Issue 142 FNY Hunt: A Seismic Event

Hannah Collingridge looks at the events scene and asks what bike races, bike gatherings and their organisers need to make them fun (again).

Words Hannah Collingridge Photography Joolze Dymond

Having recently been roped into helping with some bike events, I’ve been musing about what makes a good event, what turns it into a special weekend away and, can fun ever be combined with hard racing? 

First, let’s look at an event that’s primarily fun, before seeing what can be taken from it and applied to other events.

FNY Hunting

It’s the end of October in the Tweed Valley and it’s time for the Fanny Hunt at Glentress. The rain has mostly stopped and the wind has dropped just about enough so we can get the gazebos up, which for the time of year means there are pretty reasonable riding conditions. The event has a fairly simple structure: essentially it’s a great big gathering of female mountain bikers going for a ride in groups on a treasure hunt around the trails of Glentress. It’s non-competitive – but if you believe that, you don’t know much about hordes of women riding together. After the treasure hunt there’s warm food, merchandise for sale and the all-important raffle. Plus, this year a new initiative – The Great FNY Upcycling Extravaganza.

So first, gather your women. In this case there are 130 of them, some local, some not so local, and a whole variety of ages and backgrounds. Groups of mates who already ride together, some on their own, some hoping to find new riding buddies. Add in some fancy dress – not compulsory, but strongly encouraged – and let it all roll. 

For the treasure hunt each team could do as many or as few of the clues as they fancied. In the centre of the hunt was the highly important tea and cake tent for refuelling quickly before dashing off to do more clues or for chilling out when you felt you’d done enough riding. Then, in what can only be described as a Fanny Train, there’s a descent to the Event HQ en masse. This is not a quiet affair – this is the joyous celebration of new friendships forged by riding, of being covered in mud, of having had a bloody good laugh out on the trails. One hundred and thirty damp, dirty riders hollering down the trail. 

Pop quizzing and upcycling

Out on the trails I spend some time talking to other riders, mostly blokes, who had wondered why there were so many women all over the forest. All those I spoke to genuinely thought it was a great idea, both in terms of getting so many women riding and having an event that was primarily focused on fun, although they did confess that they would all be lazier about the fancy dress aspect of it. One guy who had been out in Peebles the night before had opened his camping pod curtains to see several goblins. He just presumed he wasn’t yet sober until he realised it wasn’t just goblins he could see. He was quite glad to have an explanation for his early morning visions.

Back down at HQ there is warm food for all served up by Val and team. You have to admire a woman who can rock a pinny with ‘Val’s Baps’ written on it including pictures of baps on her baps. That’s just sheer style with a little cheek, a lot like the event itself. There’s merch for sale, including raffle tickets. Now, this is not just a crappy raffle with some bits and pieces scraped together from someone’s unwanted pile… this is glorious. There are prizes from local shops in the Tweed Valley, there are cakes, there’s clothing from Endura, and there is a Juliana Maverick frame and shock (most of the shock is on the prize-winner’s face). 

The Great FNY Upcycling Extravaganza is aimed at reducing waste and recycling kit. Most of us have kit stuck in the drawers that’s perfectly fine, but we don’t wear it any more. Maybe it’s a little too big or a little small or maybe we’ve just got a new favourite thing. This upcycling initiative was created to encourage us to dig out all that stuff, make sure it’s decent enough to pass on to someone else, and then bring it to the bright orange gazebo where it is arranged. People come and have a rummage, pick up something they like or can use, and pay a donation to charity. What you pay depends on what you have, so those without much brass can get some decent kit and still feed their children. Those with more can share a bit of love around. Incredibly successful. Apart from the orange gazebo, because you really can’t tell what colour something is when you have satsumas burned into your retinas. Still, you can’t go far wrong with a little bit of sustainability and recycling. 

Spreading the love

The final, but most important initiative this year was the supported invitation to several women of colour who otherwise wouldn’t necessarily have been able to get to the event. Aneela McKenna, winner of the ‘Most Outstanding Human’ category in the Singletrack World Awards, and keen advocate of diversity in everything including riding bikes, suggested to Endura and Juliana that the best way to support their own diversity programmes is to put their money where their mouths are, so they sponsored six riders in terms of accommodation, travel and bike loan for the weekend. Let’s have more of that. 

Saturday evening was spent in the bar, not just drinking, but making connections and contacts, plans between new people to meet up and ride together. This is how cycling grows.

Overall, a successful, fun event with lots of exciting ideas. Not perfect; there are always things to improve on, of course there are, and there are always fresh ideas sparked off from different people. That’s how events grow, a blend of the tried and tested with some experimentation on top. 

Now do that at a cross-country race

So how can we bring that sense of fun to more serious racing events? Does that even work? Some of you may recall when British Cycling tried having mixed National Champs at the same site combining cross-country and downhill racing. It wasn’t really a success: in a series of clichés the downhillers stayed up all night partying while the cross-country lot wanted a good night’s sleep. Not a success socially, plus there were also compromises to the courses – a place great for downhill might not be right for cross-country, and vice versa. It wasn’t an experiment that lasted long. 

Several events do manage to combine the racing and the fun – 24-hour events were always good at this. Mountain Mayhem used to sell out incredibly quickly, both to the top-end soloists and the folk racing in teams who are not aiming at speed but instead having a fun weekend away riding bikes with their mates. But the 24-hour day is mostly gone (pun intended) and the remaining events are having to adapt themselves in order to survive: for example, Exposure Lights TwentyFour12 this coming year includes a trail run, a kids ‘thrill and spills’ training session as well as a race for them, a 6-hour event as well as the 12 and 24, plus an enduro mash-up. The aim is to make it attractive to a whole family as a weekend away rather than just concentrating on the peculiar discipline that is 24-hour racing. Will it work? I hope so. It’s still a good weekend away. 

Hosting events like that take big money, so they have to find a way to get the numbers to cover the cost and yet still make people feel like they’ve not paid over the odds. It’s back to the ‘tried and tested with some experimentation’ formula. Oh, and it usually helps if it doesn’t rain too much. 

Enduro events such as Ard Rock, which I’m guessing is the modern equivalent of Mayhem given the speed tickets sell out, has races from the serious full event to the ‘get round’ and the introduction to enduro. Again, they aim for a festival sort of vibe, though it’s notable that the serious race takes place on the Saturday, and the less serious on the Sunday perhaps with a disturbed night’s sleep and possibly a hangover. Similarly, the Welsh Enduro Series encourages beginners, carefully spelling out which courses are more suitable for those starting out, and emphasising you can ride with your mates. Or you might try what works at Cross at the Castle on Mull: one day of hard racing followed by the Santa Cross World Championships the day after. Fancy dress with a vaguely Santa-ish theme compulsory. 

What’s the magic ingredient?

It strikes me that riding with your mates is a common theme in a good weekend away. But if it’s a primarily racing event there does need to be a balance. Those who want to race seriously for points and prizes need the time and space to do exactly that, and that level of competition is how the next generation of champions are forged. However, that doesn’t have to exist in a cold, sterile environment where you can’t crack a smile for fear of wasting energy. At last year’s cross-country nationals there was an experiment with introducing short track racing as seen at the worlds level. Twenty minutes of full-on, fast and furious riding round a short track. Except as a further level of experimentation there was reverse gridding: fast riders at the back and the slower ones at the front who get their chance to lead out a race. It really doesn’t affect race positions, but overall morale and the fun level shoot up. Then, as well as the normal boring, predictable prizes for first, second and third, you have spot prizes from the sponsors for whatever the prize-givers deem something interesting: an excellent sock game, perhaps, some fancy dress, best wheelie. Lots of fun with no effect on the results for the national points. It’s being tried further in 2022.

Part of any good weekend away riding is the trails you ride. This is where we need a little sympathy for the course organiser. Yes, they want to be creative and fun and build a course with a little bit of everything so there’s something for everyone. Sadly it’s not that easy. First, there’s this weird thing in England and Wales about not racing on bridleways so that’s some stuff straight out of the window. Second, sometimes there are strict restrictions on what can or cannot be built (usually ‘cannot’) on the land. The various Forestry Commissions basically don’t want any new trails to be built; this is a complicated topic and a lot to do with liability for trails rather than they are just big fat meanies. Trails which already exist can usually be used. Usually… So sometimes it’s not easy or it’s just plain impossible to build the course the organiser would ideally like. 

However, on private land you can potentially get a lot more creative. In the very best circumstances there is even a chance for the event to leave a legacy trail. This has happened up at Newcastleton where the new trail on the Rock UK land was built by a combination of organisers and staff from the site, and left them with something to use for their own activities. That’s a rare but lovely win for everyone. Bike parks such as Twisted Oaks in Suffolk and Woody’s in Cornwall have been able to build particular trails for particular events because it’s their land and building trails is what they do. Their insurance covers that, and any members of the public riding that trail after the event are covered. 

Leaning into the future

In some sort of vague conclusion, I do think it’s possible to have both a great weekend away and race hard. Yes, the focus needs to be on the racing if it’s primarily a racing event, but we can possibly take ourselves a little less seriously and find the smaller ways we can add fun. There’s also plenty of opportunity to have less serious races within the event itself, leaving time and space for everyone to choose what is important to them. And maybe consider extras such as raffles or recycling clothing. Not everything is suitable for all events but we can all get a bit creative.

Finally, don’t forget the people who make this all possible. Organisers are underrated: so much goes into even the smallest event that isn’t seen by the punters. Why not take the opportunity to say a quick, simple ‘thanks’ at your next event? If you criticise, make it constructive. Maybe even offer a hand next time?