eight participating clubs volunteer to marshal each round. Only payment is a free cup of tea. As a result though, it’s £10 per race.

Sounds like there is a chunk of cash coming from other sources there oldgit, either clubs, associations, sponsors or subsidy.

I just re-read that.

Largs???

FINALLY SOMETHING IS HAPPENING HERE! Guessing it’ll probably be up Kelburn then

Aye, mostly Kelburn, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they also re-jigged the old Largs DH into Douglas park, but maybe starting a wee bit higher?.

It’ll be interesting to see where else they build, talk of them going up top of the hills above Kelburn, but that’ll be a lot of work building and also some climbing trails required too.

I have the books for 3 rounds of the SES last year, so know exactly what got spent on what..

Different organisers prioritise different things. At Inners MTB we spent a lot on safety stuff e.g. Medics, radios and having plenty of paid marshals. Not so much on the advertising side or making a profit side. We didn’t invest in expensive kit, some money for the big event organisers has to go into building up plant – looking at each event individually can be misleading.

There are hundreds of different ways to skin that particular cat.

When was the last time you went out ? 🙂 £50 might cover the drinks, just. Not the other stuff.

Hey jack, as has been mentioned previously you could always marshall for a different SES round to get the entry for Largs.

For the people who love to throw out the comments that the organisers are obviously running around in flash cars etc, we all know they are not and that these events are run by very hard working individuals / groups for not much or any profit. But sometimes it is good to find out exactly how much these events cost and what the breakdowns in cost are. That way you can look objectively when the money rolls out your wallet.

I feel very thankful that there are people out there who want to go to the effort of running events like this.

I raced at Dunkeld this weekend and the enduro is run by an independent bike shop who have a small number of very committed volunteers. You should see the trails that they have built in the last few years. Absolutely fanstasic. But ill be there was a fair amount of cost involved.

I feel very thankful that there are people out there who want to go to the effort of running events like this.

This.

I feel very thankful that there are people out there who want to go to the effort of running events like this.

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