Are sportives legal?

Stedman

On one hand we are firmly being advised by organisers on this forum that sportives are not legally races, but on the other hand they are still issuing us with numbers, timing chips and publishing gold, silver and bronze times.

If you carefully had a look at CTC Advice Sheet June 2006. Version 3.0 ‘Law and liability for cycling activities and events’, this “strongly recommended that events generally regarded as “non racing” such as challenge rides, randonnees, tours, endures etc do not publish results showing “places” as these can clearly be interpreted as races and may lead to a challenge”.

What is the legal position with sportives and can they be regarded as cycle racing under the ‘Cycle Racing on the Highways Regulations 1960’? Is this Statutory Instrument now as these events were not around when this legislation was drafted and is there is a danger that we as competitors, (sorry entrants) are in breach of it, if so why are events organisers not dropping timings?

cougie

I guess until there's some case law through a prosecution - then we don't know. If something bad does happen and a court case happens then maybe we'll find out - but until then - its not been proven ?

I'm no lawyer though.

AndyRubio

I think that so long as riders don't ride in bunches of more than 20, you can do what you want. The OP's point about non-racing is addressed by BCF's recommendation that results aren't posted in order of how fast the riders went. It might even be more than a recommendation.

sub55

why 20 ?

bompington

Somebody needs to tell all those helpful policemen at the etape cal, they could get into big trouble

Garz

No they are illegal so enter them at your peril. :roll:

rodgers73

Do people on here just spend their time thinking up new ways to say that sportives are shit/a blight on civilisation?

Honestly...

nunowoolmez

According to British Cycling they are not classed as races but as mass participation events.

bompington

rodgers73 wrote:

Do people on here just spend their time thinking up new ways to say that sportives are shoot/a blight on civilisation?

Honestly...

This. The answer, I'm afraid, would appear to be "yes".

danowat

Generally, yes, they are legal, as they are mass participation rides NOT races, however.........

Many organisers flout the rules, the rule being that sportives, not being races, don't have published finsihing times / positions......when its clear some of them do, they also tend to be marketed as though they were races.

Many of the riders act like they are races, and the riding in many sportives is frankly appalling, organisers really need to start pulling things together in both respects, as there could be issues in the future if they don't

cwm

rodgers73 wrote:

Do people on here just spend their time thinking up new ways to say that sportives are shoot/a blight on civilisation?

Honestly...

+1 :roll:

Stedman

bompington wrote:

Somebody needs to tell all those helpful policemen at the etape cal, they could get into big trouble

The Etape Caledonian is different as the roads are specifically closed for the event.

bompington

bompington wrote:

rodgers73 wrote:

Do people on here just spend their time thinking up new ways to say that sportives are shoot/a blight on civilisation?

Honestly...

This. The answer, I'm afraid, would appear to be "yes".

On second thoughts, actually they just keep coming up with the same old ways

rolf_f

It's this forums equivalent of the RLJ, helmet etc debate!

Thick Tester

BC have a big quandry on Sportives vs Road Racing if you ask me.
On the one hand its difficult to gain police approval for road races and they are trialling accreddited marshalling and lobbying the govt over updating the laws. At the same time sportives create a heavier impact on other road users imply due to the numbers of participants, and they appear happy to rider the sportive and membership wave.

So which is more important ?

chipperleenie

BC are pursuing sportives more, as an organiser of a sportive I had a BC person call me this week to ask me questions about the event and try to get me to use their online entry system. I think they are realising there is huge potential for them with membership if they are more involved with sportives.

With regards races V sportives as a club we organise both and it is far simpler to organise a sportive than it is a road race. Plus the profit from a sportive, even at £10 or £12 entry fee for 200-300 riders is far greater than any profit you may get from a road race, even with the prize list being sponsored!

Quite simply, more cyclists are capable of riding a sportive than they are capable of being competitive in a road race.

Ron Stuart

Isn't it about time that some National Organising body was formed to cover this and many other misconceptions surrounding Sportives. Any old Tom, Dick or Harry can run a Sportive and could have an impact not just on your wallet but also your safety on the road. It's time to get some cast iron do's and don'ts in place. Maybe the term Sportive needs a form of classification and the organisation of a Sportive needs to be run in accordance to certain criteria.
My understanding is that as long as there aren't winners receiving prizes and you abide by the highway code it is not a race. However considering the amount of money associated with these events it would seem very prudent to clarify this ASAP.
As for British Cycling's involvement just take a look at the Etape Cymru http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/lat ... cymru.html I have as a member of British Cycling asked three separate officials of BR including Brian Cookson and they have repeatedly refused to return any of my emails.

This I sent to the second recipient....

A week ago I sent a Michael Heaven at Welsh Cycling an email contents of which I paste in below...

'Report? success?, thoughts?, next year?, problems?, no problems?, good venue?, good value?......nothing in latest BC email will there be any feed back to members?'
It would appear that I'm not getting a response and also I would like to ask British Cycling overall if they are satisfied with the organisation of this years Etape Cymru by K-extreme?

Not a dicky-bird.

Thick Tester

Ron Stuart wrote:

Isn't it about time that some National Organising body was formed to cover this and many other misconceptions surrounding Sportives. Any old Tom, Dick or Harry can run a Sportive and could have an impact not just on your wallet but also your safety on the road. It's time to get some cast iron do's and don'ts in place. Maybe the term Sportive needs a form of classification and the organisation of a Sportive needs to be run in accordance to certain criteria.

What you have to realise is that we are dealing with the uneducated masses here. Throw a road in front of a sportive rider and they think they are in the protour.

The issue is that individuals refuse to take responsibility for their own actions - there are no rules needed - just common sense and the highway code.

Im all for bums on seats, but the biggest menace to open competition in time trials and road races are police attitudes formed from poor standards of riding saftey in sportives. Police do not differentiate between sportive riders and competive racers and rightly so. The challenge is to raise the standard....
but i hold no hope of this happening without a proper club structure and i promise you this I'm going to take to the roads during sportives equipped with a camera and will film, name and shame riders.

Brakeless

Thick Tester wrote:

Ron Stuart wrote:

Isn't it about time that some National Organising body was formed to cover this and many other misconceptions surrounding Sportives. Any old Tom, Dick or Harry can run a Sportive and could have an impact not just on your wallet but also your safety on the road. It's time to get some cast iron do's and don'ts in place. Maybe the term Sportive needs a form of classification and the organisation of a Sportive needs to be run in accordance to certain criteria.

What you have to realise is that we are dealing with the uneducated masses here. Throw a road in front of a sportive rider and they think they are in the protour.

The issue is that individuals refuse to take responsibility for their own actions - there are no rules needed - just common sense and the highway code.

Im all for bums on seats, but the biggest menace to open competition in time trials and road races are police attitudes formed from poor standards of riding saftey in sportives. Police do not differentiate between sportive riders and competive racers and rightly so. The challenge is to raise the standard....
but i hold no hope of this happening without a proper club structure and i promise you this I'm going to take to the roads during sportives equipped with a camera and will film, name and shame riders.

I find your generalising quite ridiculous. Many sportives are full of experienced club riders who are used to riding in bunches and correctly follow the rules of the road. Put 1000 people into any discipline cycling or otherwise and there will be a few who don't behave quite as they should.

Your comments sound exactly like motorists who say ALL cyclists go through red lights, ride two abreast when they shouldn't etc etc.

As for being a menace to racing and time trialling maybe you should realise that on any summer weekend there will be far more people riding in Sportives than racing or time trialling and what will be a benefit to all cyclists is greater levels of participation. There has been an increase in lower level racing in the past few years and alot of those riders have come from sportives. There's room for everyone here and all forms of cycling should be encouraged. Your elitist attitude just puts people off as they expect this to be the attitude they face if they join a club as a beginner.

As for taking to the road with a camera, why don't you just go for a nice ride instead, or why not even ride the sportive and chat to a few of the entrants. It may suprise you that not everyone thinks they are in the pro tour and nearly everyone is out for a good day on thier bike.

polocini

As an event organiser I make sure I read all the threads on BR and this constant trolling is really getting boring. If you don't like sportives don't ride them. I'm not sure half of the posters on the forums have ridden many sportives?? I have organised five events this year and my experience of riders is the complete opposite of what I read on here. It seems every few days there is another thread knocking sportives. What is the obsession?????

As for the standard of cycling, the riders who are all over the road or three abreast will still be doing just that if they weren't in a sportive. But their riding will improve as they do more events with experienced riders and also from the briefing emails that get sent out from event organisers.

Thicktester: Grow up. Rather than filming riders why not have gentle word if it bothers you that much. This reminds me of another thread with arrows in it...... A lot of riders just don't have either the time or inclination to join a club. Just because you are not in a club it doesn't mean you are a second rate cyclist. It's usually club riders who want to set a fast 'time'. One of the daftest threads I have read on here this year was about a club/rider putting out press releases with sportive times on.
With regards to riders thinking they are in a race you would be surprised at how few actually think that. The vast majority of riders just want to ride their bikes and enjoy themselves. A lot of riders will always try and catch the man in front whether commuting or at a sportive. That is human nature. But as for riders thinking they are in the protour it's just another ill informed comment. A lot of newer/inexperienced riders are just trying to get around what to them might be their biggest ever ride. And as soon as you have ridden a couple of sportives you will realise they are not races. As I have ran events through 2011 my outlook towards sportives has changed radically and the 2012 Polocini events will not have a timing system as such but will use the Strava online log. So for those riders who want times it will be up to them to time themsleves and upload the data. I personally think that the vast majority of riders will not care about times. This whole sportives/races thing is turning into a bit of an urban legend.

Ron: I see where you are coming from with a governing body type organisation but that would just drive up costs and then how would it be enforced?? BC already have some excellent guidelines and an excellent entry/insurance service. If you dm me I'll send you the email of my contact at BC. He's a top chap and I'm sure he'll reply in detail.

With regards to the OP, here are the BC guidelines http://www.polocini.com/Non-Comp_Event_guidelines.pdf

Ramble over

AL

jgsi

I quite enjoy reading the 'debate', which of course knows no end.
Glad you have dropped the timing chip thing though, very sensible - should reduce costs :P
It would seem a lot are confused about sportives and racing .. someone just dropped a thread about the Dragon in Amateur racing for instance
That club bloke who posted 'times' in sportives was misrepresented by his local numpty press .. was he not?

oh well ding ding

Mike67

I'm fairly new to Sportives and have done three in total.

Most of the 'questionable' riding I've seen seems to occur shortly after the start in my experience. Is this partly due to the sheer weight of numbers of riders entering en masse onto the roads? These riders then take time to shuffle around and split into their respective groups dictated by speed and ability. In order for this shuffling to occur some riders feel the need to get past quite a number of others quickly...sometimes taking risks.

You could argue this is driven by the need to post a good time....the 'race' part of the argument. More likely though I think it's just a question that we all like to ride at a certain speed and going too slowly is not enjoyable. I'm not condoning the risky riding but some people are more driven than myself.
In the last Sportive I did they set people off in groups of up to 20 every 2 or 3 minutes. Fine for a small event but this approach may be difficult for a 3000 strong field.

I must add though that non-adherence to the highway code isn't restricted to Sportives I've seen it on club TTs, social rides and when out in the car. I think it's just more obvious when there are 100s of riders around

Ron Stuart

Polocini wrote:

Ron: I see where you are coming from with a governing body type organisation but that would just drive up costs and then how would it be enforced?? BC already have some excellent guidelines and an excellent entry/insurance service. If you dm me I'll send you the email of my contact at BC. He's a top chap and I'm sure he'll reply in detail.

With regards to the OP, here are the BC guidelines http://www.polocini.com/Non-Comp_Event_guidelines.pdf

Ramble over

AL

Firstly thanks for the BC guidelines/rules which make it apparent that they are happily on the way to adopting Sportive Events in the UK as the overall authority on the subject.
However this and I quote “ No non-competitive event shall be promoted which requires the participants to maintain an average speed of more than 18mph ‘Average riding speed’ means the average speed when riding.”….. Talk about unenforceable and not a great marketing tool either. Is that why you are dropping the timing? Or are you looking to lower the entry fees?
I can imagine you wouldn’t have done this but the organizers in the Etape Cymru advertised a race up the Horseshoe pass climb for prizes totally nullifying a lot of participant’s cycle and medical insurance potentially. I knew BC were giving third party insurance cover for the entrants but when I pointed out the risk to the riders insurance a rep from BC said he wasn’t bothered and it would be covered if they took out cycle insurance via British Cycling. I don’t trust the BC insurers to honor that statement necessarily either, let alone all those that didn’t have bike insurance via BC.
The fact that they have put some thought into the organization of Non-competitive cycling events in the past only makes me more annoyed as it seems they won’t be made accountable when there are problems on their supported events.
The way to enforce good standards is to take proper ownership in law of the term Sportive and patent it. Unfortunately it would seem BC are more interested in spreading there tentacles all over cycling in the UK but don’t want the come back when things go wrong.
Also, I think the guidelines are due an update. (Winners/prizes?) Not good I think. :roll:

Ron Stuart

Polocini wrote:

Ron: I see where you are coming from with a governing body type organisation but that would just drive up costs and then how would it be enforced?? BC already have some excellent guidelines and an excellent entry/insurance service. If you dm me I'll send you the email of my contact at BC. He's a top chap and I'm sure he'll reply in detail.

With regards to the OP, here are the BC guidelines http://www.polocini.com/Non-Comp_Event_guidelines.pdf

Ramble over

AL

Firstly thanks for the BC guidelines/rules which make it apparent that they are happily on the way to adopting Sportive Events in the UK as the overall authority on the subject.
However this and I quote “ No non-competitive event shall be promoted which requires the participants to maintain an average speed of more than 18mph ‘Average riding speed’ means the average speed when riding.”….. Talk about unenforceable and not a great marketing tool either. Is that why you are dropping the timing? Or are you looking to lower the entry fees?
I can imagine you wouldn’t have done this but the organizers in the Etape Cymru advertised a race up the Horseshoe pass climb for prizes totally nullifying a lot of participant’s cycle and medical insurance potentially. I knew BC were giving third party insurance cover for the entrants but when I pointed out the risk to the riders insurance a rep from BC said he wasn’t bothered and it would be covered if they took out cycle insurance via British Cycling. I don’t trust the BC insurers to honor that statement necessarily either, let alone all those that didn’t have bike insurance via BC.
The fact that they have put some thought into the organization of Non-competitive cycling events in the past only makes me more annoyed as it seems they won’t be made accountable when there are problems on their supported events.
The way to enforce good standards is to take proper ownership in law of the term Sportive and patent it. Unfortunately it would seem BC are more interested in spreading there tentacles all over cycling in the UK but don’t want the come back when things go wrong.
Also, I think the guidelines are due an update. (Winners/prizes?) Not good I think. :roll:

DaveMoss

Since there are no prizes, therfore not a competition , even if the results are published in order.therfore not organised as a"race"
Majority of riders in a sportive are not raceing, and usually those that are trying to go fast exercise due caution and put safety of themselves and others ahead of a few seconds delay. so not really raceing

If you think you are raceing when riding you, as an individual are breaking the law. This is true weather it's in a sportive or if your "raceing" your pal to the pub, or your club mates for a 30 sign; racing on the public highway is illegal whether it's in a car, on a motor bike or on a pedal bike. There is an special exeption for cycle races organisd in accordants with the raceing on highways regs. Sportives are not thus organised and not races.

So the organiser is in the clear, he/she is not organising a race and tells you so. But if you "race" others in a sportive you need to hope you don't get caught

Ron Stuart

How would you see this post prior to the Etape Cymru?

"Heatonrider et al - extension is due entirely to the fact we signed a v late deal with MAvic whereby there will be a Horseshoe Pass challenge incorporated into the Etape Cymru.

Mavic will give the fastest rider (in each age group) up the Horseshoe Pass a free Mavic Plasma SLR helmet. Anyone who completes the Horseshoe Pass as part of the event will also be put into a draw where a set of Mavic R-SYS wheels can be won.

Mavic will also be providing servicing on the saturday as well as on the day support.

We have over 1600 entries which for the first year has more than exceeded our expectations.

Please see Cycling Plus - October issue - where the route is fully previewed - to quote it's ending '..memories of a truely outstanding day's riding, we're convinced this epic should be on everyone's to do list, though it's certain to wreck some'.

Road closures: We have a window of 8 - 8.45 to get alll entrants off. Roads wll be closed to all entrants as long as the maintain a 12mph speed.

With regards registration - not only is this a logistical concern but the local community do need to see benefits for the disruption that is going to be caused by the road closures.

We do have arrangements for entrants struggligng to get there on the day and am happy to discuss these in detail with anyone on info@k-extreme.co.uk.

This has been an epic challenge to get off the ground and I wish you all the best

K Extreme"

Remember that name K Extreme and like me do you think this consitutes a race in part :?:

cougie

But wasnt the Welsh etape run on supposedly closed roads ? So racing shouldnt be an issue ?

Caer caradoc

cougie wrote:

I guess until there's some case law through a prosecution - then we don't know. If something bad does happen and a court case happens then maybe we'll find out - but until then - its not been proven ?

I'm no lawyer though.

You point is well observed and I am a lawyer!

It has come to my attention that both an insurer and a police authority are watching the sportive situation closely following a number of accidents on an event where rider's times were ranked and advertised. Such reckless behaviour by operators could easily result and the law determined in a court case. It would not very difficult to put a prosecution case together especially as the regs are so clear cut. One can reasonanly suspect that the police have not taken action to date, either because it has not been sufficiently high up their agenda or their resources have been allocated elsewhere. A court case and the potential zealous enforcement of the 1960 Statutory Instrument would not only have a deleterious effect upon responsible sportive operators but other cycling activities too. Even without a hearing, insurers could equally exit the market leaving operators high and dry. Audax UK, who do organise races, have already had insurer problems despite their low risk activities.

We have to be very careful when listening to protests about the questions raised in this thread especially when those protests are raised by individuals with a commercial and vested interest. Cycling is not their activity, it is our activity and they ought to remember that!

Stedman

DaveMoss wrote:

Since there are no prizes, therfore not a competition , even if the results are published in order.therfore not organised as a"race"
Majority of riders in a sportive are not raceing, and usually those that are trying to go fast exercise due caution and put safety of themselves and others ahead of a few seconds delay. so not really raceing

If you think you are raceing when riding you, as an individual are breaking the law. This is true weather it's in a sportive or if your "raceing" your pal to the pub, or your club mates for a 30 sign; racing on the public highway is illegal whether it's in a car, on a motor bike or on a pedal bike. There is an special exeption for cycle races organisd in accordants with the raceing on highways regs. Sportives are not thus organised and not races.

So the organiser is in the clear, he/she is not organising a race and tells you so. But if you "race" others in a sportive you need to hope you don't get caught

Dave,

There is no question that cycle racing is not permitted on our roads unless it is authorised under the Cycle Racing on the Highways Regulations 1960, however I would not like rely on you’re ‘no prize, no competition’ augment under cross examination, especially when both the CTC and BC advise against published results.

As a sportive organiser, have you sought a legal opinion to substantiate you view?

chipperleenie

DaveMoss wrote:

If you think you are raceing when riding you, as an individual are breaking the law. This is true weather it's in a sportive or if your "raceing" your pal to the pub, or your club mates for a 30 sign; racing on the public highway is illegal whether it's in a car, on a motor bike or on a pedal bike.

So in that case nearly all club runs are illegal as riders "race" each other for signs and tops of hills!

Plus when I go out training and compete against my imaginary friend, Garmin training partner, on my normal training route - that is illegal too.

All cycling will have to be done on turbo trainers now. I am going to change my sportive to an indoor turbo ride for 300 people! What fun that will be! I wonder how many entries I will get? :shock:

Surely sportives are for people who cannot or do not want to be competitive in a 'proper' race.

rodgers73

Christ, is this still going on?

Really...