How much for your sportive

[NorthernSky]

i haven't been doing many sportives recently but i would like to aim for one next year
when i went to book the one i was considering it was £40
is it me or is that getting a bit steep?

how much did you pay for your last one, and what are you prepared to pay?

 

[I like Skol]

Surely the question is 'how much am I prepared to pay?'

What anyone else pays is irrelevant. Do you want to do the event and if so are you prepared to pay the entry fee? If nobody is willing to pay the fee then the event will either disappear or the cost will drop.

 

[mustang1]

Surely the question is 'how much am I prepared to pay?'

What anyone else pays is irrelevant. Do you want to do the event and if so are you prepared to pay the entry fee? If nobody is willing to pay the fee then the event will either disappear or the cost will drop.

This segments the market .for those who want to pay £100, they will do so. Then a month later the price will drop to £50. Those who can pay, will do so .later it will drop to £25 and so on.

This is how estate agents work. Grr.

 

[NorthernSky]

yeah, i guess it's to get a feel for what people are paying these days for a sportive.

the one i'm looking at is a timed event so there's probably extra cost for that

 

[I like Skol]

This segments the market .for those who want to pay £100, they will do so. Then a month later the price will drop to £50. Those who can pay, will do so .later it will drop to £25 and so on.

This is how estate agents work. Grr.

Not quite what I meant. I don't think many sportive organisers drop the price of events after it has been announced (although I don't pay much attention to sportives despite doing a couple myself). To do so will actually make things awkward for them as they will be hit with lots of 'I want my money back' requests and will also suffer with people holding off booking a spot until the last minute, just to bag a bargain discounted entry. In fact quite the opposite, there is often a discount for booking early.

I actually meant that if there was a poor turnout due to the cost of an event then the entry fee for subsequent events might be reduced in following years or it just might not be run due to insufficient funds to cover the costs.

 

[steverob]

My local charity one that I do most years "Tour de Vale", which has been running for about 20 years (although it wasn't every year at the beginning I think), is reasonably priced - think it was only £20 for the 100km ride and £15 for the 60km. Considering that does include a broom wagon, a number of water stops (think there wasn't any free food though) and a timing chip, that's a lot less than others I've seen quote. And while they encourage you to raise money for WheelPower (British Wheelchair Sport), there's no mandatory donation/fundraising over and above the fee for taking part.

The only other one I'm taking part in next year that I'm willing to pay for is the Tour of Cambridgeshire and that's only because of the closed roads aspect. That is obviously a lot more expensive at £80 (although I got 25% off on an early bird special), but I think that's worth it.

 

[Soltydog]

I've not done a sportive for a few years now, but what I have done a few times this year is to head off somewhere different either by train or car, plot my own route & have a nice cafe stop of my choosing. It's been a bit like doing a sportive without all the team sky wannabies & quite often cheaper
That said there is a few sportives that I enjoy doing, but with my shift work involving saturdays I've missed the ones I've fancied in recent times

 

[mjr]

The last one I rode was La Savoureuse, mentioned in another post on here. I paid €25 for 60km (so technically the randonneuse not the sportive - the sportive differed in being 90km for the same price and having an extra feed stop after lunch IIRC) which included a musette containing the carnet and lollipop, croissant+coffee+tartine breakfast at the start, five tasting stations (soup; quiche+beer; chicken+pasta lunch; cheeses+beer; strawberries+ice cream), hot dog at the end, lead-out car and police closing the road at the start and marshalling major crossings. 10.30am start too IIRC. The finish packed up about 5.30 I think. I understand the route and food varies each year.

I feel British sportives tend to have loads of bureaucracy, wrongheaded safety measures, uncivilised early starts, tight time limits, not enough food and relatively high prices for what you do get. I don't do them any more. I still do charity fun rides, but they seem to be being replaced by sportives and then slowly dying off - I guess sportives are more profitable in the short term but not sustainable because there's not much they can change from year to year to keep people coming back in such a spartan event.

(edited to add link to other post)

 

[DCLane]

The only sportive I've done in recent years is the Etape du Dales, which is about £40 from memory: https://www.etapedudales.org/ That included some support, feed stations and lunch.

Otherwise it's been audaxes which, when considering lunch stops, tend to be about the same price but don't have the 'must race' rider who rides like an idiot ... yet isn't quick.

 

[iandg]

I'm not a fan of sportives. I don't begrudge paying the high entry fees because I am aware of the various costs that organisers have to cover (eg. closed roads, electronic tag/chip system hire, rider insurance, event insurance, helper insurance, outside help etc. etc. etc........)

Last time I rode one was the Ullapool Sportive in 2012. I paid about £30(?) entry and very little food provided en-route. I was one of the later riders back at the finish - no food left and no commemorative mug or water-bottles left - all I took home was a till-receipt piece of paper with my finish time printed on it.

At the time the organiser commented that because the event was so far north it didn't attract many riders (about 200 finishers combined baeg/mor) and was struggling to make ends meet and the event is no longer on the calendar.

I've run 3 x 300km Audax events at £10 a head on the Isle of Lewis attracting 40 riders - provided basic breakfast, a bread/soup mid event feed and beans on toast last control feed plus supper at finish and broken even each time.

I did enjoy the Dirty User9609 though and will enter other gravel rides in the future.

 

[Racing roadkill]

I don’t do many Sportives. Possibly 2 a year, and those have to be closed roaders, or I won’t do them. The costs are what they are, I don’t like paying to ride routes and roads I usually ride for free, hence why I only do ‘unusual’ ones.

 

[iandg]

That sounds like an audax

Touché

 

[mjr]

I'm not a fan of sportives. I don't begrudge paying the high entry fees because I am aware of the various costs that organisers have to cover (eg. closed roads, electronic tag/chip system hire, rider insurance, event insurance, helper insurance, outside help etc. etc. etc........)

Most English sportives I've seen don't close roads or insure riders, less than half have tag or chip systems and some use volunteers instead of paid help (which I find inexplicable for the non-charity ones - why would you work for a commercial operation for free?). I'd be a lot less critical of the price if they actually had such understandable costs.

 

[vickster]

£46 for Ride 46. Not done any other sportives and wouldn’t do unless the roads are closed. Not paying to ride among traffic!

 

[PaulSB]

I've just entered one of our local sportives for just £15 + £1 admin charge to BC. The Lewis Balyckyi Trust Fund is a very worthwhile cycling based cause. Anyone within striking distance of Lancashire should give it a go.

Excellent route, lots of club cyclists involved, free cafe stop and free food at the finish. £15 is fantastic value.

http://www.lbtf.org/