Had a shortlived notion to do the UK24s at Newcastleton – that was until I saw the entry fee. £70 is too rich for me and a hell of a lot more expensive than other races.

Someone was on last week complaining about the cost of SITS. I guess that if they’re still selling well, they’re not TOO expensive? (e.g. Etape Caledonia)

The Singletrack Weekender will be much better value! Full weekend of bike fun and the chance to camp in a quarry for much less than that.

14th and 15th July is the date to put in your diary!

In a word. Yes.

I was trying to think of a parallel – closest I got was the price of fish – but then its not their fault.

Yeah I agree, I was going to enter one of the gravity enduro series rounds until I realised it was £60 entry! Even local grass roots dh races are £20.

They are expensive because they are expensive to put on. Without sponsors and people working for little or no money then their wouldn’t be any events. Mates races are the future 😉

Mates races are the best races.

It was me moaning about SITS!!!! the 24hr @ Newcastleton is worth the money fantastic course and setup

what you need is beer for the entry a single speed and invite to one of the 2012 Single Speed Fight Clubs. (head to head racing for beer, glory and natty prize or two)

They are too expensive.

Gravity Enduros are the biggest con- £60 with no uplift when Innerleithen MTB do them for £30? Bugger off.

All DH races at £60 are insane. they need to stop that.

However, No Fuss Events are good value. And no, races aren’t expensive to put on. I organised a race last year and it was £10 a rider. With an advanced timing system it’d only have been £15. Extra length doesn’t increase the cost either.

tazzymtb – there are no 2012 Single Speed Fight Clubs – they are all a figment of your imagination.

LOL, better put the “muddy hell, it’s SSFC” spring event on hold then hadn’t I

I guy I know is doing a sunset fell race up at Inners in a couple weekends – 2 hours race and 45 quid !!

FFS!!!

paul

I take it if you need to ask about SSFC your not welcome?

No way would i pay that amount for an event, gorrick always put on great events at a fair price.

Rich- I’m sorting out the invites in the next few weeks as long as you don’t mind heading back to the midlands your welcome 😉

Sportive road event in Bristol is £100.
There’ll be plenty of mugs queueing up to pay it.

Maybe I’m getting old but I don’t look at mtb events in quite this light. Rather than looking at costs I’m purely looking at benefits, and honestly I don’t know what else I can spend £80 on that’ll give the same pleasure as the endurance dh, or £35 for an innerleithen enduro, or similiar.I don’t care how much the raw ingredients of a cake cost, I’m paying for the eating not the flour.

and honestly I don’t know what else I can spend £80 on that’ll give the same pleasure as the endurance dh

I could list quite a few. None of them legal. 😉

I stopped doing any dh races for the costs. The entry fee is just insane. Factor in your travel, food and accommodation and any bits of bike you break and its a ridiculous amount of money for a weekend spent standing in queues and riding your bike for 2 minutes.
Events without uplifts? Just can’t see how or why they charge what they do…

Must admit I was thinking the same thing when I went to enter the inners gravity enduro. Im used to paying 65/70 quid for an sda, its expensive but I know that the entries only just cover the costs.

I was expecting the gravity enduro to be half the price – presumably they have the same costs for insurance etc as an sda, but without the uplift. Wtf are they doing with 60 quid?

It depends how many events you ride each year. If it’s one or two it’s not that bad a price to pay to feed your hobby.
I’ll be racing road and XC back to back, so eight races a month will cost me £64 a month.
Is that invite thing serious or just a reference to fight club, I’ve not seen it.

@ snowpaul

that is a complete rip off. Edale skyline is 7 pounds

Snowpaul – I assume you mean the Deerstalker?
Yup, it’s expensive. There’s a £15 tee in there, a few other goodies, and the biggest part of that event cost is the insurance, as far as I know. Doesn’t account for all of it, but it’s a chunk. Stil, with camping and a party on as well, plus the chance to go ride GT or Inners on the Sunday, it’s not that big a heartache to pay it. Same as Northwind, I can’t think of anything else that gives me the same kick – i’m not into the illegal things that probably would, thanks. So, it’s fine.

Nobody talks about SSFC !!! but thats how we like it 😀 see you there.

Try a different event like WRT. £16 for three days. Thats £5.33 per day. Cheap as chips
BB200 £25 iirc for 200 kilometres of independent time trial. How many people can do over 200k in a mountain mayhem solo for £75. 50 whole english pounds cheaper!
😀

You could try trailquesting. 😉
£10 for a three hour event.

smee you know audaxing is where its at !

I’m doing the Deerstalker. Luckily, my employers are payign for a team entry (we got challenged by a customer), no way would I be paying that much. Camping is £10 on top, which if it had hot showers etc would be ok. But it doesn’t.

Compare to Dyfi Enduro which is £25 to ride awesome trails in an area wouldn’t normally go to, and get a full weekend’s entertainment too. And a mug to add to the collection!

And no, races aren’t expensive to put on. I organised a race last year and it was £10 a rider. With an advanced timing system it’d only have been £15. Extra length doesn’t increase the cost either.

And was it anything like 24UK, did you provide the same services? I’ll take a guess.

You’re wrong about being longer not costing more, do you think the medical cover and marshals work 24 hours for the same price as a 3 hour event?

Maybe this is a good thread to constructively see what people want and will pay for an event … what style event would you like to see put on and what would you realistically be prepared to pay for it ??

Insurances, landowner charges etc are a given so these costs will always stand … maybe other areas could be reduced… no prizes or prize money .. a simple trophy or token of recognition ??? … a basic entry fee with lots of ‘bolt on’ extras available .. like stage races you can pay for additional services ???

So no constructive criticism/feedback then ??

I dunno, £5-£10 entry, skip the ‘freebies’*.

*I’ve done one race, the entry promised everything from Torq energy products to a massage, they were all there, but you had to pay for them, so in essence the entry fee was to ride on trails that by lap 2 were pretty trashed.

Quite fancy the gravity enduro’s, but for £60 I’m quite happy to do a lap of a trail center, upload the result to Strava and bask in my own mediochrity.

I also fancied entering one or two gravity enduros, but as its been mentioned above, £60 + petrol + food etc, and it’ll be what, £120-£150? For the cost of two enduros I’d rather go on holiday TBH

As for constructive criticism / feedback, itd be nice to see what the £60 actually pays for, maybe if it was broken down and as you said, offering a tiered service would be good like £20 ‘basic’, £40 ‘mid-level’, £60 ‘advanced’

Shame as I really fancied it. Never mind 🙂

Some facts for you, here are the most expensive items from SSUK 2011 in descending order:

Venue
Food (entry bought a substantial dinner)
Beer (2 pints each)
Toilets
Marquee, generators etc
Insurance

Aidan – how much was entry for that?

Yeh you can race for cheaper in the UK – but can you be sure – that
1) You are insured
2) The medical backup on site isn’t some retarded voulenteer service that knows nothing of biking injurys
3) There are adequate facilitys – like toilets and these are maintained
4) The trails/tracks have been constructed & ridden to ensure they are safe & Entertaining
5) They’ve got space for and have thought about the need to airlift someone
6) Have a timing system that gives accurate results
7) Ensure that there are lots of like minded people there
8) Ensure that there are lots of like minded companies there

Personally I see the freebies as a bonus – not a necessity – yeh it costs – but hey you are paying for the whole experience

As title sponsor to the UK Gravity Series we know exactly how much time, effort and money goes into running these events and having working closely with Si and Dave for the past couple of years at the BDS most of these events are actually very good value for money.

For those of you who haven’t actually taken the time to look into what you get for your money at the Fetish Bike Company Gravity Enduro series here is a quick breakdown.

Taking aside the timing, insurance, pit area, medics, signs, months of researching the right trails, trail centres, organising the sponsors/prizes, camping and parking the list goes on…
What exactly do you get for £60?

Well first of all split it over two days, so that is £30 per day.

Saturday you can start riding at 9.30am and then you can continue right through to seeding which finishes around 5pm. So that is approximately 8 hours on a bike for £30, or £3.75 per hour. Obviously you are not going to do this as you will be wrecked for the race on Sunday but even at half that time you are still well under £10 per hour.

I fail to see how at that price and for the service, experience and potential prizes it can be seen to be expensive and a rip off/con???

Oh and I nearly forgot you get all of Sunday to race against your friends on closed trails that you normally couldn’t ride down. This also goes on for around 4-6 hours so that is still well under the £10 per hour mark.
I can’t even get to see a 3D movie for under £10 these days so you can see it is actually very good value for money.

I can appreciate that once you take into consideration the cost of a whole weekend racing with fuel, accommodation etc it is not a cheap hobby but we all know this. I find it unreasonable to claim the FBC gravity series is a rip off.

Now stop bashing your keyboards and get out there and support your races otherwise the organisers and sponsors will stop putting them on and then you will have something to moan about!

The cost in the gravity enduro probably lies in the fact it has the equivalent of 4-5 full DH runs which have to be manned for 2 days for practise and racing and timing for 5 DH runs. Includes PA, toilets and other on-costs for the weekend. Takes place over a large area and on parts of popular trails at busy times of the year(not sure if this affects cost?).

Innersmtb racing events are put on by locals with much less overheads and a cheaper timing system, often only a one day event with medical cover on that one day. Not sure on the insurance/medical position for practise.

Both are great, just different. It is the same as stating a Trek 9.9 is too expensive. It is too expensive for me, that is my personal position but Trek are still doing OK.

Guys I think there needs to be a little perspective here! If you haven’t ever been involved in running a race at any level then your opinion is useless and invalid!

I have been involved in mates races/enduros/dh. The time, money and effort involved is massive. With the amount of insurance cover needed for anything other than a mates race they will only go up in price.

As race organiser must pay for;
Insurance
Landowners(can sometimes be F/C and private landowner at same event)
Timing
Toilets
Skips for rubbish
Podium

and all of these are after time spent trawling through spreadsheets of entries, fuel getting to events, answering stupid questions, putting up with bullshit on forums……., accommodation(and they dont stay in 5* hotels!), food and the fact that they could be out riding instead of running a race if they wanted to.

I know people like to shoot they’re mouths off on forums and be the big man. But when people are giving up time and money to put in events for you to go and ride you really need to think about what you are saying. if you don’t want to pay the money, don’t pay it and don’t ride the event. If you think its a rip off set your own series up and lets see how well the races run and what the facilities are like. You obviously know something we don’t.

There should be the up most respect for anyone who puts on a race, they may not be exactly how you want them, or you may not like the race organiser. but they are running the races while you are out having fun in the woods. Remember this!