Blackburn Rangers - HTR

[whitestone]

To some degree (quite a big degree actually) we are saying the same thing.

The two points of mine that you highlighted aren't at odds with one another but are linked: group starts are generally well known or at least occur on similar dates each year. If you know about the HT550 then it's highly likely that you know there's a group start on the Saturday of the second bank holiday in May. If you haven't asked and then been invited to that group start why would you then turn up to ride it at the same time anyway? That is being selfish and if enough people did it then spoils it for everyone else.

[Chew]

No offence taken

No-one is formally invited

For the HTR you are.
You request a place, based on you're past experience. If Alan thinks you're a nutter he'll invite you to the group start.
Everyone has a lot of respect for Alan, and if you're offered a place you'll make sure you have the right skills to do that invitation justice.

Same with a lot of other events.

[ScotRoutes]

As far as I can tell (not having participated in one), these group starts are supposed to be open and inclusive, not exclusive and invitational, so your point about 'rocking up uninvited' is moot: No-one is formally invited, so no one can be 'uninvited'. If someone turns up that you didn't want there, while that's unfortunate, you've no means to prevent their participation without it potentially looking bad for you as much as for them.

I guess that they are invitational in that you need to be asked to be included in the group start and while you're right that there's nothing to prevent someone else from rocking up on the start line uninvited, they wouldn't be included in any event commentary/results/tracking etc. This could result in the event organiser keeping some or all of the route a secret, only disclosed to the formal startline riders.

Being purely hypothetical, were this my event:
If I'm setting this up as an open-to-all start, I can't prevent a company advertising that their sponsored riders will be at it, same as I can't stop people posting on here about it, or a sponsored rider/rider with corporate links like Ian posting on their blog about it. I'd be understandably underimpressed if that company rocked up at what I'd intended to be a low key, under-the-radar 'group start' with a massive trade van, gazebos, sound system and the works, totally. But if their sponsored riders turn up, load up and head off, how is that different to, say, Ian turning up with his Wildcat Gear, loading up and heading off?

Yep - I guess fail to see the difference between Blackburn and Wildcat in this respect, although Ian likely meets all Alans qualifying criteria regardless. I guess the only issue would be if someone jumped the queue because they were sponsored. With 60 riders this year, any of them could apply for/be approached by Blackburn. I don't think it would then be right to subsequently exclude them.

Whitestone, the two bits I've highlighted in your post come across to me as at odds with one another. If the group start is just that, just a group of people who happen to be riding the same route happening to set off at the same time, then other people turning up who utterly coincidentally also happen to be riding that same route and want to set off at that time as well, how can that be selfish and ruin things? Facetious and sarcastic, I appreciate, but do you see my point? They can't 'gatecrash' what isn't formalised.

I'd say that the Group starts are formal enough, morally if not legally. Any rider gatecrashing that would likely be the subject of adverse publicity - not good for the brand they are representing.


Now - there's a whole other arguement about the impact these events have on some of the trails, especially in the more remote areas....

[Pyro]

If you haven't asked and then been invited to that group start why would you then turn up to ride it at the same time anyway? That is being selfish and if enough people did it then spoils it for everyone else.

a) Because some people are dicks?*.
b) Because (as far as I know) you don't have to be 'invited' to the group start? You just turn up**
c) Because the group start has no formal basis, so why not?***


*That category probably includes me fairly regularly...
**That was my understanding with things like Divide etc - declare an intent then turn up. No acceptance, no 'entry' etc.
***This probably harks back to a)

EDITED TO ADD:

Ah, I stand corrected on the HT 'entry', fair enough. Although as said, as it's on public byways there's precisely zero that Alan can do about someone turning up. I'd need to read Blackburn's thingy again (need to leave the office though!), but have they said they'd be riding the 'event' or just the 'route'?

[ScotRoutes]

There were a couple of folk who were going to start the HT550 in 2016 at the same time as the group start but doing it as an ITT. They were persuaded to start a few days earlier or later.

This year, the Ranger Program comes to the UK to tackle a special route: The Highland 550 in the Scottish mountains. This stunning trail traverse the remote Scottish wilderness with over 550 miles of mixed terrain and at least 16,000m of climbing. The Rangers are the ultimate testers of Blackburn products supporting the core culture of outdoor discovery that Blackburn embodies. While the fastest riders have taken as little as four days to complete The Highland 550, the route is worthy of a much more leisurely pace.

That says nothing of the HTR550, merely the HT550. A small, but potentially important, difference, particularly as none of it takes place where public access is normally restricted.

[whitestone]

Some ITT group starts are "open" - Tour Divide, some are "send an email and your name goes on the list (perhaps with a limit on numbers)" - Cairngorm Loop, some are "invite" - HT550. A very quick bit of reading/surfing will tell which is which and if you can't figure it out then there's usually an email address as contact for more info.

The website for the HT550 (first hit on Google for Highland Trail) is quite explicit (though slightly out of date in this respect): "All that is provided is inspiration, a suggested start time, a GPS track file, and a list of completion times. Riders are limited to 40 for the suggested start time.", there's even an email address to get in contact with Alan if something isn't clear.

[Pyro]

That says nothing of the HTR550, merely the HT550

So all of this supposition might be utterly pointless, then :)

[whitestone]

Alan refers to it as the HT550 - there's a thread for this year's group start named "HT550 - 2017".

[ScotRoutes]

And on bikepacking.net it's called Highland Trail Race. Previous HT550 threads have included ITTs. I always assumed that semantic difference was deliberate.

[AlasdairMc]

The R comes from the fact that so many of these other events are nicknamed races - see the Colorado Trail Race, which I believe was an inspiration for the HT(R)

[ScotRoutes]

Yep - event rather than route (calling it a race brings it's own problems). Still, the Blackburn thing makes no reference to the event, only the route.

[Pyro]

so many of these other events are nicknamed races

'Nicknamed'... Chortle...

[padonbike]

I'm going for it!!!!!!
Can't wait to see how their marketing department hemorrhage themselves trying to turn a grumpy, grizzled, irreverent, bike-racing racing freak into their ideal of the brand-endorsing, media-friendly polished turd.

[Ian]

without looking elitist and snobbish

I actually see a time in the future, when the above might become necessary ... it probably hinges on how long it takes the wheels to fall off the band's transport.

The risk is that Alan and others could just consider that these events are becoming too much hassle, and then they end up pulling them from the public domain. You only know they are happening if you know the secret handshake.

It's already happened where events/rides/notraces have been invite only. Was an inevitability sadly.

Yep, been there already. Couldn't see any other way around it. Most people probably never realised it happened.

As my name has cropped up on this thread reference Blackburn / Wildcat; is there not a distinction to be made between qualifying for an event by the same rules as everyone else, riding it, and then writing about it afterward on my personal blog and the alternative scenario of Blackburn posting details of said route to their website saying "lets go ride this" in the hope to draw attention to itself?
The proper way to go about things properly, would be find a "Ranger" suitably experienced to ride it, put their name in the hat with everyone else and line up with the best of them. Then put it on the website, if they really want to.

[ScotRoutes]

As my name has cropped up on this thread reference Blackburn / Wildcat; is there not a distinction to be made between qualifying for an event by the same rules as everyone else, riding it, and then writing about it afterward on my personal blog and the alternative scenario of Blackburn posting details of said route to their website saying "lets go ride this" in the hope to draw attention to itself?

IMHO that's a very fine line and it's a shame you're personally named in it but I'm pretty sure we could think of other examples.

The proper way to go about things properly, would be find a "Ranger" suitably experienced to ride it, put their name in the hat with everyone else and line up with the best of them. Then put it on the website, if they really want to.

I guess that's still a possibility but they're not specifically asking for that. It still looks like they're looking for folk to ride the route as more of a tour.

[metalheart]

I wonder what would happen if Guy Martin 'entered'.....

[metalheart]

The implying was the reason I posted this back in the first place. Which irks.

Now I'm kinda getting where you're coming from!

I'm actually not particularly impressed with ST's (presumably bought) feature with the HT550 explicitly stated. Gives Blackburn a 'hands off' wasn't me guv get out for it all.

Guess people need to make a living though...

[jameso]

As my name has cropped up on this thread reference Blackburn / Wildcat; is there not a distinction to be made between qualifying for an event by the same rules as everyone else, riding it, and then writing about it afterward on my personal blog and the alternative scenario of Blackburn posting details of said route to their website saying "lets go ride this" in the hope to draw attention to itself?
The proper way to go about things properly, would be find a "Ranger" suitably experienced to ride it, put their name in the hat with everyone else and line up with the best of them. Then put it on the website, if they really want to.

Agreed, that would be the best way to do it. FWIW Ian, thinking about the respect/'IP' point I was getting at earlier, yes I'd say there's a difference there and the post-ride blog vs pre-event PR is significant. eg I've asked someone who rode the HT550 on a Pinnacle bike about their ride and it'd be of interest to feature that on our social media since it's a story that many would read, but I'd not push to do something that blazes the HT550 topic about well in advance of a ride and linked it to our brand without prior agreement. Whether there's a logical distinction to be made I'm not sure but one feels normal, the other feels like something that needs both parties to be in agreement on first - to me anyway.
(and as Pyro said this is an interesting topic rather than me arguing a particular point or about any particular event)

[Pyro]

As my name has cropped up on this thread reference Blackburn / Wildcat; is there not a distinction to be made between qualifying for an event by the same rules as everyone else, riding it, and then writing about it afterward on my personal blog and the alternative scenario of Blackburn posting details of said route to their website saying "lets go ride this" in the hope to draw attention to itself?

Sorry about that Ian, part of that was me not knowing about the qualification part for HTR. Yes, if you've qualified as per the process, and they're just advertising it before they've done that, there's a world of difference.

[Dave Barter]

I wonder what would happen if Guy Martin 'entered'.....

Remember Ilan was it? Now we know that was Guy