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To have alcohol for sale on site would probably require a costly license. Considering the events that stopped the Malverns Classic on that site many years ago (a murder, for those that don't remember) I wouldn't expect it to be very likely that a license would be granted.
Just remember to stock up well in advance next time.
Speaking of freebies... definitely need to be a bit careful washing with that mint shower gel, bit too minty for the delicate parts I reckon!
if you think 67 quid to ride round and round and for 24 hours is good fun, might i suggest its you who has a boring life, and you buy your self a hamster wheel
How do you know it isn't good fun if:
as for the people that say you havent tried it, i havent and no intention
I got my entry fee back in shampoo. 😉
Yes I seem to have come home with rather a lot of it! It was me who said hello just at the bottom of the long climb to the obelisk about 10:30 yesterday morning, sort of introduced myself in a choked fashion!
if you think 67 quid to ride round and round and for 24 hours is good fun
It wasn't good fun - so I gave up after 14hrs 🙁
There are some idiot comments coming out on here now, how difficult it is will always be subjective. Its meant to be difficult and has never been a technical riding based even, its an ENDURANCE event.
Its also about the experiance with your team, how you can support each other, encourage each other to get the best that you can archieve, now that might be a 50 minute lap like one of the guys on my team or a 1hr 20 minute lap for the girl but as long as they enjoy it I couldn't of cared a less! We all came away this year tired, but never the less we did the best we could and next year we'll try and do better 🙂
I did my first MM this year as part of a 4 man team.
It was great event, well organised with a friendly family type atmosphere. The riding was a great challenge and required a lot of skill and fitness to ride the course any significant speed. It's just a totally different type of riding to the spoon fed manufactured trail centre stuff.
In any case, If an event that size was held somewhere with miles of amazing singletrack by the end there would be miles of mangled doubletrack.
It's not for everyone, but I'd love to do it again.
It was my first MM. I read a few posts on here before saying it was a non-challenging course, could turn into the Somme if it rained and that I should go as part of a team if I wanted to enjoy it.
I turned up. It was a non-challenging course (apart for the amount of dull climbing that broke me). It started to turn into the Somme when it rained but fried out quite a bit. I was part of a team and enjoyed it but there wasn't much to do if you were on your own.
It did exactly what everyone described. Where is the problem?
If you want an event with loads of different stuff to do, a party atmosphere, a beer festival, live music and some racing then I think you know the event I promote. We do not promote the [url= http://www.BigBikeBash.co.uk ]BBB[/url] as an endurance bike race and would be surprised if it was criticised because of that.
Look at the event you are thinking of attending. Google it to see what people say. If it sounds like what you like then go to it. If it doesn't then don't go and then complain that you don't like it.
just before I go and ride my bike,
to they guy that suggesed im tight, apparentley they were short on marshalls, how much did you get paid for being a marshall, nowt
now if you can charge some one to ride round, why cant they pay a marshall,
because they are tight and they know some mug will do it for free because they love the sport, i say bollox if you want me to do it then put your hand in your pocket, seems fair to me or do you not think there is not enough money to go round
i say agin if you had a good time that is all that matters, im not trying to fall out with folk
and yes I would like to see it run as a charity,
Do it then, whinging online about it won't make it happen. I need to go shopping, but I truly resent the fact that I'm lining Mr Tesco's pocket, should be a charity dammit! 🙄
try your local market, and i do resent tescos, so i dont go, all the other shops suffer nearby,
They still make a profit though the buggers.
Whether or not it was run for profit is neither here nor there for me. It takes a lot of talent, work, imagination etc. to put on something like MM. If the organisers make a living from it then great, good on them.
tomd +1
Might not be the toughest course to those who do these sort of events a lot
It's tougher than the others I've done tbh, because of the climbing. In the dry I love it, it's my fave - fast, open and fun when done fast.
And they make hardly any profit. Yes the entry fees are a lot, but one year Pat Adams addressed this in the pre-race speech and said that they'd spend something daft like £5k on zip ties to hand out for attaching race numbers (I forget the exact figure but it was bonkers).
So it's a lot more expensive than you'd think. People have also complained about the venue, but there are apparently only half a dozen or so venues that are suitable for a national event like this, and most of them have races on already. It has to be private land, big enough to have a decent course in it; it needs trails on it but NOT public rights of way; it needs to be central so lots of people can get there and transport links need to be good so there aren't endless traffic jams on country lanes. And the owners need to be up for it.
I love the relentless negativity on here. If the Mayhem course consisted of super rocky technical singletrack with sections of north shore, gnarly downhill runs and had alpine views the same people would be moaning that it was dangerous and too hard for normal riders. If the whole thing were a charitable event supporting, say, Small Children With Narcolepsy Aid, you'd be slagging it off as a pious, skinflint, small-scale, under-organised mess. If the marshals were paid, they'd be 'mercenaries with no love or understanding of the sport'. If the place were lined with beer tents, you'd slag it as a 'pissed-up beer fest' etc.
What's so hard about just accepting that a lot of people enjoy Mayhem as it is?
It's a smaller event but I'm personally very glad I've focussed on doing Bristol Bikefest the past few years, sounds a better event than MM, most importantly the MM course round and up & down fields @ Eastnor can't even come close to the BBF Ashton Court trails...
4 nights camping for £50? That's cheap in itself. Even if you only stay the 2 nights that's still cheap.
Plus free riding and meeting up with all your mates and watching them suffer.
Loved it. As usual.
A lot of the posts miss the point. It's not about riding the best trails in the country, it's about being at a large event, where you meet lots of interesting people. I could stay at home and listen to music or go to a gig. I could look at pictures of Rome online, or go to Rome. When there I'd be overcharged for food, jostled by crowds, but I'd have been in Rome. On the money making side, if you paid your entry, turned up and there was an empty field, then fair enough - but providing facilities costs money.
Very well put.
Like WCA, this was also my first (and possibly only) MM. I did it not beccause I wanted to, particularly, as racing and stuff isn''t really my bayg, but because [url= http://www.justgiving.com/TeamBullheart ]Bullheart[/url] asked me to.
And I actually really enjoyed the whole weekend. I'm still buzzing from it.
At 6am, when you're cold and tired, it doesn't seem like such a great idea as you ride out of the main arena towards the first nasty little climb.
But when you're riding along, covered in sweat and mud, your legs burning from slogging uphill in the mud, and some random person shouts out your race number, your name, your forum name or your team tame, or just other general words of encouragement, then, it suddenly becomes worth it.
For me, grinding up a muddy hill, swearing and cursing, asking myself why the hell I was doing it, the answer was always 'because Bullheart won't give up, ever, and neither should I'.
We all have our own reasons for doing it, which is what makes it so good. I thought it was brilliant. I don't give a stuff about the negatives, cos they just really don't matter.
I have no idea where all this negativity comes from.
The event is called MOUNTAIN MAYHEM and this year it finally lived up to both words.
MOUNTAIN as it felt like you were climbing for hours and MAYHEM as the start was chaos and when the track got claggy saw people make some interesting lines.
The last 2 years people complained at the lack of hills and "the course is too flat" and now people are saying there was too much climbing MTFU!
As for people bitching on about entry fees. A local 2 hour XC race is £30, Chain Reaction Cycles Marathon is £30 so a 24 hour race where you can camping from Thursday to Monday with showers and toilets that get cleaned every 2 hours for just over £50 is a bargain.
If you didn't like it, don't bother next year but if you are reading these comments and it's putting you off then don't let it. I have done the last 3 years and will back next year as MY TEAM AND FRIENDS help make the event fun and enjoyable.
Barely any climbing this year I'm not even sure why they call it MOUNTAIN mayhem... 🙄
[url= http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3199/5852831540_c2ac1578ef_z.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/21634402@N07/5852831540/ ]Screen shot 2011-06-20 at 13.32.46[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/21634402@N07/ ]ben_oggles[/url], on Flickr
I had a great weekend. Total of 5 solo and 4 team appearances.
No thanks however, to matey in the Honda CRV who refused to put even one wheel of his 4x4 onto the grass as I was heading in on the ridge road in the camper, and then called me a *** as I squeezed passed.
A bit late to the party here, sorry.
I've raced every single Mayhem (so that's 14) and I've done around 20 others around the UK and the world too. I've also helped Pat organise Mayhem on and off over the years.
Entry fees - I've not seen the figures, but I think that renting Eastnor Deer Park for the week is around £30K alone, then there are miles of barriers, hundreds of (regularly cleaned and serviced) loos, HOT showers that never run out of water (because a separate water tanker is driven to the top of the hill to feed the header tanks to make sure they never run dry) and not to mention around 20 acres(!) of camping.
As for the course - it's raced on by everyone from first time novices to multiple national champions. If it's too easy, then you're not going fast enough. Personally (having not had anything to do with this year's course or organising) I thought that the course was fun - I enjoyed all the singletrack bits and thought that the climbing was tough, but doable. While having a course that was nine miles of narrow singletrack would be fun to ride, it would be hell to race, given that the leaders are literally going twice the speed of the slowest and there needs to be sufficient width to overtake. Races like Dusk Til Dawn (and 24hrs in the Old Pueblo in Arizona) have huge bits of super narrow singletrack - which is great fun to ride, but if you come upon a slower rider, there's nowhere for either of you to go until you get to the next open section.
As for entry fees - I've just looked at the classic 24 Hours of Moab - seen by many to be one of the ultimate races - and entry fees are $155/£100 per person. You then have to pay to camp (even if you're a racer) and spectators/team helpers have to pay £20 or so a day to spectate. Oh, and the 13 mile course is half sandy, flat fire road. 🙂
If you're after a rugged race with rocks, then we'll see you at the Singletrack Weekender. If you want to join 2500 other like-minded racers for a fun weekend of camping, that happens to involve a bit of bike racing every now and again, then I'll see you next year...
As for people bitching on about entry fees. A local 2 hour XC race is [s]£30[/s] [b]£10[/b] with pre-entry
FIFY 😉
An Elite Southern XC is £27 pre-entry (£30 EOL), BC sanctioning and what not ups the cost, Midlands XCs etc are much the same.
There's economies of scale I guess - if you could get 2500 people at an XC race I imagine the entry fees would be cheaper! I certainly don't think Mayhem is bad value at all!
A 'cross race is £13 (if you're not a BC member) for 45 minutes of fun/pain... It's hard to compare different event prices really. A day time race will always be cheaper to put on than something involving an overnight. Everything suddenly costs more. Mayhem has a full time plumber guy there through the night to keep the showers running - whereas a day time event probably wouldn't have showers.
Anyway, I guess we're getting away from the original question of if it was like riding round muddy fields. I suppose it depends on which field 😉
£50 (and raising at least £150 in sponsorship) and you can 'enjoy' cycling from Bristol to Eastnor Castle AND camp with your mates AND get mashed at the Big Chill for 4 days, on their Tour De Chill.
Makes more sense to me.
Don't have an opinion on the race, never been, it's not really for me I think. But this:
milkman100 - Memberapparentley they were short on marshalls, how much did you get paid for being a marshall, nowt
Is pretty s**t tbh.
thread still going, thanks for your post chipps, some interesting info. well i rode it anyway so i can answer my own question with.....i'll probably do it again.