Hello I was thinking about organising a race in my local area. I was wondering if anyone here has any knowledge of organising a race as I am not sure how to organise things such as insurance, health and safety and all the other rules and regulations to make it proper and official. If anyone can offer any assistance it would be a great help.

What sort of race are you talking about; road, MTB, TT, cross…?
Different approaches, depending on what you are doing, and what part of the country you are in. There’s a lot of work involved in organising a race, and you need a good group of committed volunteers to help out. My advice would be to get involved in helping with an existing event, and learn as much as you can from that. Most race organisers will be glad of the help, and will be happy for you to pick their brains for advice.

I’ve been involved in organising one biggish one-off race. The most valuable thing was having a team of people to share the load. It can be a lot of work (depending on the scale). As kcr says, getting involved in an existing event is a great help – we all marshalled for a BMBS race in prep for ours. It might also be worth contacting local clubs to see if they’re doing anything similar or would like to.

There’s some good resources on the BC website to help get you started:
http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/mtb/article/mtbst_Mountain-Bike-Organiser-Support
…BC can offer a lot of help in terms of insurance etc if you can run under thri umbrella, but there are other ways of doing it if that doesn’t work. See The League International http://www.tlicycling.org.uk/EventPromotion.aspx

I have thought about doing it again, and had some embryonic plans for a gravel race, but the time commitment has put me off so far and other things have taken my free time.

Where abouts and what kind of race are you thinking about – could be of help if youre sw London/Surrey way …

BC support officer (i think thats the title) was full of great ideas, tips and pointers when a suggestion was made for something this way.

Never did anything for various reasons…

What type of race – road, MTB, CX…?
Whereabouts (both area of the country and idea of venue – city park, private estate, National Trust/Forestry Commission land..?)