How do we improve the domestic XC scene? 

Encourage more volunteers. This is key and is where some events can fall down. One of the big struggles can be getting people to help. If it’s a series, one way is to ask that entrants volunteer for an event or they don’t qualify for points for the series. Ask the likes of Forestry Comission to drop/reduce the event charges for using forestry areas, even if only a small section of the course passes through the land. Small events can really struggle with the levy.

Help with securing either permeanent venues or venues that will welcome events back year after year. Just a couple of ideas and thoughts I’ve had over the years with MTBO / MBO events .

I’d love to have a go at XC racing but have been put off by the lack of information available. When I’ve looked at websites advertising the races, there’s never sufficient detail to let me make an informed decision as to whether the event is suitable for me or are they aimed at skinny teenage race whippets. What are the courses like – technical or miles of fire road; how long does the race last – rarely a mention of distance or time; so how do I decide whether it’s worth a 4 hour round trip to give it a go?

Age cats are completely stupid, if a beginner is in the same categoryas aformer national level racer the system is goosed

venues: it’s like searching for Goldilocks, not too tame not too technical, not too flat not too hilly, not too many other users not in the middle of nowhere, etc that’s before you talk to the landowner. What do you do when travellers setup in your carpark? What about the MX riders, dog walkers, other MTB riders who don’t want their fun ruined by your event

No racing on, along, or crossing bridleways (you can’t even do it if you close them)

Core team to do the leg work, massive team of volunteers needed to marshal, timekeep, course setup and pack down is a massive effort, do you trust them to put all the signs out in the risk assessment? Can you get the results out before everyone goes home?

Getting entries, nightmare unless you sell out, XC riders are the biggest set of curtain twitchers ever

Can you get proper first aid cover who can get all around the course?

Sponsors don’t grow on trees and seem happier to throw money at riders than grass roots events

BC, not at lot of help, their organiser guidebook throws you under a bus if it goes wrong, commissaries don’t walk/ ride the course if you get one

The calendar, narrow window due to everyone riding CX, early spring at risk of bad weather, summer everyone is on holiday, September CX starts again

It’s XC, the number of people who actually prefer it to enduro etc is small, the cool kids tend to do other stuff

Deciding how many laps the race will be on the start line is not conducive to having a full compliment “very much doing it for fun” category. Especially as the number of laps is increased from the advertised number.

Getting the number of laps right is always a nuanced thing if the course is new that day, easy to get wrong

The reason that CX is popular is that it is successfully appeals to all ages and genders in a relatively safe environment

Thinking about it, taking a few leaves out of CX’s book probably wouldn’t be a bad thing, given that it’s a) popular, so something’s obviously working and b) kinda sorta nearly very similar kinda racing.

Well, many years ago MTB in the UK decided to reject BC and organised clubs and left it mainly to event companies – expensive events and dwindling entries – reap what you sow.

No it didn’t, most of the organisers on the forum use BC, most as grass roots

XC needs to get back to grass roots, through clubs etc to appeal to families, bring in coaching etc to develop riders.

People who ride XC need to join or found clubs. If they don’t do that nothing will change

All those that snipe about BC aren’t the ones that turn out at events as volunteers – they expect someone else to do it for them. BC ain’t perfect by any means, but they are the governing body for cycle sport in the UK and that isn’t going to change.

BC don’t get mtb, the lack of MTB focused clubs means that the AGM is dominated by other matters and BC see the lack of income from MTB as a reason for continuing to do limited work on it. I don’t snipe at BC I’ll happily give them my view, I organized 20+ XC races and have helped at others. I didn’t expect someone else to do it for me nor did the volunteers who turned up race after race.

Double edged sword that, innit? not many folk perceived to be interested, so a business (ie this magazine) doesn’t buy in. But if magazines don’t promote, then so it goes.

Grass roots races like what parkrun has acheived would be good, not just for XC racing, for offroad cycling in general. Every running club round here puts on a race, I don’t see the cycling clubs doing that?.

Firstly there is the issue of where to go to ride XC. DH/Enduro/DJ you have bike parks dedicated to these because you can do it in a relatively small area if you have elevation. but, with the rules in the UK on where you can ride a bike, riding XC courses/routes outside of a race is limited.

Then we have the lack of media interest. Let us use Emma Raducanu’s recent success as an example. Emma had a fantastic event, nobody can take that away from her, absolutely brilliant. If I type ‘Emma’ into Google I get a hit on her in the sporting media without expanding on her full name. Boris(The Knob), The Queen, all jumped up to applaud ‘Britain’s’ success. Evie Richards comes along and absolutely nails the XC for multiple events, and nothing is mentioned outside of our MTB bubble. Evie’s achievements are as fantastic as Emma’s IMHO but the gulf in recognition is why XC and MTB in general will always struggle

Sponsorship – RedBull are the only recognisable sponsor to the wider population and RedBull does not appeal to everyone. Let’s use Tennis again and Evian are, or used to be, a big sponsor. Clean, healthy, E number free, water, versus Redbull. Dirty, harsh, extreme, additive loaded, smelly, requires vodka. |Don’t get me wrong, if it wasn’t for RedBull we would be in an even worse state but it isn’t a brand for the masses.

Finally, it has already been said but BC are a bit sh!t when it comes to MTB. Even when you go to an event entry page on the BC site you have Jason Kenny telling you that cycling is great. I want Evie, or Tom, or The Athertons telling me this when I am looking to enter an event.

There is so much wrong with it all at a basic level it leaves me with a nasty taste and a desire to start a campaign for all the forgotten British success stories in the sport!

@crossed @nickc We’ve struggled to get race reports to do coverage – we can’t go to them all and it needs someone who is going anyway (or producing a selection of content for various outlets) to make it financially viable to buy our own coverage. From time to time we get event reports from BC – usually when there’s a big UK result or build up to Olympics – but it hasn’t been consistent over the years. What we have had submitted has often been too time consuming to turn around from press release to story, and is up against an inbox full of potential stories. That said, we’ve had more resources this summer in the shape of Lauren and been able to get a few more race reports posted up by hunting them down, and we’ve noted that you seem to like them. As a result, we’ve got Vedangi covering all the World Cup races for us next year, and we’re talking to Hannah and Joolze here about some UK level coverage. Hope that helps and that you enjoy the coverage.

They do more than you think and they were a considerable if understated assistance, their tolerance of guerilla marketing and the support of many of the forum members turning up as volunteers race after race made it happen.

Yep. Without this the forum community here and the tolerance and support of the STW staff HTN wouldn’t have happened.

2 Hours Of Power: Hit The North 5

https://www.planetx.co.uk/news/teams-and-riders/q/date/2013/02/20/the-field-of-dispair

My 2p worth (and it has been a few years since I was involved). Pre-entries are what makes a race sink or swim. With money in the bank the organisers can get on with it. Waiting for an entry on the day really doesn’t help.

It needs more exposure.

How about an events page on this website dealing the various events (not just races), locations an type of race. Like a calendar tab.

How about more xc race coverage in the magazine. The world cup races these days are great and there is some really good battles, but it still gets very little coverage in any of UK MTB mags or press.

The magazine used to cover loads of the domestic races as well, even downhill and enduro doesn’t make it in (from what I can see apart from Pink Bike).

Found an old press release

Hope XC Race 1 Report and Race 2 Preview

for me i wood like to see xc raceing back where it was back i my time on the nps was from 95 t0 2017 i had seen some good riders i my time and i wood like to see the nps back in south wales like margam do any one argee with on that.

Don’t think anyone would disagree, making it happen is something else

How about more xc race coverage in the magazine. The world cup races these days are great and there is some really good battles, but it still gets very little coverage in any of UK MTB mags or press.

I think there is plenty out there that does this, more insights into the scene would be good though as the Olympics are less than three years away and we have a current world champ.

However most mag readers are more interested in the latest widgets and whether to get an ebike or not

One idea could be to do a “X” does downhill, “y” does enduro, “z” does xc from the staff and follow the trials and tribulations of them as they start in the grassroots of the sport. It would be a lot of effort for the mag and would it gain readers?

They could do “xyz” organise a race but with the mags industry connection it would be too easy

I have good reason to grump at them.

Scottish Cycling is a special subset

Thanks for letting us know the plans Hannah, I look forward to reading the reports etc.

I think @willt is on to something.
Is it beyond the realms of possibility to have a racing forum here somewhere?
Maybe something like the old XCRacer forum was a few years back but covering all branches of MTB racing, not just XC?
Surely something that gives more coverage to grassroots events can only be a good thing?

Special mention I think for Gorrick in the south – superb race organisers, have been for 25 years. They certainly know how to do it, but I think even they have found it harder in recent years, but turn out is good and the courses are always excellent fun. Autumn classic races coming up in 3 weeks time. I’ve racing for most of that 25 years, and always enjoy it.

Southern xc are another good organiser in the south, not done so many of those though as they are a bit further afield. Not sure we are attracting younger riders as successfully as we should – the old gits categories seem to have larger numbers than the younger categories – don’t know how we change that though!

Good if singletrack are ‘getting behind the idea’ of more xc coverage. The Skinny dipping series didn’t really work out too well the other year – the approach to coverage just seemed a bit prosaic (with apologies to Rachel, I get the impression sourcing / capturing creative content wasn’t the easiest) – but it would be good to see some more long term coverage of non-gravity disciplines on here.

From my own experience of (regional) xc racing I’d echo some points. This has got a bit long, sorry.

One underlying ‘Problem’ with xc i found is that you actually have to be pretty keen and fit to get anywhere in the more serious categories (sport, expert , vets etc). There were also always a few in Open who I am sure could readily have been in Sport – and seemed to take Open way too seriously – but preferred the reassurance of knowing they would place well in the lower category race. (I know there are some rules over getting bumped up a category but anyway , this is just how it appeared to me).

So you have to consider what are the reasons for turning up – personal challenge, personal improvement, doing max effort as I never would on a trail ride, riding some trails different to the ordinary. Those are mine. Would I call it a fun experience / vibe? Not so much. Even in marathon events (the uk ones, that aren’t competitive but are timed) I’m never going to be quick but it’s a nice day out, with other riders who you can chat to en-route, on new trails and for longer than 1.5h.

So putting a bit more emphasis on making it fun is a good thing to think about. When Dirt Rag was still going one of the writers used to talk about the ‘Party Wave’. Ie. The group who would congregate near the back of the grid and who were there to have fun, take part, ride some different terrain to normal, banter and hustle with each other etc and generally have a blast (and maybe a beer).

Maybe there could be a ‘class within a class’ for this sort of rider. and liven it up by introducing some CX-esque fun things to do . How about throw in a few simple rollable-at-pace trialsy obstacles maybe (didn’t the old singletrack weekender have some basic trials stuff- sure you could do something that would be fun , add interest, and wouldn’t get vetoed by BC? The Pallets of doom etc). Something just to make it a bit different than battle of the fitties .

Or some bonus points for taking a certain line / style points on a feature / segment or two. Longest wheelie, most sketchy landing , flowiest rider etc. bottle of JD to the winner. Heck, I’d sponsor that one myself. Prize for best beginner ? Prize for best mechanical of the day? It’s not hard to think up some stuff that might up the engagement factor amongst entrants and create some more interesting talking points / memorable moments.

Timing of races. Organisers tend (I think) to get the less competitive races out the way in the morning. A 10am start time (for me) means leaving the house at 6/6.30am [Sunday] morning. Typically a 1.5-2hr drive to a venue, sign on, practice lap, take a break then line up 9.45. 1.5hr (ish) race. Done by 11.30. On the one hand it means I can be home for a late lunch and a ‘free’ afternoon. On the other hand I have kids and Sunday is the one day of the week I might have a chance of staying in bed beyond 7am. Maybe if they put the keen-bean races in the morning and let the fun categories have a more leisurely arrival experience that might help entice entrants to come along. And maybe even bring their families to see mummy or daddy race.

Facilities and audience interest. Once my race is done what is there for me to hang around for? Open question. Cheering on the expert riders? Not me. Not enough celebs for that. Bring back the old killer hill climb events?! Or something else to participate in. Also, it has been a long time since I saw a demo day also rock up at an xc event. Does that happen anymore (obv. not right now- no one has any bikes I figure)?

Maybe after my race is done i should volunteer as a marshal, that would be helpful wouldn’t it. Maybe that could become a condition of entry (it is in some grass root sports) . Or if that’s too prescriptive how about when entering, you are invited to volunteer for something on the day and there are a few options you can choose. Maybe that’d help with fostering some community spirit too. I’ll sponsor that with JD too myself.

The racing season. It’s too short/ races spaced too close together. My local series starts typically in late March/early April but is done by July. Maybe it is 4-5 rounds. One a month, say (Facebook not working so I cannot check). Cx season an issue. Given it is hard enough to sort venues, insurance etc for organisers the number of races is probably realistic but space them out more. I found they were too frequent for me to justify getting to more than a couple (given all the various competing demands I find I have to balance at weekends), and then for two rounds it felt a bit pointless/tenuous and why don’t I just go for a trail ride instead.

Media coverage. From time to time I get Trial Magazine from the newsagent. It for a large part consists of coverage of various trials events that have gone on. The interviews are of trials riders from local and national series (not the red bull ones ) . It’s a bit niche to make a whole mag out of that (not even gone-but-sadly-missed Shred did that I think) but shows some ideas of how you could go about it. Dirt used to do good race write ups too. Also on the trials front, go listen to The Shin Dig podcast – that has been good at knitting together the uk trials community.

I used to like Making Up The Numbers when it was a written thing , the personal take on competing and balancing that with the daily-life and work challenges many of us face was refreshingly different (award winning no less! Take note). Cameraderie with both the riders and the reader was the name of the game there and the secret to its success I’d say. Could there be someone up for doing an xc version – I’m no creative writer that’s for sure. I’d love to hear what Charlie H or the other staffers would write following competing in various xc events. I’ll cover your petrol if that’s an issue.

Media coverage (again). Gives sponsors a reason to invest in supporting races. Sponsors give organisers support and boy do organisers need it. (Bit circular as you also need numbers of punters to turn up for sponsors to see the point, but positive sustained media coverage / internet will help with that ).

Gives the media some new content to diversify the number of press and video releases that echo around everyone’s websites, and diversifies away from yet another ‘international adventure’ article or classic ride article that happens, likely as not, to be located in the northern half of the uk.

Also long termers like Chipps will be sentimental over xc and surely will feel like they are supporting a grass roots side of the sport. (Maybe even Tym Manley would be sentimental, but maybe not). Win win all around?

those were superb events you put on.

It wasn’t me, it was a core team of around eight, family, volunteers from here marshalling (more importantly turning up when they said they would), local mountain rescue team, Lancs CC, Rossendale BC, the sponsors, the forums, and the people who turned up to race. Without them it wouldn’t have happened.

We had thirty volunteers on the hill for most races

Numbers of entrants ebbed and flowed but we’re down towards the end, we were talking about some form of downhill lite before enduro was a thing, short course XCEliminator was another idea. Unfortunately life got in the way add in an issue with the access track then you have lost the habit and life revolves around other stuff. People underestimate the physical, mental, and time toll on an organiser and the core team.

My 2c & obviously it’ll be biased by my location.

In the SE I think we are pretty spoilt actually. We’ve 2 great organisers in Gorrick http://www.gorrick.com & Eventrexuk https://eventrexuk.com/mountain-biking/ with the 2 of them nicely covering most of the season. So, in my opinion, we don’t need more events down here. However, I think what’s needed is better coverage. An event calendar or a shout (from STW) out in the weeks before there’s a race coming up would be a great place to start. Events like Dyfi et al always get a mention as do a lot of other grassroots enduro/dh but there’s precious little for XC……..

There’s a difference, also, in the way Gorrick & Eventrexuk interact with their target audience. Eventrexuk are much more active on social media with course updates, info & the such like. So, to those of you who are concerned about the lack of info I’d say you’d find out a lot from them & their races are very accessible. Gorrick are more old school & do less on social media (an area I think they need to address) but their website is stocked with good info on what to expect. They put on a lot of events, they are well attended all year round & they work bloody hard at it too. Gorrick have also been rogered royally by DIO over events in recent years, which is not their fault at all, but has led to a lot of frustration. I think they have a better handle on the situation going forward recently though & things are looking up IMHO. The courses used by both are pretty good & certainly techie & physical enough for XC but not so much a newbie would die of fright. There’s also usually A & B lines available.

On-site facilities at both are ok, though I wouldn’t mind something healthier than a greasy bacon sarnie after a race…..

XC faces other problems too. It’s image isn’t great – which always confuses me as some of the most amazing riding I’ve ever done has been XC. From being chased down a mountainside by a thunderstorm in an alpine marathon to blatting round Newham at Exposure. The combination of breathing out of everywhere to then pinning it down a techie XC decent with my HR on the redline is exhilarating. I love it! It’s most definitely not all fire roads & skinny XC whippets. Honestly, there’ll be times you’ll be grateful for a bit of fire road so your brain can have a rest..

Fundamentally, I think XC’s biggest issue (from my perspective) is its image. It’s doing so much right on the actual day but it suffers from the perspective it aint a lot of fun. Couldn’t be further from the truth. I raced in a vets team made of old elites at Exposure this summer & we all agreed it was the best fun we’d had in years..

Lastly, I’d just like to say to all the XC races I’ve attended over the years to all the organisers & all involved wherever you are. What you do is a labour of love & YOUR EFFORTS are deeply, deeply appreciated by this old racer…
(Ps I’d love to give something be to the sport in anyway I could…)

The event never made a profit, which was fine. I didn’t mind giving up a weekend and several days before clearing and setting out the course, but when the last one actually cost me £200 to put on, I gave up…

We avoided this by not giving cash prizes and getting the sponsors to provide the vouchers/widgets you would win. Meant hard work finding them as we had prize parity for the women’s categories but enough stepped up and helped make someone’s day

Also we paid for very little and everyone was a volunteer, it’s far easier that way as everyone is equal. Mountain Rescue donation and the toilets were the biggest expenses on the day, levies were around a quid a rider so dependent on entries so not too bad