What Makes A Great Sportive

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What Makes A Great Sportive

Postby Lead Balloon » 01 Feb 2018 13:34

Hey all, looking to pick the brains of the BCTTT Massive.

I'm looking at producing a sportive (hopefully this year) along with a couple of others and wanted to get everyone's thoughts on what makes a great sportive. What sort of route does everyone like, challenging or something you can really enjoy? What sort of things did you like or would you want at the feed stations?

Is there anything about certain events tat make you want to go back, like a great medal, event jersey etc?

What sort of things di you really appreciate in the finisher's goodie bag?

In the long run the aim is to have an event or several that could rival the bigger ones out there, but obviously early days and we've got to get it off the ground first.

Basically any and all thoughts welcome about what you expect, what worked and what didn't and everything else in between from food to route to medical to start/finish location and beyond
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Re: What Makes A Great Sportive

Postby jonathon.e » 17 Mar 2018 11:54

Apologises, should have written earlier, but I have to look and answer from a different perspective.
I have ridden only one official sportive, that of The Tour of the Peaks, WORSE ride of my life, why ?
Bad weather ( yes the weather was crap,you cannot do much about that, except, it was the wrong season for the ride, so choose the course for the season ).
Bad riding ( there is a report somewhere, a lot of riders had not a clue about group riding, so a number ( huge amount ), of accidents where caused by poor riding knowledge ).
Poor directions, lack of signage. ( I accept that it is the riders responsibility to know the route, and some signage goes missing )
The feed stations where poorly marked
And, throughout the day I didn't see an official course vehicle patrolling the route I was on.

However, these are only my view, maybe some of the others could point out their views of that day, Jack, Shadow, etc.

On the plus side, I have ridden Jacks Hell of the North totally unofficial, but simple, hard ride, right season for the ride, excellent nutrition, riders could ride in groups, race sprints and Strava segments. Unfortunately due work the last couple of years au have been unable to attend :cry:
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Re: What Makes A Great Sportive

Postby Kevy427 » 17 Mar 2018 21:56

jonathon.e wrote:Unfortunately due work the last couple of years au have been unable to attend :cry:

Probably no bad thing otherwise your 2016/17 sock procurement budget would've taken a heavy hit ;)
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Re: What Makes A Great Sportive

Postby jonathon.e » 18 Mar 2018 11:51

Kevy427 wrote:
jonathon.e wrote:Unfortunately due work the last couple of years au have been unable to attend :cry:

Probably no bad thing otherwise your 2016/17 sock procurement budget would've taken a heavy hit ;)


:lol: :lol: :lol:
Particularly as I missed the Aldi special deals on cycling socks ;)
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Re: What Makes A Great Sportive

Postby Jack Hughes » 23 Mar 2018 09:29

Good marketing!
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Re: What Makes A Great Sportive

Postby Lead Balloon » 29 Mar 2018 18:11

Jack Hughes wrote:Good marketing!


Thanks Jack, a couple of the ‘team’ are marketing gurus so ai’m learning a lot. It’s still a work in progress and we’re hoping to add a lot more over the coming months.

Decent signage has been one thing that has been mentioned a couple of times so it’s something we were very conscious of when doing the route(s) risk assessment. Benji made a great suggestion about the temporary road spray paint so I intend to make use of it in addition to the signage.

We’re still thinking about what would make good finishing gifts at the moment. I think a buff is one idea being floated around and probably a couple of other bits. We’re also considering an event jersey but that’s still in the to do list.

If you havent checked it out yet feel free to have a look at multisportevents.co.uk and let me know what you think of the site and the event
jonathon.e wrote:
Kevy427 wrote:
jonathon.e wrote:Unfortunately due work the last couple of years au have been unable to attend :cry:

Probably no bad thing otherwise your 2016/17 sock procurement budget would've taken a heavy hit ;)


:lol: :lol: :lol:
Particularly as I missed the Aldi special deals on cycling socks ;)


Does that mean you’d want socks as a finishing gift then :lol:
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Re: What Makes A Great Sportive

Postby Kevy427 » 29 Mar 2018 20:53

Don’t go overboard with the temporary road spray as that pisses off the indigenous population of certain villages. It worked to great effect in the New Forest ;) :lol:
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Re: What Makes A Great Sportive

Postby jonathon.e » 30 Mar 2018 10:23

Oooh socks, cannot go wrong with those.
There are a couple of sportives that run through our village and along a route I regularly travel to work, a regular comment is regarding the amount of litter that gets dropped, I understand that it is the riders not the organisers that are responsible for dropping the trash, but if the locals are kept sweet they are more likely to welcome you back. A litter sweep after the sportive as you pick up the signage, may help placate the local torch and pitch fork brigade.
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