So I entered a Duathlon as a pair with a mate, that takes place tomorrow. He rang me this morning to say he’d been vomiting all night and couldn’t do it.

So I emailed the organiser on the off chance we could transfer our entry to another event or maybe just get a discount on a future event.

They do have rules about not being able to swap within 2 weeks of events and I fully understand why, but am I just being a grumpy and miserly ar$e when the response comes back that there’s nothing they can do. No transferring, no gesture of godwill, nothing?? I wouldn’t mind so much if it hadn’t been £30 each (£60 total), so not exactly cheap for a ~2 hour event.

Anyone had any better luck than this for any events, biking or otherwise?

Imagine if the weather was crap, and half the field did the same…

Martyn Salt’s events (24/12, soggy bottom series, Newnham 90) have been more flexible when they could: we have swapped team members and names on individual entries, but not changing from one cat to another etc: (basically if it only involves crossing out one name at sign on and putting in another in same cat with same number then its easy…) the numbers are often printed up specially for the event and start with a different digit for different cats. Add in multiples of mumber boards for clothes, bikes, team members and it’s more. Tri’s often have your surname on the numberplates too don’t they? Add in timing chips either returnable or taped to the mumberboard and even more expensive again. The best you could hope would be to get a different team member to replace poorly mate but with names on boards and racing regulations that could be tricky too.

Yeah but think about it from their end

They have fixed costs that 48hours before the event are already paid.

They cant say to the toilet folk . Hold on bobs pulled out and so we dnt need a toilet space for him ….

Thats why they dont do refunds on the day

mtbtomo – Member
So I entered a Duathlon as a pair with a mate, that takes place tomorrow. He rang me this morning to say he’d been vomiting all night and couldn’t do it is finally down to race weight and will see me on the start line.

🙂

Having organised events before, while it’s a pain, it’s fair that you don’t get your money back as it’s already been spent.

You signed up to do it, they’ve paid for your insurance, toilet space, share of the land usage, race number, zip ties and so on. These have been paid for for that event on that day and even if it’s a pain for you, it’s a pain for them losing money because you decided you didn’t want to do it any more at such short notice.

There’s always exceptional circumstances and it is annoying, but can’t really be helped I’m afraid.

The logistics of race organising can often be a right pain, everything will have been paid for so they’re not being unreasonable. It may well be that your email was the latest in a string of emails all claiming illness or injury – it happens a lot when folk see bad weather forecast, they just decide they can’t be arsed and make up some excuse.

Not accusing you of that, just saying that it happens so organisers react accordingly.

He rang me this morning to say he’d been vomiting all night and couldn’t do it is finally down to race weight and will see me on the start line.

😀

Just do the event your self ….you lose nothing !:)

I entered SX-UK after the event and paid the entry fee as I was so pee’d off with all of those who had no-showed and requested refunds. It’s the bane of race organisers lives, fair play to anyone who puts an event on.

I guess the organiser could tout your entry ( 😯 😳 ) round the waiting list if there is one, but the chances of a team being avalable at such short notice is virtually nil, surely ?

Also, remember that the event team don’t have a vast army of helpers to re-arrange all of the last-minute changes.

From your perspective, they’re not being very helpful to you.

From their perspective, you’re the 10th contact they’ve had that day trying to get their money back while they are simultaneously trying to sort out all the other last-minute organisation.

Oh, and three cheers for DavidB. Helped to restore my faith in humanity after paying out on last-minute refunds forced me to sell my record-breaking Pugsley to pay the bills.