Sportives - the new "MTB Race" licence to print mo

OffTheBackAdam

I remember when MTB racing first hit our shores, the entry fees being astronomical compared to TT & RR. (Also remember a "Mint Sauce" strip where he's planning to buy a Merc on the back of promoting a race).
I looked at the Lincoln sportive, £25 entry! :shock:
What do you get for that? 3 course meal and a Ferrari lead car?

bobh

From an organiser of a Premier Calendar RR and a Sportive perhaps the best answer would be to organise one yourself and then find out. Those of us that do in most cases barely cover our costs. £25 for a Sportive is good value if you are comparing the logistics involved with a RR and certainly a TT.

Mercs don't come from bike races I can testify to that!

Brakeless

If you don't won't to pay the price, don't! Simple

There are however alot of people,myself included who are happy to pay £25.

I like riding long distances, I like riding in different parts of the country, I also like the 'event atmosphere' of Sportives.

What I don't have is lots of spare time to work out where to ride and work out routes etc.

With a good sportive I can just get my head down and ride, Almost every sportive I have done has taken alot of 'small 'roads that i just wouldn't know about if I tried towork out routes. For me the local road knowledge of the organisers is almost worth the price alone.

Put into the mix that the route is signed and I don't have to worry about where to stop and fill my bottles or worry about my bike outside a local shop whilst I pop in then it all helps.

If the organisation or the route isn't good then the organisers won't get my money a second time although with the internet and forums such as these bad sportives are routed out pretty quickly.

If a sportive or the cost is not for you then that's absolutely fine but from now until the end of summer every sunday will see more cyclists riding sportives than any other form of organised cycling. How can that be a bad thing for any cyclist?

magliaceleste

Well said.

ddraver

EUR6 in Holland, 8 without the ANWB membership....

AndyD2574

Why has the OP posted this................if you think that £25 is expensive......guess what.....................dont pay and dont ride! simple.

£25 for a sportive is bang on as far as I am concerned......................along with hundreds of others looking at the enrties for the sportives I have entered.

:?:

cornerblock

Did the Wiggle New Forest sportive today, being the first time that I have done a paid ride I was very impressed. Cost me £25 but I reckon the pack I was given when registering was probably worth at least a tenner. Full of High 5 gels, 2:1 drinks etc. Then all the food and drinks I had at the feed stations along the 83 mile route must have added up to a fair bit, and on the finish line I was given another gel, bidon, magazine and an Eat Natural bar. Oh and the voucher for a cuppa! Now I think all that as well as a really well organised, sign posted ride is well worth the money. In fact I think I made a profit today! I would definately do another.

bompington

Am I the only one getting a feeling of deja vu here?

Caer caradoc

But you don't get what you pay for with £25. Look at sportives that charge considerably less and yet still deliver the same product! Alternatively audaxes that charge a fifth of the cost but deliver an equally good experience.

cornerblock

bompington wrote:

Am I the only one getting a feeling of deja vu here?

Surely you're not suggesting that topics are repeated on here! :shock:

JamesB

Whilst I feel that some sportives may now be pushing the costs comparisons to Audaxes are spurious; the base coat of sportives includes feed stations and signage at a minimum; audaxes it is a case of do your own feeds, so if you factor in cafe stop (s) then audaxes are not so comparatively cheap

vorsprung

JamesB wrote:

Whilst I feel that some sportives may now be pushing the costs comparisons to Audaxes are spurious; the base coat of sportives includes feed stations and signage at a minimum; audaxes it is a case of do your own feeds, so if you factor in cafe stop (s) then audaxes are not so comparatively cheap

The main difference between Audax and sportive "base cost" is that many sportives are run for a profit- either for charity, a private business or the organizing club.
Very few Audax are run for a profit

The OP claimed that excessive profit taking was being done by sportives.

So mentioning Audax is not "spurious"

MaxwellBygraves

Brakeless wrote:

What I don't have is lots of spare time to work out where to ride and work out routes etc.

But you do have plenty of time to post lengthy posts on bikeradar...

Sportive Challenge

vorsprung wrote:

JamesB wrote:

Whilst I feel that some sportives may now be pushing the costs comparisons to Audaxes are spurious; the base coat of sportives includes feed stations and signage at a minimum; audaxes it is a case of do your own feeds, so if you factor in cafe stop (s) then audaxes are not so comparatively cheap

The main difference between Audax and sportive "base cost" is that many sportives are run for a profit- either for charity, a private business or the organizing club.
Very few Audax are run for a profit

The OP claimed that excessive profit taking was being done by sportives.

So mentioning Audax is not "spurious"

The comparison between Sportives on one hand and audax and TT on the other is a good one, simply because it is a good illustration of changing times and attitudes.

Audax and TT are run mostly if not entirely by volunteers, many of whom put a great deal of time into what they do. If they charged a competitive rate for their time to earn a living wage the price would be significantly higher. You currently pay £8-9 for a TT and anywhere between £15 and £30 for a RR. I used to run a 2 day stage race and if I had factored in my time I think the entry fee would have been more like £50 instead of £30, and a TT more like £20. Its worth remembering that staff mostly do not volunteer on commercial events either, so its not just the organizer getting paid. A sportive often needs about 25 staff to run smoothly.

The fact is that over the last 30 years people have become more affluent and less willing to contribute, a point illustrated by declining club membership and the virtual impossibility of getting volunteer help for club events. This has led to relatively new areas of the sport such a sportives and Triathlon being predominantly run by commercial organizers. If these events had come along in the 60s, they would be run predominantly by clubs and would be cheaper. In a nutshell, there are a lot of people with no interest whatsoever in helping to run events and are happy to pay for someone else to do it. In the past that was not an option, if people wanted events they had to run them themselves.

It would be interesting if all commercial organizers backed out of sportives how many would be replaced by club volunteers. I suggest the calendar may be a little threadbare. I can see someone running maybe one or perhaps two if very keen, but I cannot see how anyone working voluntarily, with a full time job, could have the time and energy to run upwards of 6 events a year like many commercial organizers do. If there is anyone doing that, I take my hat off to them.