Ard Rock 2019

Missed that – no ticket (by accident or design) or otherwise engaged?

Otherwise engaged mate, unfortunately. The wife’s folks take all their grandkids away that weekend now, mine included, and it’s too much of an opportunity to go somewhere nice with my good lady. Be selfish of me to bugger off myself, This year we had an awesome weekend ticking off 3 munros, 2019 will be similar!.

Enjoy.

A warning to anyone entering the ‘40 country miles’ marathon. It’s actually 30-31 miles depending exactly where you start/finish your Garmin, Strava etc.

They got a lot of stick about this last year yet they’re still advertising it as the same length. It really was treated as an afterthought on the day, no mentions during the prize giving, there was even a roots and rain page set up for the results and that never even got updated!

Now it looks like they’re going to charge non racers to enter the site. You’d be better off paying the £10 or whatever they’re going to charge and follow the marathon arrows 10 mins after the main bunch set off and have them as a target to chase down.

If the marathon course hasn’t changed, then it’s pretty much all BWs. Quite a lot of shooting track, too. There is a bit of non-ROW or footpath, but it’s stuff that gets ridden regularly by all and sundry anyhow. I’d be quite tempted if they got permission to open up a few sections which are normally hard to get to, like they do with the enduro stages.

ooft. £60 suddenly feels like it’s been wasted ;-;

last year i assumed quite wrongly the marathon would be an XC loop with a few of the stages thrown in like, the boltby bash version does.

anyone seeing pictures of ard rock and riding a big suspension bikes doing the marathon will surely be dissapointed.

think i might do it on the friday to keep us busy and not drink all day. as we are doing sport on sunday

last year i assumed quite wrongly the marathon would be an XC loop with a few of the stages thrown in

I didn’t expect any of the race stages personally given how busy they are with the other events, but thought there would be something “interesting” involved at least, certainly i did expect something more than 40k of access track with a few all-year-round-accessible bw sections thrown in.

The only bit of the whole course you couldn’t ride when ever you like was where it joined the demo loop.

Even accepting that it was mostly gravel roads i can ride whenever i wish and it fell short of what i hoped it would be, i really couldn’t believe they were about 15k and 500m short of the advertised ride.

Just seen the “festival tickets” for non riders.

Does this mean they are going to charge more than the fiver a night for my 3 year old!!!!

Is a gravel/CX bike actually the tool of choice for the Marathon so??

depending how rowdy you want it on a cx/gravel bike i’m sure you could do the majority of the route, i’d say a fast XC 100mm-120mm travel mtb bike would be the one

I wouldn’t have thought so, although there is a lot of shooting track, there is still a fair bit of bumpy descending through Gunnerside Gill and over on Harkerside, if they use the same route (I think it includes stuff like the pipeline descent, which wouldn’t be much fun on a gravel bike :) ).  Hardtail or short travel XC FS would be my choice.

I entered the marathon, because I couldn’t get in the full endure, but now I’m really worried – is it really that shit???!!!

“Towpath with hills”???!!! “You can do it on a gravel bike????”

It sounds worse than the Hell of the Cotswolds and that’s saying something…..

I’m minded not to trust too many comments on this forum, but if there’s any truth in that I’ll be chucking my entry and getting a festival entry instead.

I’ve got family round there and have ridden some of the bridleways around Swaledale I had a great time – how can it be so bad???

I entered the marathon, because I couldn’t get in the full endure, but now I’m really worried – is it really that shit???!!!

It’s not. It’s a pretty standard Swaledale XC ride with a couple of really nice descents, although I can understand that if you fancied having a pop at the enduro stages, and were expecting similar riding, you might be disappointed. I have my views on whether it is worth sixty quid, but then I’m relatively local and am not that interested in timing or having waymarking.

Was thinking of scooting around it at some point in November.

Holy smoke, as much as I like this event I think 2019 will be my last, camping tickets have now been released. This first year I took part it was £5 flat rate. Year after it was £5 per person per night. Just looked to book me and the missus on Fri to Mon and it’s £48 + I need to buy her a ticket for the event village as she is a non rider. You could argue it’s cheap for a festival but I’d argue it’s expensive for camping with basic facilities when I’ve paid entry to the event already. People’s thoughts, am I being tight?

Wow @jaylittle wasn’t expecting that likewise £5 per person riding seemed reasonable to pay per night, £32 for 2 nights for 2 max, so for 5 of use it’s going to be £96

https://ardrockenduro.gigantic.com/ard-rock-tickets/yorkshire-dl11-6aw/2019-08-02-09-00-50937

Jesus £48 quid to camp!!!!! thought the above post was a wind up!

Yep, bit steep that. I only live over the hill and didn’t mind paying a fiver for camping but might have to think again this year.

Very sneaky releasing camping tickets after people have forked out for their event ticket.

Ecky thump that’s a lot of money to pitch up in a field 😮

Bet they enforce the no BBQs too again to try and get more custom from the food stalls. I know it was dry last year but be interesting to see how that works out this year…

Is the non-rider festival ticket a new thing? Didn’t get one last year for my wife to basically wave me off then meet me for a pint when I finished. Staying in Reeth with our three year old so not interested in the evening activities. I can understand the need to raise funds to put on the event village, but it seems a bit mean spirited.

There’ll be a lot of roadside camping up on the moors at that price.

Yep that’ll cost your wife £16 to get into the event village, get her to wave you off from the roadside and save some money.

I wonder who owns the fields surrounding the site, opportunity for a local farmer to make a bit of coin on cheaper camping.

Reckon they will be checking wristbands at the event village entrance and It will be no bringing your own booze in :-(

Specialized have got it right £15 camping for the weekend and free uplifts :-)
https://www.traildays.co.uk

South Lakes Bike Fest will be slightly more but only £3 a pint

Holy moley that’s taking the pee.

Really annoyed with that

Yeah that’s pretty flippin’ sly, £5 a night last year, no mention at ticket release then boom, £16 a night.

I don’t think I would have minded if it had been announced at ticket release. But money is tight enough as it is and it’s another few quid I know have to factor especially as the better half is coming so that £100 + diesel weekend away is now £150+ weekend away.

Yeah I know I ride a £Xk Carbon bike but it doesn’t mean I’m made of flippin’ money.

Reckon it’ll be a turn up sat, ride Sunday, off Sunday night job, reckon a lot of folk will feel a bit put out and do the same. Probably more than a few quid from folk will have to go on camping and not on vendors at the ‘festival’ bit.

This is cheeky as hell. Especially releasing after I had entered the event. I have dropped them an email to understand why. Maybe the have trebles the amount of toilets and showers?

Time to get on Airbnb with 4 of us we could rent somewhere for similar and not have to put up with awful showered and hammered gob shites

I have messaged asking for a refund no way am I paying this. Is it just me or have they just decided to add these charges? I didn’t seem to recall seeing any of this mentioned when I entered?

So the face value of the sport ticket I bought is £61, with booking fee it was £64.05. In reality with camping it’s actually £112.04 for the weekend.

Now if I want to bring the better half it’s £128.04…

£64.05 ticket, £64 for camping and a festival ticket for the other half. So basically the base cost of the weekend has doubled.

While it’s not an excessive up lift for us on camping from £5pppn to £8pppn, when combined with the £16 entry to the ‘festival bit’ it all starts to add up and I think I’m more annoyed that they didn’t mention the increase in costs at the original time of booking.

If they had suddenly realised that they were going to have to charge more to cover costs, or the farmer had decided to charge more for the use of the fields; fine. But you would have expected some kinda social media comment or email saying ‘so guys going to have to charge X because Y has happened’.

At the moment it feels a bit like ‘well they’ve all paid for tickets so they just end up having to pay this and if they don’t come next year so what, there are plenty of other suckers who will (muhahahahahaha)’

Response from ard rock

been on the website since before tickets went live. We get what you’re saying about fees for camping and festival entry, but please understand that we can’t provide a race, a festival and 4 nights camping for you and your partner for race fees which are between £50-£60 (entry fee excluding VAT).

Sorry it’s just not possible to do it safely or to the high standard that we set. Our headline band alone usually charges £20 a ticket for a two hour show.

In addition to this we have live music all weekend, kids coaching, demo bikes, a demo course, air bag, pump track, provision of food and drink. We’re including all of this in your race ticket and a £15 ticket for your partner.

If you’d like to cancel your ticket please email gigantic customer services.

been on the website since before tickets went live.

I would like to know where on their site as it still had loads of 2018 information up on it and the events page where you click through to buy the tickets only changed a day or two before the tickets went live.

Well that’s me not bothering anymore. Was going to get a resale ticket for this year but not when they hike the camping so high. Been great the last three years but I won’t be going back.

It’s making the Trancend Race up in Peebles seem like better value now :)

I’m sure all those who are in will have a great weekend though, just seems like a tough sell especially when you don’t put the camping prices in the opening ticket purchase page – ie chance to buy camping it’s going to be this much, discount for booking it all as a package etc.

So it’s £16 a night for 2 adults /3 children one tent,
As opposed £5 per person per night

We all normally take little tents pitched togeather are they going to enforce this one tent rule in which case it’ll be £32 each (fri-sun)

I can understand charging non riders, that seems fair

I had a response back basically saying it’s in our FAQ’s… what I want to know is why wasn’t this info available at time of booking. I get things change but the whole ‘drop this on them as they have no choice’ seems a bit like profiteering.

I also have a ticket for Ard Moors so might have my pants pulled down again later in the year….

That’s a lot of money to occupy a small piece of grazing land for 3 nights. There’s no infrastructure to cover for the rest of the year.

Last year the shower queues were over an hour, they also weren’t free so that’s the ‘cost of showers’ issue covered. They were also, stone cold.

Well I’m glad it wasn’t just me thinking I was being tight. I really like the event and the feel but have feared for the last couple of years that something like this might happen. It still might offer value to some… a family of four would pay a very similar price to 1 lone rider/camper for their pitch and entry to the village but I think this could very well be my last Ard Rock which is a shame as we have about 5 regulars with partners a kids but the price is now just too much. I have no doubt that they will still fill all the racing slots but the whole event/vibe will definitely change. Met some great people there over the years.