Why is H2H hurting when MASS is doing well?

[szymon]

Anything is possible but aligning 2 series across 5-6 states would be a complete nightmare.

 

[stb222]

Sure... from a racers perspective... my perspective. I think I may have asked somewhere in this forum if those conversations happen. i think I got shamed in to submission

I did have a solid conversation while riding with a MASS committee member over the winter and my take was they don’t talk to each other.

While at our view it would seem impossible, I guess I have more faith in what people can accomplish if they wanted to do something.

So how do you solve when a particular race venue only offers 1 date and 1 rain date? And another venue offer the same date?

For a purely driving standpoint, what is the reasonable distance most will travel? I’m not talking the outliers, talking the majority.

 

[Mountain Bike Mike]

Right now here are the XC race conflicts between MASS and H2H.. i mentioned the NICA conflicts already...


Fair Hill & Mooch
Stewart & French Creek

Am I missing any?

There are a few double weekends like Nesh and Lew Mo... Granogue and Bulldog Rump...

 

[Dominos]

who by the way I keep thinking is @stb222

This has been driving me nuts for weeks.

 

[Mountain Bike Mike]

For a purely driving standpoint, what is the reasonable distance most will travel? I’m not talking the outliers, talking the majority.

You read most of the race recaps... you haven’t come to this conclusion already? Just before Ringwood, a bunch of forum ans social media chatter came out of a Connecticut race..

And some recaps from the Stoopid 50...

You heard today that Ringwood drew racers from Maryland and the North East...

Shit - Muddybike was on the west coast... Natz are in West Virginia..

 

[Team Town Cycle]

I stated above - to not step on other other series schedules when planning contingencies. Hindsight is 20/20 and the Chester race could’ve absolutely ran on its original schedule. There were some decisions made on a shitty weather forecast and some local park politics.

NICA was rescheduled from the 8th to the 15th due to weather/trail conditions. NICA has to try to call the races a bit ahead of time, which, as we all know, is difficult to say the least. Weather forecasts change. Trail conditions are hard to predict. There are NICA rules re:temps, precip., etc. There was a ton of angst about whether or not to cancel NICA for this past Sunday. We lucked out with no rain, but it could have gone sideways at any point.

As many have said, we are trying to cram a lot of events into a short calendar. There are some parks that can't run races between Memorial Day and Labor (Ringwood being one of them). People will always complain - "this venue is too technical/flat/short/long/too far/too roadie/too rocky/too sandy." If we run into the fall, the people who race XC and CX complain. If we race Saturday's, some people will say "But I work on Saturdays!" If we race Sundays, it's family day for many. NICA has to fit their schedule into the school year calendar. We are NEVER going to please everyone.

NYS is a 3 race series this year - they run great races at great venues, but their numbers are seriously down as well. There are just so many events competing for racers attention/time/dollars. For racers - lots of people think it's great! So! Many! Options! As promoters, well, again, we are never going to please everyone.

Having said all of that, there are so many people who come out and support all these different races and series. It was great to see all the people who came out this weekend to Ringwood, cold weather and all. We appreciate everyone has options, and we really truly appreciated that you chose to spend your hard earned money and valuable time with us. It was also great to see all the NICA kids out in the chilly weather (goodness, don't know how some of these 70 lb kids in shorts kept warm!) These kids are so excited about mountain biking and racing and are just fun to watch and be around. The corny cheesy tag of "They are the future of MTB'ing" maybe overused but true!

Thanks again for your support!

 

[stb222]

You read most of the race recaps... you haven’t come to this conclusion already? Just before Ringwood, a bunch of forum ans social media chatter came out of a Connecticut race..

And some recaps from the Stoopid 50...

You heard today that Ringwood drew racers from Maryland and the North East...

Shit - Muddybike was on the west coast... Natz are in West Virginia..

ok, MuddyBike is one of how many people from the east coast out there? Outlier catgory.

So what percentage of is traveling? That is the question. And Connecticut for North Jersey people isn't much further / or similar distance to driving to some of the MASS races.

I know you think I am trolling, but the question is valid.

 

[Mountain Bike Mike]

For me 2 hours each way.... would do 2.5 maybe 3 if I was super interested in a specific race

Edit - I drive two hours to ride CR on Thursday... I’ve driven many hours to join group rides...

 

[Matt_]

Wife and I aren't signed up yet, but we're doing Fair Hills this weekend. Reasons are a few, but simple. When we can escape our Clayton/Allaire conundrum (we live in the middle) for a weekday hooky ride after dropping the kids off at school, we normally head west/south because there's no avoiding northern traffic. My wife has only been riding for a year, so she's not very confident and hasn't had time to work on her tech skills, but LOVES places like White Clay and Fair Hills (her first and favorite race was Ramseys).... so that also factored into our race dates this year.

There are a few other reasons, but most seem to boil down to geography, what we're doing with our 4 kids, what time the race categories start, etc.... nothing that race promoters are doing right or wrong

 

[1speed]

To @stb222 's point, I think you do need to remove outliers, or at least "event" races when you think about how far people will go. Those are races that draw one-and-doners for the "life experience" of it and repeaters for the epic rides themselves. I'm thinking races like a lot of the NUEs, or really long endurance races like 24 hour stuff. Other than that, it's probably a couple hours for most people - life just gets too complicated beyond that. Most people can't spend the whole weekend on one race by getting hotel rooms and driving for four or five hours because of family and stuff like that.

As far as DT's original question, I think one really simple explanation would be just the location of the series itself. MASS is bigger in terms of geographical range. It can draw from a larger sample of riders because it has races that are "local" for many different areas - Trail Mix is local for folks out near State College, Fair Hill is local for Delaware and Maryland, etc. And it is more centrally located - it can draw folks everywhere from Northern VA to NY and north. The H2H is more like a NJ state thing. The racing is great in the H2H, but it's a smaller profile -- all of the folks who race the H2H are probably aware of the MASS, but the converse may not be true for everyone in the MASS. In fact, that was the problem with the old AMBC series that was more local to MD back in the day. I'm dating myself there, but for those who don't know, the AMBC series included races like the Susquehanna Scorcher in the early 00's - it was much more of a local series than the MASS and as the MASS grew, it went in the opposite direction.

 

[JDurk]

Lots of good discussion here. Been racing the MASS series since '08 and have seen 800+ racers at the first race of the season at Fair Hill. I don't purchase a USAC license because I don't CX and MASS doesn't require it. Personally, I usually wait until the last day to pre-register. As former promoter of the Summer Sizzler and now just a very involved volunteer, I would see big numbers in the last 2 days, usually doubling pre-reg and have 80-100 show up day of. Lots of events are now battling for participants at the same time. I've seen a lot of mtbers doing the recent and soon to happen gravel rides. Only H2H event I've done was Mayhem, but it's only a 30min drive for me.

Thankfully I live dead smack in the middle of the two series and my furthesr drive is to tue MASS finals which is roughly 2:15 each way.

FYI, MASS finals will be at Big Elk Off Road in Fair Hill this year, not the farm in Marysville.

 

[Steve Vai]

There's just 3 series competing against each other for a dwindling race crowd. People who used to race no longer do for whatever reason and there's no new folks coming in. I'd imagine once the NICA kids come of age they'll be looking to bump into Mass or H2H and numbers will go up.

 

[Chris(NJ)]

I'm going to race a little bit again this year and I chose MASS races. Either the dates were more convenient or I liked the venues better. I never enjoyed race courses that felt like the whole thing was a rock garden. Having a 9mph avg race speed isnt very fun for me

 

[UtahJoe]

@David Taylor did you really start a thread comparing the numbers for mooch a week before the race (which is EIONS since everyone knows these races dont sell out) to Fair hill....one of if not the best attended XC on the east coast, period ...I understand you are on an H2h bashathon, but come on....NOTHING compares to fail hill.

 

[RideBKBenVC]

From my conversations with other NYC people, folks here have a lot more experience with cyclocross and road so very technical courses are intimidating. They think Fair Hill will be more fun because it's less pointy

 

[Dave Taylor]

@David Taylor did you really start a thread comparing the numbers for mooch a week before the race (which is EIONS since everyone knows these races dont sell out) to Fair hill....one of if not the best attended XC on the east coast, period ...I understand you are on an H2h bashathon, but come on....NOTHING compares to fail hill.

Well, I actually started this to see how to improve H2H as it would be nice to have it around longer. I made it a new thread so everyone can have their opinions viewed openly and not suppressed/ridiculed by certain people. Thus why I did not give my opinion. Mooch happens to be the next race. I’m confident numbers will stay relatively consistent however so how do we improve. Unless I am blind and the series really isn’t in need of new and fresh views/ideas. Sorry if I came off in a negative light. Unfortunately this happens more often than not with me and it’s really unintentional to be negative.

 

[Dave Taylor]

@David Taylor did you really start a thread comparing the numbers for mooch a week before the race (which is EIONS since everyone knows these races dont sell out) to Fair hill....one of if not the best attended XC on the east coast, period ...I understand you are on an H2h bashathon, but come on....NOTHING compares to fail hill.

And on a side note I try to promote the hell out of races, MTBNJ, local shops etc so...

 

[Team Town Cycle]

There's just 3 series competing against each other for a dwindling race crowd. People who used to race no longer do for whatever reason and there's no new folks coming in. I'd imagine once the NICA kids come of age they'll be looking to bump into Mass or H2H and numbers will go up.

Agree with this. Even if only 25% stay with the sport after HS, that will be a huge bump EACH YEAR.

 

[Mountain Bike Mike]

Surprisingly many NiCA kids can ride most of the race courses offerred now without having to graduate from NICA... no need to wait..

 

[Mare]

I am not racing these days, but in the past, it was a big turn off when cat 2 went from about 18 miles to 12 miles. I am not as fit now as my race days, but I still wouldn't go to a race that's 12 miles. If I am making the drive, I want a longer race. I like that H2H has the endurance option this year, but it's from one extreme to the other. MASS is typically a longer race, and less laps because they're at big parks with miles of trails...that's a lot more fun.

I think MASS races are at destinations, where as people aren't traveling far to ride Lewis Morris (or insert any other NJ park here). It's hard enough to ride the same home parks on the weekends so to race them is even less exciting.