What type of race would you like to do?

Aha! Ricj said he posted the question here - cool to hear the responses. For a standard XC or Marathon race, the venue would be almost impossible to make a big enough single loop for the elite categories, but Sport and Beginners could be directed onto a fun single-loop type course. The idea of bringing everyone through a central start/finish area more than once or twice has is cool for friends and spectators - sort of an extendo short track format, but calling it short track could be misleading - as I'd imaging we'd want say 20-30 minute laps for the fast folks, and it'd have the added course complexity of a lot of passing - as the elite folks sneak up on the beginners and sports.

The "mini-endurance" format seems to be getting a lot of positive feedback locally, as folks not interested in scoring points in the off-road series could do a team, but the regular XC classes would be doing a solo race, again, on a shortish 30-50 minute lap type course - short enough to have to plan multiple-lap strategies/timing, but long enough to not be bogged down by spending half the race logging in/out!

I guess I lean slightly towards a marathon length event as I'm intimidated by the timing logistics of a 24 hr. style format, but who knows...

One thing that is shaping up to be VERY cool is that the location of the "expo"/registration area will likely be by an insane series of dirt jumps - where we'll be having lunatics hurling themselves through the air during or after the race(s). The local dirt jumper crowd has spent a few years making a sick, sick and massive series of stunts out there. Maybe we should send the XC racers through it! haha, JK.

Damn, a series of STXC races with a few mild stunts on course would kick-ass too! And we could stage it so classes could easily be run totally seperately.... ah decisions. MAybe a straight up STXC and a TT seperately? That's doable too....

And Shiggy - not sure what ye mean by doing an event in/around Flag...?
Flagstaff? That'd be a 9 hour drive from the XC venue!

Well, i don't know if you could do the same, but there is a local summer series of short track racing going on just up the road from me (a long road.. but still nearby). It runs in the afternoon of Saturday once every month. And then another club is holding the exact same thing on wednesday afternoons every fortnight.

Basically, it is held on the local Mini MX track, so lots of table top jumps that are made for kids to be able to clear, and lots of bermed corners, and just all around a fun track. It has one steep climb and a couple of short flats. Every week the course is changed slightly, but stays around the 1km mark.

It is called a Dirtcrit, which is like a criterium race, but for dirt..

there are a couple of different grades, so all types of people can race. They have a shorter track for the kids, then they have a over 16Kg bike class, which means all the DJ/DH/FR bikes come out, and get some air on the jumps, and take it easy on the hill. Their race would go say 15min + 2 laps.

Then C grade is mostly XC bikes, with novice riders just out there for fun.

As the grades go higher, then races get slighlty longer and faster. The fastest guys are XC guys, as all the jumps can be rolled with ease.

It is just a very quick, fun and easy race to do. And theres great prizes for the little effort you have to put in.

BUT.. it does help if you have a Mini MX track you can race on.

But the 4hour also sounds good, i have done a couple of those before, and they are great.

Three Lap Free For All

Stage it as 3 laps of nearly any miles per lap. I personally don't like doing more that 3 laps. Some races could be 6 mile laps, other could be 12 miles. Mix it up.
Mass LeMans start. (The mayhem is a crowd pleaser - I hope you have big parking lot!)
There are no categories, just age groups. (Beginner, Sport, Expert - give me a break!)
First 2 in each age group to complete lap 1 get a prize.
First 2 in each category to complete 2 laps get a bigger prize.
First 2 in each age group to finish 3 laps get the biggest prize or maybe their money back!
You can only get 1 prize.
My idea is that all the (normally) beginner, sport and expert riders would race together. If you get too many racers, then start in waves based on age.

There are so many strategies each racer can empoy for this kind of race. Also, you can structure the points so racers can do 1, 2 or 3 laps at any race and their points still carry over. For example, 1 lappers get 100, 90, 80, etc. points; 2 lappers get 150, 140, 130, etc. points and 3 lappers get 200, 190, 180, etc. points. If I do 3 laps one race, then have a mega mechanical on my third lap the next race I still get credit for my 2 laps.

As far as timing goes, you can just post a clock and let racers deal with their lap times themselves. All you need to do is write down the order each rider comes by, plug it into a spreadsheet (or do that real time) and sort it out. I suppose you might also want to time each riders lap times (I know I like that!!) which would make it easier to sort out the awards. Also, maybe the points should be tied to the lap times so for the overall points all racers are encouraged to go as fast as they can.

It is crazy, I know, but I think it would be very exciting and really create a buzz. The important thing is that all skill levels race at the same time.

rs3o said:

Recently, I found out that a formerly defunct race in Santa Fe is being resurrected. Along with GlenZX, I volunteered to help organize it. One of the discussions we had at our first meeting was exactly what kind of race it's going to be. So, imagine that you're an XC racer in a Southwestern state that has a race series of 10 or so events, all of which are your standard XC race. Would you be interested in doing something a little different? So far, the choices are:

- A timed endurance event (like a 24 hour race except we don't want to put on a 24 hour race, so it's be how many laps can you do in say, 4 hours?).

- A short track, but probably something with longer laps. The idea is to have an event that is more spectator-friendly.

or

- The standard 1 lap for beginners, 2 laps for sports and 3 laps for experts XC race.

Another consideration is to make the event attractive and accessible for all sorts of riders, from the complete noob to the crusty expert. We're also talking about having a kids' race to make it family-friendly.

Any comments or suggestions are appreciated!

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ozone said:

personally I do not think the format matters as much as the location/course.

1 big loop is fun to race but it is hard to pre-ride so it is hard to tell where you are in relation to the finish. Spectators do not like it and aid stations are a problem if you hate camel backs.

Small loops 10-20mins are great for the spectators but suck to race on no matter the course. I absolutly hate doing more then 4 laps on anything that last over an hour. I lose interest and lap traffic is always a problem.

my favorite courses are ones that you can do either 2 laps of the same course or 2 different loops with a crossover near the start finish. My favorite race was always Rage in the Sage. 2 laps on a 21 mile course. The start is on a brutal dirt road for a mile, the rest single track and the finish is on a bmx track.

Click to expand...

Funny you mention the 4 lap "threshold"! Looks like our course will work out so that the pro/expert groups will do 4 laps - and the laps may be as much as 7.5 to 8 miles - but are at 6.2 miles now. The cool part is that for each lap we'll be going through the start/finish/staging area twice, as it's a distorted figure 8 that instead of crossing at the intersection "pinches down". Keeps the registration/expo/start/finish/etc... area very central and festive - I hope anyhow! With FAST lap times of about 40 minutes as the 6.2 mile course stands now, it's more of a typical XC race - but, we;ve got the preliminary OK to add some connector pieces of trail in that will add as much as 1.6 miles aprx, 1/2 of which is baby-head strewn techy singletrack that will make everyone work pretty hard, especially when cracking at the end!

Here's the map thus far:


We're looking to add the trail at the top - the finer red line - with the aid of a new piece of trail to tie it in, away from those "pink boxes" that represent property we need to avoid. The course heads down to the left along a dirt road, then makes a hard left onto singletrack and goes generally counter-clockwise...

For those that know it - this will be very similar to the MSC Chalk Creek course - just no evil headwind grass field climbing! Pinion/Juniper scrubby trees, lot's of baby heads and some soft arroyo crossings - but some really fun techy trails too.