Red Flags

What does a Red Flag mean?

Marshals have two flags; a yellow and a red. The yellow flag means ‘obstruction ahead, proceed with caution’, or ‘watch out, there’s a rider down but he/she is getting back up and carrying on with the race’. The Red Flag means stop. Do it safely, but do it as soon as you can. A red flag usually means an injured rider is on the track and other riders need to stop so they don’t ride into the downed rider or the first aider.

Its important to remember that marshals control the section of the track between themselves and the marshal uphill of them. If you have already ridden past the marshal before the flag is raised, carry on and finish the race. Also, it isn’t the marshals job to decide if any unfair advantage has been gained by a rider, it’s the lucky ATBA-UK race officials who have to do that.

What to do if there is a red flag

If a marshal ahead of you raises a Red Flag you should stop immediately as safely as you can. Watch out for any riders behind you who might not have seen the Red Flag. Once you have stopped, get yourself ready to go again when the Red Flag is dropped (but make sure you don’t do anything that could be seen as gaining an unfair advantage such as hopping ahead of another stopped rider or uphill to the top of a roller). When the Red Flag drops, the race is on again and you should get riding and get yourself across the finish line.

Riders who willfully disobey a Red Flag can be disqualified. It’s not clever and it’s not cool.

Reruns

What is a ‘rerun’?

A rerun is where the results of a race are ignored and the same race is run again. We use reruns as a way of countering ‘unfair advantage’. So, if a rider lost their position in a race because they had to avoid a buffalo that had wondered onto the track, they would be able to ask for a rerun as the others riders could be said to have an unfair advantage. But if a rider lost their position in a race because they fell off, or another rider accidentally collided with them, they wouldn’t be able to ask for a rerun as none of the riders in that race had an unfair advantage.

When you can ask for a rerun?

If you think another rider has gained an unfair advantage because of something they did or something outside of anyone’s control, you can ask for a rerun. An example might be if a rider left the track, and then joined it again ahead of other riders they were previously behind. Unfair advantage = Rerun. If something happens and you think your race should be rerun, firstly finish your race (in case the decision is made not to rerun). Once you have crossed the finish line, immediately speak to the official who recorded the result of your race. Politely explain the situation and why you think the race should be rerun. They’ll make a decision as quickly as they can and if they decide the race should be rerun, they’ll ask all of the riders to go back to the top of the hill.

Always improving

As always, the competitions can only happen if people volunteer to help run them. So if you, or someone you know, comes to the comps but doesn’t compete being a marshal or race official is a great way to help. And, the more often a person works as a marshal, the better they’ll get at it, which makes the racing safer.

If you have any suggestions to improve the competitions, or want to talk about how the comps are run or your race in particular, we are always happy to chat with you, either after the comp or via email, facebook, etc.

• Bring plenty of water and drink it. Dehydrated mountainboarders fall over more. Fact.
• Wear sun screen. That’s a good name for song.
• Wear a hat, and a t-shirt. Sun burn is not cool.
• If you’re going faster than you’d like, let your tyres down. It’s quicker to get down the track in one smooth run than by having to slide out.
• Don’t leave dogs in cars. Get them out and go dogboarding.

See you at Ironsides for more awesomeness than you ever thought possible.

2005 – The history

The first ever UK downhill competition was held in Scotland in 2005. I wasn’t there, but there is video:

By all accounts it was pretty memorable with very few riders making it down the track clean. But then, not much happened in Downhilling for a few years.

2009 – Sewing the seeds

I spent quite a bit of 2009 exploring new places to mountainboard, with more than a few of them in Wales. I started riding long Welsh firetracks with Joe and learning techniques from him. I remember us riding a track called ‘Ballbearing’ because it was covered in small round gravel. I had harder tyres and so should have been going faster (I thought, anyway), but Joe started pumping his board side-to-side and accelerating away from me. I was amazed. That wasn’t supposed to happen. I had a lot to learn from Joe.

The more time I spent riding with Joe the more I realised we shared a lot of the same ideas about mountainboarding. We spent many evenings in various pubs around Wales talking about all sorts; from getting regular freeride meets going, to how mountainboarders had shifted to riding in collectives rather than clubs, to where we saw mountainboarding going in the future. Some of our ideas were a little more outlandish than others. The mountainboard rally may never be more than a few pencil marks on a map, but a lot of the things we talked about set the foundations for how we would come to organise Downhill comps. Using synchronised watches to time riders was one of those eureka moment ideas that should have been obvious long before all the walkie-talkie-stopwatch experiments. Running all the riders together so we didn’t have to worry about which category they were in, or whether they had brakes or not, was also something we thought a good idea. All we needed was somewhere to do it.

Joe was the one who first found Dave. As soon as he told me about it, I had to get over there and ride it. Firetracks, by their very nature, can be quite dull to ride. They are pretty much just a slightly uneven road, without any features or obstacles. Of all the firetracks we had ridden, Dave was the most varied and more interesting. Each corner was different, some were tight and rocky, others were wide and slidey. It had a chicane, fast straights, slow sections, and was without a doubt one of the best firetracks to ride. But at the time, I didn’t even think of putting on a competition there. If I was going to do a competition, I wanted it to be quintessential English Freeride (leafy woodland), and I wanted it to be amazing. Oh, the vanity…

2010 – Don’t say the ‘C’ word

We found out about Cheddar from a guy who runs bike endurance competitions. We checked it out, figured we could put in a pretty awesome track, that we could run an uplift with a minibus, and that the campsite at the bottom of the hill would be the perfect place for the riders to stay. All we needed was permission. We spoke to the campsite owners who said ‘Yes’. Yes, we could all stay at the campsite. And, Yes, we could could clear a track down that there gnarly hill.

It was an awesome track (the videos don’t show just how fast, technically difficult, and physically demanding it was). Anyway, as it turned out, the campsite didn’t actually own the hill and the quarrying company that did were less than pleased about us being there and threatened to sue us if we ever returned. In some ways, I think, we were lucky it didn’t go ahead. The course was a bit too gnarly for a first venture into downhilling. It would have only attracted a very small minority of riders who like gnarly singletrack in the woods, would have had lots of falling off, would have cost more money than it made, and would have most likely set downhilling in the UK back even further than not having a comp at all. So, undeterred, we set out to find somewhere else. It had to have a cool track, that would work for both brake and no-brake riders. It needed to have a way of running an uplift, and somewhere nearby to camp. Surely not too much to ask.

2011 – Time for something different

After what seemed like ages spent searching the internet, driving all over the place, and hiking up and down plenty of hills, we found somewhere with potential. It was a bike track in Somerset, and they already held mountainbike competitions so getting a mountainboard comp there shouldn’t have been too difficult.

Unfortunately the place was owned by a crazy millionaire land-owner who would only communicate through letters, and despite site visits, test rides, and numerous letters, I eventually had to accept that it was going nowhere. For a while I was struggling to see how we could ever get DH comps going, and then, finally I realised my mistake. I had been trying to take the way we do comp’s at centres and move it into a remote location, one without power, water, toilets, etc. I was trying to be too big too soon. It just wasn’t viable, financially or logistically. It was never going to work. We needed a different way of doing things.

The realisation that we didn’t need to use the two-day centre-based way of organising comps and could in fact do a downhill comp in one-day was a pivotal point, and actually came as a bit of a shock to me. It changed the way I thought about things and opened up the possibility of a downhill comp actually happening. Joe and I began talking more seriously, and Joe’s project planning skills came in really handy. We began to work out what were the important parts of a downhill comp. We only wanted the vital aspects, nothing extra. Just what the riders really wanted, rather than what we thought would make a comp look impressive. And if there was something that we could do, but it didn’t add any real value to the comp, it was thrown out.

We decided that rather than having to arrange things like a campsite, catering and toilets, we could let the riders take care of themselves. We’d point them in the direction of a local campsite, but one of the benefits of doing the comp in a day was that riders could turn up just for the day if they wanted. We threw out the idea of practice runs. Why did we need to waste riding time practicing when those runs might as well be timed? We wanted riders to get as many runs for their entry fee as possible and a quick bit of maths said we could aim for at least five runs. We didn’t need a complicated digital timing system, synchronised watches and paper would do just fine. We didn’t need a huge team of volunteers. The comp could be run with two people; one at the bottom recording the finish times, and another driving the uplift and recording the start times. We knew our ‘minimum viable product’, to use entrepreneurial speak, would be a standalone downhill comp that could be run by two people with basic timing and an uplift. All we needed was the riders.

Twenty four riders competed at the first ‘Dave’ comp. We were expecting eighteen. They all piled in the back of my car with smiles on their their faces and rode a dusty Dave again and again. To no ones surprise JC won with a time that was 14 seconds ahead of second place. Seeing him riding was like seeing some rare animal released back into it’s natural environment. Pretty much everyone seemed to have a good time and encouraged us to want to do more downhill comps.

Dave was undoubtedly a success. It got the UK Downhill ball rolling. But if we were going to grow Downhilling we would need to learn from Dave so we could improve. So, using Eric Reis’ Build-Measure-Learn loop as a model we surveyed those twenty four riders, thought about what told us, and gave ourselves realistic feedback. We decided that next year we needed to use riders numbers to make it easier for the person doing the timing to identify riders, we needed a bigger uplift, and a quicker and more reliable way of working out the times. And we needed more comps.

2012 – The Three Nations

For 2012, we wanted a Series of three comps. Having one in England, one in Wales, and one in Scotland seemed geographically fair, and gave us more scope for finding places to hold comps. The comp in the Lake District came about because while a group of us were riding there one day, the head ranger offered us a lift over to a track on the far side of the hill at Whinlatter Forest. He said that if we ever wanted to organise anything there, to send him an email. So we did. Riding at Dave was an easy choice for Wales. We already knew the track, the ranger, and how to run a comp there. And for Scotland Dave and Allan wanted to resurrect the track used in 2005, albeit tamed down a bit.

The work that went on behind each comp had it’s challenges. Even though all three comps were on Forestry Commission managed land, each FC Office had their own way of doing things and their own rules that had to be had to be followed. In Scotland, the uplift had to have seat belts, which is how we hit upon the idea of getting a minibus to take riders from down south up to there in the most cost effective way, and use it for the uplift too. We didn’t get enough people interested in getting a minibus to Scotland, but at least we know that now (and it’s all about failing fast and learning lots in new endeavours). Wales is the most expensive with CROW access (gotta let the birds in). The Lake District had its own logistical challenges including lots of walkers.

We had seventy nine entries over all three comps, and just over 20% of those riders had never competed in centre-based comps. That’s a pretty good growth in competitor numbers and proved to us that the riders want Downhill comps. The problem for us was that we realised that we had reached maximum capacity with about thirty riders. Any more than that and we wouldn’t be able to get them to the top of track and set them off quick enough.

2013 – Where do we go from here?

We don’t really want to keep going back to the same places and riding the same tracks year after year. That’s one of the things that limits BoarderX and Freestyle, but with Downhill finding tracks of the right length and technical difficulty that we can actually get permission to ride is getting harder and harder. Having done firetracks, the 2013 DH comps to go in a slightly different direction, into the woods, and perhaps even up a mountain. We’ve chosen tracks would that aren’t too hard nor too easy as we still want to encourage people who aren’t into hardcore DH to give it ago. This way, the Downhill comps can grow with the riders. As they get better, the tracks will get harder. We’ve also got a lot of work ahead liaising with organisations like the Forestry Commission and the National Trust to build a legacy and make sure we’ve got places to go in future years.

Round 1 – 6th April – Downhill – Head Down, Hampshire.
Round 2 – 18th & 19th May – Boarderx & Freestyle – Hales Superbole, Cheshire.
Round 3 – 15th & 16th June – Downhill – South Oxfordshire.
Round 4 – 13th & 14th July – Boarderx & Freestyle – Ironsides, Herefordshire.
Round 5 – 3rd August – Downhill – Scotland.
Round 6 – 17th & 18th August – Boarderx & Freestyle – Bugs Boarding, Gloucestershire.
Round 7 – 7th September – Downhill – Llangollen, Wales.

We all wish everyone at Haredown all the best.

Round 1 – April – Downhill – Location to be confirmed
Round 2 – 18th & 19th May – Boarderx & Freestyle – Hales Superbole
Round 3 – 15th & 16th June – Boarderx & Freestyle – Haredown
Round 4 – 13th & 14th July – Boarderx & Freestyle – Ironsides
Round 5 – August – Downhill – Location to be confirmed
Round 6 – 17th & 18th August – Boarderx & Freestyle – Bugs Boarding
Round 7 – September – Downhill – Location to be confirmed

Introduction

This report sets out the achievements of this year’s committee.

Events

This year we had 126 Competitors over 11 competitions with 390 entries (3.7% increase, compared to 376 last year). Average number of competitions entered: 3.09

The Novice/Grom’s category was continued to make it easier for first time riders to enter. This year we had 28 riders who had never competed in an ATBA-UK competition before.

The BoarderX race system has been revised to work better with smaller numbers of competitors. There were 177 BoarderX Entries.

Freestyle competitions for all categories have been run using a Jam format to make the competitions more interesting for the riders and spectators. There were 134 Freestyle entries.

After the success of last year’s Downhill competition, this year we did a three round Downhill Series for the riders who are into freeriding and downhilling. The competitions took place in the Lake District, Wales and Scotland and had 79 Downhill entries. We’ve secured four Centre-based competitions for 2013 and are working on three Downhill competitions.

Membership

This year we have 174 Members (16% increase, compared to 150 last year). The New Riders free membership has been a success bringing in 63 new mountainboarders into the community.

Promotion

Regular Press Releases have been sent to newspapers and national and local sports organisations to raise the profile of the competitions.

The ATBA-UK youtube channel has been utilised to increase coverage of the events.

Resources

We have purchased a laptop and generator to make running competitions smoother and make the ATBA-UK more self-sufficient.

Standards

We are working on the first draft of an updated Instructor Manual which will give instructors a more robust skill set and allow Assessors to deliver the training in more ways.

Other achievements

We provided some rider sponsorship for Joe Dickson and Josh Maddocks to go to Russia to compete in the World Freestyle Challenge.

-Raph La Roche, Chairman

Results

Total replies: 88

Age:

• 16 – 13-16 year olds
• 38 – 17-29 year olds
• 34 – 30+ year olds

Gender:

• 83 Male
• 5 Female

Did you compete in this year’s competitions

• 30 competitors
• 58 non-competitors

Of the 58 who didn’t compete this year, when asked will you compete in next year’s competitions

• 32 No
• 26 Yes

Of those who didn’t compete, the reasons they gave were:

• 7 Couldn’t afford it
• 12 Not into competing
• 14 Couldn’t get there
• 15 Not good enough
• 19 Had other stuff on

Of the 30 who did compete, what were their favourite disciplines:

• 13 BoarderX
• 10 Downhill
• 7 Freestyle

Of the 30 who did compete, did competing improve their riding

• 8 No
• 22 Yes

What did those who competed like about the competitions:

• Seeing friends, the junior category going off!!!
• Meeting up with people I have known for years.
• Meeting up with friends that I’ve made over the years of racing & don’t normally see
• social aspect
• Awesome first experience with a great bunch of people ! Loved racing and watching everyone else
• riding with other mountainboarders
• Being pushed to progress your riding
• The chilled/friendly atmosphere
• I liked the jam format the most
• How it was a jam session and not a set amounts of runs.. Also it was my first comp!!
• Seeing friends, having a good session. I also enjoyed the addition of the slip’n’slide at otg and the shot bar at haredown.
• the hales crew are really funny guys and they have some little rippers
• this year was organised well and the actual events were awesome
• Familiar faces and intense races.
• Really, really awesome group of people
• The people and the care and attention given the courses. (Haredown)
• Really fun competing and meeting new people.
• Well organised, Well attended
• It’s like a big meet up. And the up lifts
• I loved the great friendly atmosphere provided by all and how helpful everyone was
• meeting up with other riders:)

What didn’t competitors like

• prize giving on sunday sometimes being a bit late as we have normally a 4-5 hour journey home
• Re-running races as there are not enough girls! :[ It seems odd that only the final one counts even though they are all the same. I wonder if a points system would work better until more competitors join, but that’s just my opinion
• The small turn out to compete in some catagories and the small number of spectators
• lack of information given as in a very small amount of notice given when the comps where reorganized and the was no notice give when the haredown freestyle was changed too Saturday
• The low turnouts.
• Shame so many had dates rearranged because of weather and I couldn’t get time off.
• As i only went to the 2 events The only dislike i had was at ironside  how after the days events there was nothing planned for riders or spectators for the evening and we were left to make out own entertainment but this was just my experience
• time keeping
• My results. Just kidding I was happy for a first time competing. Was impressed by the comps so have no complaints.

What can be learnt from the survey?

The learning points from the survey are focused on achieving the aim of growing the competitions. There are a number of ways in which the competitions can grow, for example the average number of entries per rider this season was 3. If that was increased to 4 it would represent a 33% increase in the number of entries across the entire season (from 390 to 520) without any increase in the number of riders.

The competitions can also grow through an increase in the number of competitors. The 30 competitors that completed the survey represent approximately 24% of the total number of competitors this season. With a total of 58 responses from non-competitive mountainboarders we can extrapolate from that an approximate number of 244 across the UK. Of the 58 non-competitive mountainboarders who completed the survey, 26 said they were considering completing next year. Using the same extrapolation we can assume there are 109 potential competitors across the UK at the present time. This leads us to question why these mountainboarders are not already attending the competitions.

One of the main reasons non-competitors gave for not attending competitions was ‘having other things on’ (selected 19 times) which clashed with the competitions. This has been recognised as a barrier to attending the competitions for a number of years and has been tackled by the ATBA-UK committee endeavouring to arrange the dates for the following seasons competitions in time to be announced at the AGM. The consistency of the dates selected (same weekends each year) also helps people to plan their time in advance.

The second most highlighted reason for not attending the competitions was that the rider considered themselves ‘not good enough’ (selected 15 times). It’s generally recognised that the main factor for the reduction in serious injuries in competitions over the past few years is the improvement in the general level of rider skill. It’s important to keep this in mind when encouraging less experienced riders to enter the competitions without any controls in place to ensure they possess the appropriate skills. The accepted guideline for minimum competition skill is for the rider to be able to complete a BoarderX track and Freestyle jumps without stopping, and be able to control their speed sufficiently for Downhill tracks. The Novice category was introduced to allow riders who have never entered an ATBA-UK competition to compete against riders of similar ability. Unfortunately this lead to a situation where young children were competing against adults simply because it was their first competition. This was perhaps the result of a lack of communication / misunderstanding around first time competitors entry being free but nonetheless could not be allowed to continue due to safety concerns. The question of how to encourage riders who feel they do not have sufficient skill whilst not putting them in a situation where they may suffer injury remains. Perhaps the committee could look at arranging practice days at centres before each competition and promote them specifically for new riders.

Another reason non-competitors gave for not attending competitions was ‘not being able to get there’ (selected 14 times). The significant barrier that lack of cost-effective transport represents could be tackled by leveraging the existing community that attends the competitions to arrange lift-shares. This in turn raises questions about the setting up, and promoting of the scheme but it certainly offers a potential means of enabling more riders to get to more competitions.

Those who competed in the ATBA-UK competitions were asked questions to ascertain what they liked and disliked about the competitions and whether the competitions helped to improve their riding. 22 out of 30 of them said competing did improve their riding, which lends weight to the suggestion that riders are getting fewer injuries because they are getting better at competing (not just riding skill but also race strategy). 43% of the riders said BoarderX was their favourite discipline, 33% Downhill, and 24% Freestyle. This is inconsistent with the actual number of entries but can be explained by fewer freestylers completing the survey and the interest in Downhill as a new competitive discipline. This interest in Downhill can be utilised in the coming years to grow the discipline both in terms of number of competitors and quality of the competitions.

A consistent theme of ‘meeting up with people’ showed as an overwhelming reason for competitors attending the competitions this season. This is something that should be capitalised on and promoted. The ATBA-UK can encourage the social side of the competitions by ensuring a communal fire is made, and by providing music and a bar.

The main thing competitors said they disliked about the competitions was the low number of competitors. Other suggestions for improvements include better and more consistent communication about the competitions, setting and keeping to a schedule, and better entertainment for Saturday night.

The feedback riders provided by completing the survey has proved useful in providing some insight into areas of the competitions that can be improved to make them better for those who already compete, attract more of those who don’t yet compete, and ensure they have a strong future.

Grom Freestyle

Whichever Grom who already has a Season ranking wins the Freestyle at Haredown, wins the Groms Freestyle Season, so its all still to play for.

Junior BoarderX

If Micky Morris wins the BoarderX at Haredown, he’ll be Juniors BoarderX Season Champion, but if not, Mark Adams wins.

Ladies Freestyle

Whoever wins the Freestyle at Haredown, out of Jess Thomas and Rachel La Roche, wins the Ladies Freestyle Season.

Seniors BoarderX

If Ed Richardson comes first in BoarderX at Haredown and Tiege Stewart finishes third or lower, Ed wins the Seniors BoarderX Season.

Seniors Freestyle

If Andy Brind wins the Freestyle at Haredown, he is Seniors Freestyle Season Champion, otherwise Ed Richardson wins.

Pro BX

If James Wanklyn wins and Matt Brind is 3rd or lower in the Haredown BoarderX, James wins the Pro BoarderX Season, otherwise they draw or Matt wins.

Pro Freestyle

If Matt Brind wins and James Wanklyn is 3rd or lower in the Freestyle at Haredown, Matt wins the Pro Freestyle Season, otherwise they draw or James wins.

Juniors Overall

Right now, Will Molynuex is looking good for Juniors Overall Champion but if Mark Adams competes in the Scottish Downhill it might be a different story.

Seniors Overall

It’s a close thing between Ed Richardson and Zak Campbell for Seniors Overall Champion. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Masters Overall

If Harry Jessop wins the Scottish Downhill, and BoarderX & Freestyle at Haredown, and Mark Peck doesn’t compete in Scotland, Harry will win the Masters Overall by 2 points, otherwise Mark is Champion and rides away with a snowboarding holiday.

Pro Overall

It’s between Matt Brind and James Wanklyn for Pro Overall. James needs to win the next three comps, but the points are so close it could be a draw.

Highest Points in each Discipline

Highest Scorers in Downhill is Jenna Collins (Ladies) and William Molyneux (Juniors)
Highest Scorer in BoarderX is Chloe Chew (Ladies)
Highest Scorers in Freestyle are Mark Peck (Masters) and Ben Searle (Juniors)