Wales360 cancelled
We’ve just heard from a couple of sources that the Wales360 event, which was due to take place in mid/north Wales this July has been cancelled, with the organisers, Sweetspot citing a lack of entrants.
Riders who had already entered were emailed with this message:
“Despite our efforts we have been unable to secure enough riders to participate in the first year, both to create the experience for riders that they deserve and to make the event economically viable – based on these lower than projected entry numbers. This is not a decision that we have taken lightly, given the significant level of commitment and enthusiasm on the part of the Wales360 team at SweetSpot and all our partners, and it’s with great regret that we have had to take these steps.”
Riders to be refunded
All pre-entered riders will be getting a refund, but there’s no word yet if the event will look to reschedule for 2020 or if the organisers will look to forget the whole idea and concentrate in the Tour of Britain, which seems easier for people to get their heads around.
In hindsight (aka ‘The we told you so machine’) it was always going to be hard to organise an event of this magnitude, based on other successful events like the Cape Epic within the confines of current Welsh (and English) rights of way law, which prohibit racing on bridleways – regardless of landowner permission. This greatly limits not only where the event can go, but which bits can actually be timed.
It could be that, given positive movements recently towards access by the Welsh Assembly, that we might see a more event-friendly Wales in the next few years that would hugely open up Wales to grand events like Wales360 in the future.
For the meantime, it means that everyone gets a spare week in July now when they can just go and ride their bikes.
Comments (4)
Comments Closed
Shame but from my experience riders want something more exotic for their money and time then a UK based multi-day event.
Wales has amazing trails and this would have been a great showcase.
I live, ride and guide in North Wales and the route would have been an epic one. The trail centres that it took in are brilliant and would make great race stages. However, having spoken to a lot of riders regarding the event we all thought that the entry fee of around £1500 was way out of the reach of many UK MTBers.
As a Cape Epic finisher, and someone who asked himself “Why can’t we do this in Scotland?”, I was equally gutted (because I planned/fantasised about a 7-day Scottish route!) and excited when I read about it. Until, “Oh, it’s not a race.”… And it sounded like it was “self navigating”. So a semi-guided, non-competitive tour of the best bits of Wales and you have to sleep in a tiny tent for £1.5k. I think most folk would rather go to the Alps.
I’m still gutted as I think there’s massive potential for stage racing in the UK, it’s just not part of our MTB culture. Yet.
Event looked great, but the price was way to costly. For the same money you can do the Alps and have change. Thus I imagine the UK riders stayed away, when there are what you need to fill an event, plus visitors.