Cycling Events are a a Rip Off

I don’t think it’s about “value” specifically, it’s more the sticker shock of being asked to pay 500 quid to ride your bike for a few days. Having said that, this one does/did at least seem to include quite a lot more for the money than the lakes thing discussed recently.

We did the transrockies many years ago which cost a lot of money (forget how much, it included all accom and meals) but it was an overseas holiday somewhere that we would not have been able to ride by ourselves. Whereas we can go and ride in wales easily enough any time, pick the weather (forecast), duration, location to suit us…

That Welsh thing was too expensive and too long. I can have a weekend away for the same price and not need to take any annual leave.

Timing is an odd one at Sportives when you say you did one people always want to know your time, but the only 2 I’ve done (Loch Ness and Cotswolds) I just cruised around enjoying the scenery and company. If I want to race, I’ll go race.

‘Ere we go again. Sportives mean different things to different people shocka

i’m doing a closed-road race on sunday, £20.

bargain.

(i’m reasonably confident i’ll finish dfl, irrelevant of how quickly i can shift this flu/cold)

Not fussed about the entry cost, I’m doing the new version of the trans Rockies the captain mentioned above and Mrs kilo is happy to make mtbbiking trips our main holiday of the year. however if I’m going to do a weeks biking and camping, tbh, I’m not really going to Wales but somewhere hot and different. The cost of the epic doesn’t bother me but the whole thing seems a bit too close to home to be worth investing a week off work on. I also wouldn’t pay to spend four nights in a tent in Wales, tents suck

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/being-an-average-racer-worth-it

Seems a lot of people suffering angst about Sportives really want them to be an Audax.

What I wonder though is why we don’t see many Audax style MTB events, big off road loop with the odd check point (or GPX validation), some of the bike-packing style events (HTR/Capital Trail etc.) seem to do this but not much in the way of single day rides.

What I wonder though is why we don’t see many Audax style MTB events, big off road loop with the odd check point (or GPX validation), some of the bike-packing style events (HTR/Capital Trail etc.) seem to do this but not much in the way of single day rides.

Insurance and access rights.
Obviously racing on bridleways is not permitted (although you can run Sportives on them). Any sort of riding on footpaths is forbidden so the route cannot cross or use FP unless it’s on private land and the organiser has given explicit permission.

It’s expensive and time consuming to mark a route out off-road, it’s far easier on-road where you can just drive a car round the place.

And MTBers are even more reluctant to part with cash than roadies are! Maybe the internet, Strava, GPS etc has all contributed to the gradual decline in off-road Sportives? Why pay to follow a route when in 10 minutes online you can download half a dozen routes from mates, magazine websites, even Sportives (Wiggle/UK Cycling Events have maps and gpx of all their road and off-road Sportives online for free download)

What I wonder though is why we don’t see many Audax style MTB events, big off road loop with the odd check point (or GPX validation), some of the bike-packing style events (HTR/Capital Trail etc.) seem to do this but not much in the way of single day rides.

the key thing with Audax events is they are run by audaxers, i.e. they have been doing it years, love it and want to support other riders in points collecting. No reason for them to run offroad versions as there is no supporting organisation or scoring system.

If you want to run one then the equivalent is sitting in the boot of your car and charging people in a trailcentre car park for doing the red loop within +2hrs of average and have bought some cake for them on return. Kind of doesn’t work.

MTB sportives are more common, rides where you paid and someone says go after telling you about the course on an often illegible microphone, there are occasional signs so you don’t get lost, the odd marshall again so you don’t get lost, a guy on a motorbike with a radio who can call an ambulance for you if you’ve fell off.

It’s expensive and time consuming to mark a route out off-road, it’s far easier on-road where you can just drive a car round the place.

Audax arnt signed.

The Capital Trail was single day for some folk 🙂

Kielder 100 sounds like the sort of thing you’re proposing, or the IOM E2E.

CVMBC, 17 quid, with decent support and marshalling.

If you want to run one then the equivalent is sitting in the boot of your car and charging people in a trailcentre car park for doing the red loop within +2hrs of average and have bought some cake for them on return. Kind of doesn’t work.

More like the highland 550 I’d say.

By and large I prefer being on my own or with a small (probably less than six or seven) group when off-road. I did the Kielder 101 last year and once the initial mad rush over the first 10Km had sorted itself out and everyone was spread out it was fine.

Sportives (road): done a few, a reasonable way to discover a new area of the country with hopefully the better roads, climbs, descents. Our club organises one, I think the entry fee is £30 but even with a large number of entries the profits aren’t huge and that’s with the help being unpaid volunteers, support from local businesses and donated proper food, energy bars/gels, etc.

Part of the issue these days is calendar bloat, there’s just too many of them and very few have distinguishing features.
&

I think the main issue is saturation in the market.
I can’t help but think that there’s a lack of communication between some events ergo a lack of co-ordination as to whose doing what & when…

I could be wrong…?

I think this is a large part of the issue for anyone running events. As it happens I was quite interested in epic Cymru but unfortunately it fell on the same weekend as a music festival that I go to. I know that those two particular events are unrelated, but it does often seem that running and bike events appear to clash surprisingly often. For example, just from my diary the first round of the SES is this weekend but so is the Deerstalker, Ard Rock enduro clashes with Total Warrior Shap, and SES Dunoon with Total Warrior Scotland. Then on top of that Ard Rock, SES Wolftrax and The Scottish open are on three consecutive weekends.
For me at least this means that booking early can be slightly troublesome, particularly as I have interests outside of obstacle racing and mountain biking as well. I could imagine that for people more cost sensitive than me, and especially for those with families, committing to and paying for an event six months plus before time just isn’t a possibility.

I mentioned it previously in this thread but I’ll just make another point.

I run events for my club, plan routes, courses, organise information on travel to-from the event, sort food out, water, bag carry and support for stragglers, provide gels and bars and whilst I get a little bit of help from other members and the club, I normally come out of it costing me about £100.
I do not mind about that.
The reason?
Simple, members of our club do the same, we have some key leads who organise stuff like this and normally we’re supported by the club (90% of the time) for all costs, but if not we take a view that we’ll pay and then when we go on someone elses organised ride, they’ll pay..

Next weekend I’m running our Milan San Remo (city to the coast) it’ll cost me £78 for the food I’ve organised, but they’re my mates, it’ll be an excellent ride and 40 have signed on..

I think if you are a member of a club, this is the kinda thing you do for the club and its members..

For me the cost isn’t an issue and for me the thing I enjoy about thes emulti day events is doing it with others / timed etc. However the timing is not good with families for a multi day event. The last Transwales was in August too and I couldn’t make it then for the same reason. Taking another week off in August on top of two weeks holiday with the family is a no no both with the Mrs and work. Even then, arranging the family holiday dates around an MTB trip is a recipe for marital disharmony. A few days away from work/home in June doesn’t cause any problems at all and goes under the domestic radar (just about) – appreciate teachers can’t make it though! Also the weather is rubbish in August !

Hmmm… look over the other side of the channel. The french have what they call randonnees, where you can rock up on the day, choose you length of route (typically 15, 25, 35, 45+km)with food stations, (usually pretty god, this is france afterall), the route is marked out all you have to do is ride. and the cost of these? usually under 10€.

Of course all this is much easier with more space and somewhat less restrictive laws regarding access, so much so that I’m not sure what they are and generally we ride where ever we want unless there’s a big sign saying “Propriete prive”.

Did I mention the wine at the end?

Don’t really buy the perceived value argument. Events cost money, and those that do them generally understand that. Have you seen the prices for Ironman events? £400 to be miserable from dawn to dusk, and they sell out every year.

That’s why my mate and I organised http://www.ridetothesun.co.uk to be a free event – people are sick of paying £75 for the Etape Caledonia!
*road bike events, sorry. But same principle.

Hang on, lets not pretend there isn’t money in it. I know of one event which earns the “owner” £30k/event. Nothing wrong with that, profit isn’t a dirty word.

Dyfi sells out in minutes

Because it costs under £30 including camping, a mug, free flapjacks and beer on the course, a party with some decent bands and DJs, more of the same along the route, and as of last year electronic timing too.

I don’t know how they do it but other organizers would do well to find out.

Am I right £495 to ride essentially trail centres for 5 days?

I think that’s a weird mix…5 day race but in a lot of trail centres you can visit on your own…if it was riding wilder terrain there may be more incentive (for that kind of money and time commitment)..

When I First created the Big Bike Bash I didn’t have a clue about what was involved in terms of organisation or cost but it was an interesting learning experience. I started by working out what I wanted at an event – variety of competitions for different skill and age levels, beer, music, relaxed compete against your mate not the clock sort of thing. It wasn’t going to appeal everyone but I was doing this to feed my ego, not the cycling world.

I then broke it down to the stuff that needed doing. Bands for music, beer for drinking, web stuff for tickets, colouring in for logos and flyers, begging for prizes, shouting about it for publicity. I talked with some mates to see if they were interested in helping me. I soon had a director of music, beer, web monkeying, colouring in, prizes and I did the shouting about it. No-one was paid and no-one got expenses except the odd bottle of scotch or a few beers.

I bank rolled the first year and was £1,200 out of pocket until three weeks before the event when after saturation promotion on every thread on every bike forum I could avoid being banned from finally paid off. At the end of the weekend event we gave our total profit of less tha £1,000 to charity. Tired, well out of pocket personally but happy.

This event has fortunately not only survived but grown to a level we are happy to maintain with many thousands more going to charity. It has matured and is far safer and less chaotic without losing the fun ethos. I don’t think any of the forty something events are timed and it is totally staffed by volunteers.

This is wonderful but not commercially sustainable. If everyone claimed their expenses and everyone wanted paying for their time and we needed to make a profit as well as donate to charity I think we would struggle.

Do you want professional commercial events or a bunch of happy amateurs?

Commercial events will cost.
Amateur events will have random quality depending who is running them

Sounds a lot like my time as a music promoter. Lots of good fun, nobody got paid, no chance it would work like that commercially. Some make a living off these things but it changes the nature of the event.

“Seems a lot of people suffering angst about Sportives really want them to be an Audax.
What I wonder though is why we don’t see many Audax style MTB events, big off road loop with the odd check point (or GPX validation), some of the bike-packing style events (HTR/Capital Trail etc.) seem to do this but not much in the way of single day rides.”

Not exactly the same – but I did quite a few Trailbreak mtb orienteering events back in the late 90s/early 00s, which were around the Reading/SE area. Can’t remember the cost but didn’t feel expensive (unlike many sportives), typically run out of a church hall, no stupid freebies (shirts, bottles, energy food, medals) – just a laminated map sheet per person, timing was simply being checked out/in through the start/finish line. Evening events (1.5 hrs iirc) were a sprint, 3.5 and 5 hr day events could actually cover quite a big area, road/bridleway according to whetever route you choose between (unmanned) checkpoints (which you’d marked up yourself). Ok, not much tricky singletrack, but having done a few large 24hr events in the 00s there was precious little on one of those :/

ISTR kinda got killed off in part by the rise of spoonfed prerouted enduros, but I guess it depends on what sort of riding you prefer. Tbh I don’t do much mtbing nowadays cos of a knackered neck but lurk here occasionally, most ridings now on road on recumbents).

Most MTBers can’t navigate, or at least won’t. Thus needing a marked/marshalled course and crowd to follow.

thecaptain – Member

CVMBC, 17 quid, with decent support and marshalling.

Thanks for the mention.

What does your £17.00 entry fee get you?

A choice of either 20 or 30 mile scenic route on local trails, bridleways and lanes that is fully waymarked and loaded with marshalls.

Legal access to ride land that is otherwise private and out of bounds.

Vehicular recovery in case of mechanical/mishap/exhaustion.

4 drink stations stocked with energy drink, bananas, biscuits etc

A T-Shirt.

A free goody bag – this year with sports nutrition products from OTE Sports.

A certificate of achievement.

Food and drink both before and after the event back at the HQ.

We even had Elvis singing to the riders in a quarry and a bagpiper en route on our 10th anniversary event! (check the website http://www.cvmbc.co.uk for the video(s)

Most folk see this as pretty good value for their entry fee, yet I still get comments about “paying £17 to ride stuff I can ride anytime for free”. Fair enough I suppose, each to their own. All the money raised goes to a couple of local worthy causes too, none of us make a single penny out of it personally. It was my idea originally and I just want as many folk to come along as possible and have a great time, whilst helping us raise some funds.

Speak of the devil, this off road audax has appeared near me http://www.aukweb.net/events/detail/16-969/ . Looks to be pretty non technical riding but could be a good day exploring some stuff I haven’t ridden before and only £5.

Its all a bit like the lbs grissle, it doesnt matter if your flogging cassettes, cycling event or sausage rolls if you fail to convince people to buy, the actual cost is irrelevant.