Being a 24 hour event, who wouldnt be camping eh? how come the organisers relieve you of the entry fee and then casually drop the news the week before the event that “camping is on a ‘first come, first served basis’ so it is definitely in your interest to arrive as early as possible.”

our team of four cant get down there till after work on friday, hope theres room left or we’ll be having a refund i think. they said there were acres and acres for camping when i booked!

To be honest, we are a bit worried about space.
I have beem told by my team mate that the campsite is about 1/3 of the size of eastnor.
We are not greedy with space but we have a caravan and potentially 4/5 vehicles to park plus a tent or 2.
I think we will have to arrange a meet point and come in 1 to 2 vehicles to save space which too be fair is a ballache as we come from all over!
I also dont like the idea of not being able to take your car off site during the race hours as like us we have people who finish work on a saturday and need picking up!
Looks like the day carpark will be overflowing!

I’m sure there’ll be enough room, just maybe not as much as previous years, I can’t make it down there until Friday evening and I’m solo’ing, if I don’t get pretty close to track side camping at that time I’ll be seriously miffed!

Solo riders should in my opinion have a designated area as close as possible to the track/start finish as it would be a nightmare to go too far to get supplies etc.
I have to be honest I have not looked at a map of things, maybe my mate was exaggerating?
I guess I will find out saturday!
Good luck and happy riding to others that are doing it!

It is hard to tell from the map how big the camping area really is. Pat and his team have lots of experience in running these sort of events, I would be very surprised if they underestimated the amount of space for us all to put tents ups – but I don’t think we will actually know until Saturday morning! In our group we have 14 of us racing plus a few support people.

Solo’s have a designated camping area,yes.

They should charge extra for camping by the sq ft ,to stop people taping off football sized pitches 🙂

Looking forward to reading the end of this thread next week….

As a group we have been going for years, even pre-eastnor, but not this year due to the restrictive camping.

Good luck to all who go, report back next week 🙂

I’ll be there Friday morning, I’ll tape off a huge area & you can all camp with me 😀

I thought the wording was a bit strong too. Its almost sod you if you come from up north.

Some of our team will get down Friday lunch time, some of us after 7pm, will the early arrivers get told they cant save us a spot?

To be honest this could be a make or brake thing for me and a few people i know, as we have come the last few years with wifes and kids in tow. Pack us in like sardines and stop them being able to drive out, and we might not be coming again..

but lets wait and see ay… Just the tone of the wording on that news release didn’t really help!

This message was brought to you by ‘Grumpy old git’, 2013 grumpy git sponsor of Mountain Mayhem.

just incase you did not see the update on the WMM site:

We want to let you know in advance that we have made provision for a special trackside camping area exclusively for solo riders, alongside the solo tent we provide for you. You are very welcome to pitch your own tents there too and set up camp. However, what you cannot do is park your car there. Your car can be parked a matter of yards away in another special area reserved for soloists. You can also camp there alongside your car if you prefer.

This area will be signed, but it is the area nearest the track alongside Campsite B.

As a group we have been going for years, even pre-eastnor, but not this year due to the restrictive camping.

No sumos? Booooo!

Not sure what to make of it this year – I’m not racing, but t’husband is. I was thinking about going back home after dropping him off if the weather was awful, which means I’ll have to go to the day carpark because once you’re parked on the campsite, you can’t leave until the end of the event?

Wouldn’t worry, given we’d planned on getting there evening-ish. I’ll probably end up camping in the day carpark.

I thought free camping was part of the fee, not a “chance of camping”.

I’m still cross at them last year after realising the marshalls didn’t actually have radio access to the announcement booth overnight. Pitch dark, terrible conditions, no communication possible, good work! Quite what they were going to announce I don’t know.

Well I’m glad I’m not the only one who was more than a little bit pissed at the ‘first come first served’ announcement.

This will be my first Mayhem and for many reasons I can’t get there until early Saturday. I’m part of a team, so I will keep my fingers crossed that there is space for my tent somewhere, as I don’t fancy sleeping in the car.

We taped off a ‘large area’ last year on the Friday afternoon, but that was because we had 3 teams, and believe me, by a few hours later on Friday night, our taped off area was stuffed full of tents and bikes!
We’re planning to get there early afternoon which means a day off work. Hopefully they will have estimated correctly!

We’ll be trying to tape an area off, but with 4 teams and 3 soloists we will fill it!

Just do like BBF and give out allocated camping they don’t have to charge a fortune for it just a couple of quid, they get some extra money and your camping space is allocated! everyone’s a winner.

Surely Mayhem camping has always been 1st come 1st served?

Mayhem has always been first come, first served – hence the reason I take a day off work to get there early to make sure we have room for the 5 teams that will be camping together.

We also tape off a largish area but with 21 people taking part that’s a lot of cars and tents.

I expect a lot of unhappy people if we have a much smaller camping area – which we have.

Already marked my area out, it’s looking tight 😉

I’m not getting there until Friday night, but hopefully the more intrepid members of my team will have got there during the day and got a good space for us all!

Should be fun – I think i’ll be on the 5 as it has more mud clearance. Just in case…. 😉

Where was this announcement – email, website, facebook ?

we are not turning up until the Sat morning, could be interesting,

Pat & his team will know:
1. How many riders are entered
2. How much space they have at the venue

These I think are two quite important facts that nobody else on here knows! I’m personally not worried, it may be cosy but so what-hopefully it might bring back some of the atmosphere that was missing last year.

Hopefully someone will be along soon to put your mind at rest though, does Chipps have any more info?

I think what they want to stop is the teams taping off large areas (like they always do)
I asked one team last year if they could move the tape so we could camp & got ‘sorry mate, we’ve got to get 5 more cars & 6 tents in here yet’ & surprise surprise not one extra person/tent or vehicle turned up.. 🙄

Been up there working on site a bit this week(next door so thought I’d lend a hand). Its beautiful and the camping ground is pretty big, its all flat solid ground that is on top of the site and very free draining( cotswold lime stone underneath so bring a good mallet!) The course is great, tough climbs, lovely woods and bone dry still.
Heres a pic I nicked from Vins FB from last weekend(thats me in the black on the bike) from one of the camping fields.
[/url]
1005052_602058513160360_1603218926_n by tangwyn, on Flickr[/img]

Erm…it stretches out behind that picture as well, right?!
😕

It’s quite a big field, but big enough for a race course, race hq, solo tent, catering outlets, rows of shops and stalls, access roads AND thousands of people?

(I notice you mention “one of the” camping fields, so I’m guessing there’s more than that?)

The camping fields and the course/venue are separate, so that’s just a camping field.

Can understand why folk are worried, but that’s never been an issue, and Pat’s done a few of these now!

That’s just one small corner of one big field on the edge of the site. Soloists have a nice spot also.

Ahh right, good.

I just couldn’t work it out from the pdf: http://www.wigglemountainmayhem.com/assets/wmm-2013-camping.pdf

3 main camping fields/areas, one field for the arena and track side area for solo. All adjacent to each other. It should make a good atmosphere! That pic relates to the bottom left of the area marked ‘additional camping tents only’ on the PDF.

The course is great, tough climbs, lovely woods and bone dry still.

Good cos it’s pretty soggy just a few dozen miles to the west.

Forecast is looking ok for Saturday and up until Sunday morning. I may have to strategically crash and hurt myself.

It’ll have to be an air ambulance job or you’re doing another lap! 😉

From @mayhem24hr

There is enough room for everyone to camp, no-one will be turned away. Can I bring a caravan? – YES Can I bring a motorhome? – YES

It’s pissing down now!!

At the site? Pissing it down in Cardiff.

Can any one host a photographer for the week end? I’m looking for a base of operation. The bonus is you will get another pair of hands to make brews and I’ll bring cake, or chocolate brownies to be exact 8)

Yes Molgrips at the site 🙄

It’s been pretty wet in Worcestershire so I’m thinking Eastnor will be a tad soggy.

Looking forward to seeing and experiencing Gatcombe.

wonny j – Member

Where was this announcement – email, website, facebook ?

Their website mate, its still there now
http://www.wigglemountainmayhem.com/2013/06/some-important-info-about-camping-at-gatcombe-park/

Their press release, their words. if there is more than enough camping space then thats great news, and i will shut up, but why did they say first come first served? that usually implies a restricted amount of something. probably a poor choice of words causing unecessary worry among the entrants. Clearly the organisers have read this thread though hence their “stop press” announcement last night on the subject

It’s probably more that if you want a good spot, with your friends, you need to get there quick. Might even mean they’re trying to avoid the normal thing of fencing off huge areas (which we do too).

Has anyone on here had an early peep at the course? In the typical STW fashion, what tyres are people taking?

Can’t decide between overkill Five with huge Smorg/CM tyres or racey 29er hardtail with Ralphs or Beavers. I’m on a team of 4 anyway, so the wrong choice isn’t the end of the world.