Sportives: Saturation of the market?

Philip Whiteman

Perhaps I am misinterpreting the situation, but does anyone agree that we have reached saturation point with sportives?

There are now far more than ever before on the calendar. Yet many are not fully subscribed, a few of the more established top league events are no longer filling and one or two have been cancelled, eg, Dave Duffield's event. Have we got too many?

Additionally, the financial climate may have also placed a squeeze on riders. Many of whom are no longer prepared to shell the entry fees, some of which are quite substantial. A reaction which has of course led to some riders switching exclusively to audaxing or becoming more selective in their choice of sportive.

Or more controversially, have the few poorly run events and the subsequent adverse reactions from riders started to dissuade riders who believe that sportives offer poor value for money? Even if their view is not necessarily representative of all events and overlooks the many excellent events.

I do wonder if we have reached a water shed. Perhaps we need less events overall, of which many charge a smaller entry fee (eg, like the Mad March Hare at £8.00)

yogi

It reminds me of the mountain bike races. When it all started we were paying £5 to enter then there was a massive boom and before long you were being charged £30 to enter the bigger races. I believe that people eventually got fed-up with paying so much and hence the fields declined. This now seems to be happening with sportives.

I think problem with the Duffield one is that there are a number of sportives taking place on or near that date within the south/southwest and people will pick and choose - so yes saturation.

Like many I took part in the Dragon this year and it was a fantastic event for which I am happy to pay the premium but some other events are simply not worth the money they are asking. If you pay £25 or more you expect more than a couple of bananas.

I've also recently found the joy of Audaxing having had a great day out with some club mates on a 100 mile ride at the huge expense of 3 quid. Okay so we had to buy our own food. We're off to do another one on Sunday. I spose one thing you don't get with an Audax is a broom wagon, so maybe that would be concern for a novice who was concerned about completing the course.

So sportive organisers; you need to offer a good course and a bit more for the money if you want to survive. It would be a shame if they died out.

Will Young

i agree that one issue seems to be that on some weekends there are a number of events in the same area and none anywhere else - the weekend of the 27th September is an example - many events concentrated in the Southern part of the country and none anywhere else. I don't know how these things are coordinated, but there seems a need to have more of it.

bobpzero

my problem is i prefer to ride on any day from monday to saturday. as sunday is my rest day. still thankful i managed to complete 2 charity rides and most of a sportive (it was all club riders and i was so very not prepared) this year. but the majority of sportives/charity rides are on a sunday. tho i guess the majority of cyclists dont mind riding on a sunday, im just the odd one out.

Chrissz

Survival of the fittest - the most popular, well organised ones will survive while the less well organised, less popular ones will fall by the way-side. It may mean less events but they will be the better ones (hopefully).

mrushton

The weather is a big factor. i refuse to pay £30 because I don't want to turn up in the pouring rain to ride up steep roads. I'll ride in the rain if neccessary, but I'm not starting out in a downpour. Audaxes irritate me with stupid routesheets (unless it's one side of A4) but they are a cheap way of riding events,meeting other people and seeing some different routes. Plus if you DNS, you have only lost £4.
I did the Ride of the Falling Rain in Islay the other week and it was voluntary to pay to enter. OK, it cost money to get there, but we made a holiday out of it and had a lot of fun but if it had rained, I wouldn't have done the whole ride. It didn't and I did

ugo.santalucia

There are too many, but there is also a big demand and some get fully booked within days. At the end of the day is better to have too many than having too few and, as someone pointed out, it's the survival of the fittest. Bad events will disappear from the calendar.
Shame competition doesn't lead to lower entry fees...

Mettan

Philip Whiteman wrote:

Additionally, the financial climate may have also placed a squeeze on riders. Many of whom are no longer prepared to shell the entry fees, some of which are quite substantial. A reaction which has of course led to some riders switching exclusively to audaxing or becoming more selective in their choice of sportive.

And a variation on that - as Sportives become more established, and riders have got used to doing them, a growing number of riders are wanting to do 7 or 8 of them over the Spring/Summer - and at £ 25-35 quid a go its becoming pricey.

Anonymous

The NapoleonD Legbreaker is free.

prawny

There aren't enough in the midlands i don't think.

markos1963

Certainly not enough in the East Anglia area. Apart from charity rides where you have to mix it up with 'ordinary ' cyclists there's not enough 'proper' sportives around here.

curlyrobert

prawny
PostPosted: Mon Sep 7, 2009 12:36 pm Post subject:
There aren't enough in the midlands i don't think. Sad

Does this mean that there are, or are not enough in the midlands?

BigG67

I don't think that there's a general turn off to Sportives but I do think that there's too many chasing the market and not enough differientiation between some.

As they are truly non-essential purchases then market forces should take care of the poorly run, badly located and over priced events. Likewise unispiring routes will be the death of some, which don't all have to be leg breakers but do have to offer something different.

On pricing, I don't think it's as simple as "they're too expensive". for instance I've no problem with the cost - say - of the Etape Caledonia (other do but that's the free market), 'cos it has an USP in closed roads that I'm willing to pay for, and judging by the entries others are as well.

Conversely I wouldn't pay £8 to turn up and ride a route with no signs, marshals etc. I could do that for free from my house.

Again that's me but ultimately enough people will vote with their entries and the "better" events will prevail.

sampras38

bobpzero wrote:

my problem is i prefer to ride on any day from monday to saturday. as sunday is my rest day. still thankful i managed to complete 2 charity rides and most of a sportive (it was all club riders and i was so very not prepared) this year. but the majority of sportives/charity rides are on a sunday. tho i guess the majority of cyclists dont mind riding on a sunday, im just the odd one out.

Maybe it's because a lot of the volunteers for these sportives either work on a Saturday or have other commitments. It might not be ideal but I can see why they do it. I for one tend to have more free time on a Sunday than I do on a Saturday.

DaveMoss

sampras38 wrote:

bobpzero wrote:

my problem is i prefer to ride on any day from monday to saturday. as sunday is my rest day. still thankful i managed to complete 2 charity rides and most of a sportive (it was all club riders and i was so very not prepared) this year. but the majority of sportives/charity rides are on a sunday. tho i guess the majority of cyclists dont mind riding on a sunday, im just the odd one out.

Maybe it's because a lot of the volunteers for these sportives either work on a Saturday or have other commitments. It might not be ideal but I can see why they do it. I for one tend to have more free time on a Sunday than I do on a Saturday.

I don't think so, Saturday or Sunday these days some people work, and there are a lot of potential volunteers (and riders) in the churches who are not available on Sundays. I think it's just a traditional thing that's hard to break; it stems from the distant past when lots of factories and trades worked Saturdays but hardly anyone worked Sunday. With modern work paterns it would make sense for the Saturday/Sunday split of events to be more even. Odly enough, in this area where group bike rides are a relativly recent thing, it's Saturday that has become established and the main club cycling day.

bobpzero, your not so odd, there are lots of us who don't want to ride Sunday; organisers please take note.

Oh, and on the saturation point; yes there does seem to be getting to be too many events, though each new event still seems to be bringing in yet more new riders. My concern is with the bandwagon jumpers who's events don't come up to the mark and so might put people off entering another event. It does seem that in general terms, the not for profit events run by volunteers are a safer bet for being well run, some of the "professional" events being professional only to the extent that they are on the make. There are exceptions of course.

prawny

curlyrobert wrote:

prawny
PostPosted: Mon Sep 7, 2009 12:36 pm Post subject:
There aren't enough in the midlands i don't think. Sad

Does this mean that there are, or are not enough in the midlands?

I don't think there are enough, I'd like it if there were more.

We're kind of in no mans land round by me, it's classed as staffordshire but most things staffs based are stoke and leek, and anything birmingham based is kidderminster/worcester way and they're all a bit of a trek.

amaferanga

I've only done a couple of sportives (Cumberland challenge in 2007 and the Bealach Mor this year) and they were both great. There are a few others that appeal to me, but sportives without proper hills or spectacular scenery just don't appeal to me and I'm guessing there must be a fair few of those, particuarly down south. I actually think that £25 is a reasonable price given what you get (as long as you get a good feed at the end). I've done plenty of audaxes in my time and I think they appeal to very different types of people. I like the competitive nature of sportives over the (in theory at least) non-competitive nature of audaxes. I suspect that if sportive riders are put off by the price of events then they won't be turning to the beardie world of audax instead.

And as someone else has already said, many audaxes certainly aren't value for money - typically £5 or £6 IME for a start and finish in a carpark and zero facilities. Slightly off topic, but the whole 'orienteering' side of audax is to me just a little bit silly now that GPS is available - I can't be bothered collecting receipts and looking for the name of the farm after the 4th bend after the third hill after the 2nd cattle grid, etc. info control nonsense when I have a GPS track that shows where I've been.

It'd be great if there were more sportives with closed roads though.

sampras38

DaveMoss wrote:

sampras38 wrote:

bobpzero wrote:

my problem is i prefer to ride on any day from monday to saturday. as sunday is my rest day. still thankful i managed to complete 2 charity rides and most of a sportive (it was all club riders and i was so very not prepared) this year. but the majority of sportives/charity rides are on a sunday. tho i guess the majority of cyclists dont mind riding on a sunday, im just the odd one out.

Maybe it's because a lot of the volunteers for these sportives either work on a Saturday or have other commitments. It might not be ideal but I can see why they do it. I for one tend to have more free time on a Sunday than I do on a Saturday.

I don't think so, Saturday or Sunday these days some people work, and there are a lot of potential volunteers (and riders) in the churches who are not available on Sundays. I think it's just a traditional thing that's hard to break; it stems from the distant past when lots of factories and trades worked Saturdays but hardly anyone worked Sunday. With modern work paterns it would make sense for the Saturday/Sunday split of events to be more even. Odly enough, in this area where group bike rides are a relativly recent thing, it's Saturday that has become established and the main club cycling day.

bobpzero, your not so odd, there are lots of us who don't want to ride Sunday; organisers please take note.

Oh, and on the saturation point; yes there does seem to be getting to be too many events, though each new event still seems to be bringing in yet more new riders. My concern is with the bandwagon jumpers who's events don't come up to the mark and so might put people off entering another event. It does seem that in general terms, the not for profit events run by volunteers are a safer bet for being well run, some of the "professional" events being professional only to the extent that they are on the make. There are exceptions of course.

Fair enough, it was just a thought.

Dr U Idh

There are only "too many" if you're prepared to travel the country in search of them all.

DaveMoss

Dr U Idh wrote:

There are only "too many" if you're prepared to travel the country in search of them all.

That's a good point; and especially true from where you are. There are now some established and well supported Scottish events, but so far a lot of that support has come from south of the border. The pool of Scottish would be sportive riders is still growing and there probably is scope for more Scottish events ( and lets face it, it ain't difficult to come up with great sportive routes in Scotland.) Very few seem to start close to the main population centres of Glasgow/Edinburgh, yet great routes radiating out from the central belt would not be hard to devise.

With no world cup for them to go too, maybe we can get the tartan army to ride a few sportives next summer

Ironman595

The trend these days are for racers to ride sportives than travel further for a race depending on how there form is going.

Sportives have been around long enough now they are turning more european style in that they are everything a race except name.

So many riders trying to drop others, looking for a top 10/25/50 final result. Ok, many riders still looking to do their first, or happy to enjoy the view, but the mass starts cause everybodies comptitive streak to kick in...

This said, last minute decisions on doing a sportive but finding it full leads to riders turning up and just followong the route.... Is this a good/ bad thing is another story but like a lot have said, it's only saturated when we can't supply the demand- and the demand is still on the rise- were just getting picky, looking for best value for money...

John C.

I love sportives BUT when entry is nudging fifty quid for The Fred I'm afraid a four day week means I'm riding the Richmond Sportive and I had a ball breaking the 7 hour barrier. There are also rides like the Hell o the North at six pounds and that includes a T shirt.
So No there are not too many but there is a wide difference in entry fee and you have to decide what you can or can't afford.

juggler

I've done about 6 sportives this year I think and they have all been sold out entry wise ahead, so that does not suggest saturation. Re the David Duffield I only saw that up on the Cyclosport site a few weeks back so maybe their promotion was to fault.

However as commented by others I am beginning to question what I am getting for the entry fee.... Normally I really on my own food, so it's one top up of the water bottles at about halfway , electronic timing and a signed route. With petrol it's about £50 for a sportive, so will be a bit more picky next year... Some of them are really only training rides rather than an event.... Count me in for the Dragon, and then a couple of local ones. Next year