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So wsjunior is keen, very keen in fact. We've entered a few now with prices varying hugely. I'd love for him to have a race say even every other weekend but Christ it's pricey. National DH events being 90 quid plus a bc membership, Pearce cycles dh 75 quid and the pmba enduros 50 quid. With the diesel and other stuff on top I genuinely wonder how folk afford to do it every weekend which some kids are.
Did a lovely little dh race the other weekend at cannock that was only 25 quid it's just a shame there aren't more like that.
it’s just a shame there aren’t more like that
Put one on then.
I stopped doing Polaris events (as they were then) when the price went up to £35 per rider, (or thereabouts) & that was ages ago!
Put one on then.
Standard stw response calling out the op.
I neither have the land, contacts, equipment or time to "put one on"
It was an observation and question on how folk manage to race regularly and therefore get better and therefore get on to the scene more.
I agree.
Add on travel, plus the inevitable crash/wear/damage, and a weekend can cost a fortune.
Yet our local Tri club seems to do most things for £10-30...
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<div class="bbp-reply-content">it’s just a shame there aren’t more like that
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Put one on then.
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Yep, that'll be cheaper...
On the one hand I agree, for the price of 3 enduro races, sailing club fees pay for a clubhouse, safety boats, petrol, grounds maintenance and a hundred other things, two hours racing every Sunday and an hour on Wednesdays.
On the other, for the price of an average boat you wouldn't get a new enduro bike. The secondhand market for boats works in a very different way because boats have a 25 year or more competitive lifespan.
But the main difference is I have to commit 3 days a year to the club to make that work. Imagine the cost savings if the 200+ people at a race all did 3x events a year marshalling, maning the bar and catering (meaning the profits also help finance the event), doing the timing etc. Plus everyone else who didn't race. Then you get something close to what roadies have with £2 TT races.
The problem is MTBing isn't setup with a club structure like roadies or sailing club so there isn't the same volunteering.
Without sounding too harsh op, your topics always make you look like a miserablè killjoy.
There’s more to running an event then there’s quality of life than money👍
Take up Cross Country? £16 a round Inc coaching session in my local series.
how folk manage to race regularly and therefore get better and therefore get on to the scene more.
I guess it depends what you define as regularly. I'd argue the best way to get better is not always to race every weekend. Racing weekends are actually pretty a inefficient way of training. By the time you have schlepped across the country/region/county attended a briefing and done all the usual hanging around for your start time then the results and prize giving its minutes ridden per hour of being out of the house is pretty feeble. Training locally and working on your fitness on and off the bike can be equally beneficial then be selective about the races you attend.
It is odd though - people (no idea if you fall into this category op) who spend a fortune on kit every year but then grumble about spending a tiny fraction of that figure on entering the races they bought the kit to race in. 15 years on from my racing days I can barely remember the bikes I owned back then (they were just tools for the job) but remember very fondly and vividly the places I visited only because I was racing and how the races went down. That was the money I spent well.
Without sounding too harsh op, your topics always make you look like a miserablè killjoy.
There’s more to running an event then there’s quality of life than money👍
Sorry what?
Oh please... 🙄
Come on let’s just all get along now 👍
Let’s Race ! !
🤘
Already stated above, no club structure, pushes the £'s up.
Plus mtb is an expensive format to organise
So we're talking about a 14 year old lad here, not me. The big investment was his bike at Christmas, he spent approximately 12 hours training in the woods (dicking about with his mates) over saturday and sunday, he wants to race, I want to help.
The only way you are ever going to get a leg up in any sport is by being exposed to competition, people will see you etc.
We've started to come across a few kids who seem to have help and are always there when we've been there, were talking 5/6k bikes here.
I genuinely wondered how folk do it?
You wonder how they can afford it, or how they can justify spending it?
I give up!
Seriously op!
The other kids probs have pt paper rounds or something like I had had.
£7.30 p/h decades ago.
No one likes a green eyed monster
paper rounds or something like I had had.
£7.30 p/h decades ago.
What were you paperboy to the Queen?
Anyway, Strava is the only race that counts.
I worked efficiently doing 2 early hours 6 days a week cycling far out from centre of town.
Plus had a “good guy” for an employer unlike the queen, he had manners not to take take take!!!
What is this bloody strava everyone is all on about!?
Goes off to a man’s best friend at early hours in morning
🤪
Back on topic...
Just had a look at events near me, they’re not that expensive are they? Sure the nationals are but isn’t that like complaining about gig prices for watching the stones or Radiohead and then realising you can see other bands for a quarter of the price?!
For example scadson (South devon) DH event is £20, there’s one at FoD for £31?
I would have said that’s quite good. I think the Southern enduro event I did (lites ie one day) was £40 from memory? Not cheap but for a day out that’s ok. A cinema ticket is £11 before you’ve bought your own weight in popcorn and drink!
It does stack up yes... I think sometimes motivation can play a factor too. If you're putting it in the pointy end and being 'dedicated' then spending the extra can happen, but if you're at the back end propping up the bunch it's harder to self justify.
The pricing though is why i've never raced enduro, £50+ for the racing... I just can't bring myself to do so. I'd be more inclined to pay it for my lad to race i admit than myself.... but it certainly wouldn't be more than once a month thats for sure.
Yes it is expensive. Stw seem to love to except high prices and assume everyone is on brand new high end bikes so all of a sudden £50+ is not a significant sum of money.
The only thing I would say is race less. Travel to ride challenging areas, do small local races to get a feel for competition. Only the odd national. See progress though thermos in smaller races.
Standard stw response calling out the op.
Or just being a Knob?
Would I pay 50 quid for a race? NOT A CHANCE
Pick and choose your events. The very well organised mud sweat and gears series is £25 for junior, but they get a mornings age related MTB coaching before racing at 12. I race in Vets at 2pm so it’s a shared travel costs plus a family day out as the whole family goes with a picnic basket.
Yes £50 might seem proportionately expensive for MTB but I have a mate whose son is doing very well in Junior motorbike racing, and that is very much not cheap in comparison. Equally any form of motorsports.
i kind of take the view that it’s worth it for the kids diversity and education in sport. If we can give them the opportunity, why not.
Another thing you could do is use google to educate yourself about other areas of the world where such opportunities are rare. For example, some Asia Pacific amateurs save all year to fund 1 race, flights etc for something like the LeadVille 100 because they don’t have these things locally. We have a rich vein of opportunity in comparison and your £50 kind of pales in significance, relatively speaking.
wrightyson Member
It was an observation and question on how folk manage to race regularly and therefore get better and therefore get on to the scene more.
A couple of years ago there was some research done on the social class backgrounds of the kids in the cycling academies (pretty sure if it was just the Welsh Cycle racing academy). From their initial finding it was shown that all the kids came from middle class backgrounds.
I dont think its that surprising really. You need a lot of disposable income to get jr established.
OP your son can race for free! Well at least at any Southen Enduro race or South West Enduro Race. Lots of other organiser offer the same.
All you got to do is Marshal in exchange for his entry. Thought?
Buy him a Garmin. Download a strong time, set up a virtual ride and get him to beat it on a non race day. That way, he is competing, it's free and you get to ride with him and you cc an ride it more than once. Once he shows commitment and potential you can justify the cost and enter him. Sponsors are only interested in top 5 or 10 times anyway.
And send him out to get a job so he can contribute too. £3 - 5 for washing a car is an Easy way to start. Good luck
Having been known to organise the occasional race event I can understand the OP view, albeit not agree with it.
Generally it’s easy to look in from the outside and conclude that the organiser is having it away. However when you actually look at it in detail it’s usually a long way from reality.
As an XC organiser my average per capita income is in the order of £17. If you look on my website you can find entry costs up to £37, but they are very much the exception.
When you factor in £3 head to BC, circa £3 a head to landowners, £2 a head for medics, £2 a head for toilets, £4 a head for the prize fund, and so on it doesn’t take long to realise it is largely done at cost.
The earlier comment re club structures is very valid. More significantly two other factors have a bearing, firstly austerity. Right now absolutely everyone is feeling their pips being squeezed as they try to find revenues previously not necessary. Secondly market forces. It’s supply and demand. If people don’t want to pay they don’t, if they do they will come. It’s basically that simple. Interestingly XC is on its arse..... Enduro not so much.... perhaps we should put our prices up
Was reading an article in a classic car magazine.
Bloke was saying that his first race entry 20 odd years ago was £28 for the day.
Now costing him that per minute on the track and that, consequently, reliability of the car has become a bit more of a concern!
I don’t get the hostility on here, it’s a genuine question.
Growing up skiing was my thing. Routinely been driven from one end of the country to another for national race series. This became all over Europe too when getting to international standard.
Skiing was structured though through clubs, national points series, international race series so you knew that the money you were spending was justified ie progress through the rankings.
Sounds like DH/Enduro is more disorganised?
Sport is expensive and does cost loads of money to get good, money does buy you success.
If you are struggling with the cost all you can do is really ask if junior has the raw talent to get anywhere in the sport? If not pick and choose cheaper events
I know what the op is coming from. My lad was doing D/H racing going back ten years or so and it was expensive then. And its not just the race entry cost is it. Food, fuel, camping equipment (camper van if you've got the money) The bike. Repairing the bike. We did Fort Bill on the cheap and as I say this was ten years back and through £500 easily for the weekend and that was doing all our own spanner work. I'm not moaning here, we had a lot of fun and would do it all again at the drop of a hat.
From an enduro organisers point of view:
£2 a head Insurance
£5-£12 a head to landowners
£3 a head for medics
£2 a head for toilets
£6 a head for timing
£5 a head for website online ticket sales etc..
£3 a head for misc items like number boards, cable ties, signs etc...
£4 per head for marshals.
The costs for a race are high, to make ends meet, the costs-coverage comes from entries.
Depending on the type of event, the costs can vary massively.
The number of people doing the events has dropped compared to the 90s - but we have a much more varied choice of event. Many won't do xc as they consider it far too difficult as they have to pedal fast everywhere, so enduro is the new thing as it is seen as being 'easier' as the climbs are social and you race the clock on the descents. However the costs for that (and dh) are higher, so entry fees go up.
Saying all that, there does appear to be a wider choice in terms of number of events, so there should hopefully be a range of events with more suitable pricing around - but it might also require more travel.
Back when Si Paton was running the full series of The BDS he posted a breakdown of the costs when there were complaints about it being £90 a round. You could quickly see how it got to that for a national series race. It’s not just a case of a few landies a stop watch and a couple of radios unfortunately.
It’s the things you don’t really think about like the cost of having BC commissars there, say 10 Marshall’s at £50 a weekend. Toilet hire, finish area Barrie’s etc etc.
As noted above if there isn’t a massive support group of people volunteering their time for free to set up, run and pack down and generally then unfortunately it’s a case of hand in pocket time. That said their are always going to be unavoidable costs with equipment hire.
When I used to ‘race’ (stretching the term a little) the Pearce series it was prob £75 a round which never seemed bad for a day and a half of riding considering an normal uplift was £30 ish.
These days a day at BPW will set you back £38 so £80 for an uplift in a random track with no fixed infrastructure that has to be put on for just two days starts sounding more understandable.
I don’t get the hostility on here, it’s a genuine question.
It genuinely was, that's why I switched off and went to sleep rather than get in to a slanging match with the very funny tdog. Don't think I've ever been called jealous before 😂
Some good advice, the plan is maybe one race a month then with some of the 25 quid local Dh ones chucked in. Walws is always a 5 hour round trip minimum, sstill can't believe the lack of races in the peaks which is an hour away, maybe I'm missing some. We start shuttling up the local holl with mrsws this week as the bangernomics has acquired a basic tailgate rack.
So yes he is serious and I want to back him 100% whilst he is keen, better than sitting on the Xbox, at the minute bike is life and I believe he has half a chance. The improvement of late has finished with a 7th last weekend and a genuine buzz for him about racing.
The main thing was beating 3 lads who were ahead of him 4 months ago.
Fingers crossed....
wrightyson did you miss my post about racing for Free? I'm sure PMBA would offer something similar to me if you are up north.
We’ve started to come across a few kids who seem to have help and are always there when we’ve been there, were talking 5/6k bikes here.
I genuinely wondered how folk do it?
Varying levels of disposable income, also different spending priorities.
To some people its a perfectly affordable percentage of their income, others work/save/dont have other things to make it work.
If you think MTB is expensive consider taking up a motorsport.
like the cost of having BC commissars there,
BC, the gift that keeps giving! Pay your yearly subs, pay the admin fee to enter races online on your membership portal, pay to have a commissaire at the race...
Our local stuff isn't [i]that[/i] expensive I don't think, it's all around £35-£45 per entry which is fair enough considering all of the effort put it to get the thing going and have some medics there in case it goes awry and you get to ride some stuff you may not usually be able to.
On the subject of bikes and their cost, just money isnt it. If you're earning more than you can spend then buying your kid a £6k bike is easy.
If you're on an average income then they're on a more average bike.
Bear in mind at races you're probably encountering the only 5 kids in the country with a factory team spec yeti/SC/specialized/intense/etc.
When I spent 2 years racing the gravity and mini enduros in South Wales. I just didn't look how much it was costing, but it did soak up a lot of cash and I live in South Wales.
How did I afford it? I lived in a shared house so life was cheap, I had no responsibilities so I just spent my cash on what I wanted. Now I'm saving for a house and MTBing is not a massive priority atm.
I fully appreciate how the costs add up. My op was genuinely wondering how folk managed to do it every weekend, not at any point slating the organisers or questioning what car they drive?
wrightyson did you miss my post about racing for Free?
No and I actually offered our services up at the last race but they were sorted.
Only problem with the pmba etc or Welsh enduro is I go as support rider as he's only just 14. Wouldnt fancy him having a big off out on some of those stages solo and I suppose that's why they ask you to chaperone.
It's certainly not cheap to go racing. There is a reason why I pick and choose what I do these days, as I don't want to spend a reasonable amount of money (when you factor in the cost of the weekend) racing at sh*tty venues with rubbish tracks.
Even with a bit of support to dampen the cost, it does still smart when you cost it all up. But I like racing, and a big group of us tend to go so it's a good old social weekend 🙂
I think the EWS entries cost me £120+ each round this year!