Singletrack

ChIPPs
LAST WORD
Event organisers and the cycle of abuse, forgiveness and eventual love.
As well as writing about bikes and the people behind them, I’ve been involved in organising mountain
bike events for 20 years or so. Since helping organise the very first Mountain Mayhem in 1998, I’ve spent
countless weekends in random fields with my big boots on and stripy tape and secateurs to hand.
The world seems to divide reasonably easily between
actors, audience and backstage crew, and there seems
to be a particular type of person who finds themselves
called to work behind the scenes (usually unheralded
and barely rewarded) for the glory of the event.
The motivation of the players – the actors, the
racers, the rock stars – is pretty easy to trace. They’re
(often) blessed with talent and bring that determination
and ambition to succeed. Performing, whether it is at
the front of the race, or sitting on the drum riser, is what
they live for. That drive and hunger to succeed needs to
be sated. The rest, as they say, is just waiting.
The audiences, meanwhile, want to be entertained.
That’s a pretty simple deal to understand too. Pay your
money (or don’t – but even turning up to a free event
still costs your time and effort) and then expect to be
amused, or enthralled. Shocked or delighted. There’s
something about a live event that feels different to
watching a screen.
And then there are the event organisers. Those
mostly hidden backstage workers who bring you the
spectacles to watch (or perform in). They’re a different
breed, for sure.
Something like 50% of Singletrack’s readers never
do events, but the other 50% do. And those riders
expect to turn up on the Friday night, or Sunday
morning or whenever, take part and go home again. The
organiser and their team will often be on site the week
before, prepping the course, bringing in the barriers,
directing the toilet delivery and putting the flags up.
It’s a long process – and anyone who’s seen the literally
miles of course tape that flanks the course at Fort
William or Mountain Mayhem, can only guess at how
long that takes to put up. (Securely, so it won’t blow
away, but also with the sponsor’s name the correct way
up.) And just as races tend to go on regardless of the
weather, so the whole preceding week of weather can’t
have any bearing on getting that course up and marked.
Winter cyclocross organisers will be in the town park
before it’s light, wearing head torches to see where to put
course markers while fielding complaints from the ‘But I
always walk here on a Sunday’ dog walkers.
As the riders start arriving, every event venue
I’ve ever been to (save, perhaps, the London
Olympics) is still taking shape. However much time
you leave to get the place pitched, there’ll always be
enough last minute jobs to ensure that early practice
lappers will have to use a bit of common sense and
course finding until the rest of the tape goes up.
The event itself, for the organiser, is usually a
blur of plate spinning and on the spot improvising.
A rider is down, do you need to stop the race? Or
reroute it? And then what about the affected lap
times? There’s a dog on the course. Three riders are
missing timing chips. The farmer needs to get to his
gate. The inflatable finish arch genny is starting to
run out of petrol. It’s a rare (or very well organised,
or master delegator) organiser that will hear the start
gun and think ‘My work here is done’.
In fact, I’ve often been so frazzled by the time
the event actually starts that I find I resent the
whole thing. The thought of doing another event
just makes me shudder. I’ve seen that look in other
race organisers’ eyes, in the lead up to, or during,
an event. That thought of ‘Let’s just get this over
with and then I can have a glass of wine’. Or after
an event as the VW T5s leave the car park and the
organiser is filling wet bin bags with wet rubbish
and muddy course tape. Ask them then and they
couldn’t think of anything worse than doing it all
again.
Give it a day or two for the positive comments
to appear online, or the messages of thanks by text
and phone, and the organiser starts to forget the
early starts and crappy days. And soon the entry
forms for next year are drafted again.
Next time you’re at an event, spare a thought for
the organiser, teetering between love and resentment
for their own event and remember the power of a
‘Thank you’.
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