BCSS Mountain Biking Commission - Provincial Championship Event Guidelines (2017) General You re going to be organizing a one day mountain bike race for approximately 225 individual racers and about 350 people in total including parents, supports workers and spectators. The one day event will include both All-Mountain (XC) and Enduro race disciplines. These are two separate race events on the same day. All riders are required to compete in both events. Safety & Medical Your team will need to establish a course safety plan and ensure that there are numerous first-aid trained volunteers spread around the race courses and event site. Timelines The Championship date is traditionally the Saturday after the Victoria Day weekend (May). Event registration will close approximately 3 days prior to the event. Historically, most entrants register at the last minute. Race events will begin somewhere between 8:30-9:00 Registration, Fees & Fee Collection All participants MUST be registered through their school athletic director with BC School Sports in order to be eligible for the provincial championship. After this is completed the school coaches will receive an email link (about one month before the event) to an online race registration site such as Zone4. Typical Required Registration Information: 1. School Name 2. Coach name, email and phone number 3. Total number of racers they are registering 4. Register racers by their gender (boy or girl for all divisions) and their respective division based on their grade: a. Bantam (Gr. 8) b. Juvenile (Gr. 9) c. Junior (Gr. 10) d. Senior (Gr. 11 & 12) 5. Inform the coaches that each racer is expected to compete in both the XC and Enduro disciplines.
6. Entry fee is approximately $25/student and will be invoiced to their school by BCSS and is non-refundable. 7. Depending on your chosen event clothing option you may need to add a section to determine clothing sizing for participants. Be aware that this is often onerous and could require much earlier registration closing dates to accommodate production deadlines. Insurance BCSS will insure your event with $5 million in Third Party Liability insurance. The cost of this is covered through our commission. Your event will not be required to pay for this service. The various organizations with whom you work (ex. city or municipality) may require that you add them as insured. For this you will need to complete the Insurance Certificate Request Form through BCSS. Event Permitting Your event may require multiple permits from varying levels of government organizations or private interests depending on your specific site requirements and location. Common examples are: City or municipal event permit Crown land permit (Ex. Recreation Sites and Trails BC) Private land permission Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure permit Be sure to contact these organizations as early as possible in the planning process. Course Design - Important Considerations Course marking The BCSS championship event requires the use of flourescent pink marking tape (flagging tape) to identify the race route. This requires placing marking tape such that it is in the line of site of racers at all times. Upcoming significant changes in the direction of travel (ex. changing from one trail to another at a junction) need to be identified with increasing density of ribbon on the side of the trail where the turn will take place (ex. on the right side of the trail for a right hand turn). Barrier tape may be used in particularly difficult situations (ex. at an acute angle turn on a fast downhill) in order to ensure that riders don t make significant errors in their direction of travel. Barrier tape must be in a contrasting colour such as white. Additional tools may be used to help direct riders such as traffic cones, delineators and barricades. The use of public roads is discouraged. Ensure that the course is properly marked and available to pre-ride by 10 am the day before the event.
Course safety High school races typically occur on trails rated dark blue, blue and green with black sections/obstacles interspersed along the way to ensure a challenging course. Features such as man made jumps, drops and other such obstacles are often not used and taped off as closed to competitors. You will need to exercise your best judgment in determining this. To help with these decisions, observe your own team riding a trail with such a feature. Does every athlete ride it successfully? If not, then don t put it in the race course. Site Specific Requirements Parking Spectators Cheer Zone(s) Toilets Water/Food/Beverage Ingress/egress Website & Information Sharing http://bchsmtnbikingchampionships.weebly.com/registration.html http://www.bcschoolsports.ca/ Traffic Plan Your specific site may require a traffic management plan. If you re working with BC MOTI or a City/Municipal government and attempting to gain permission to use public roads then you will definitely be required to do so. Volunteers It s a good idea to select a volunteer coordinator to be tasked with organizing and ensuring that volunteers are on time and in their assigned positions on race day. This is a big job and would best be given to someone who truly volunteers, rather than someone you voluntold. Typical Volunteer Requirements on or near race day: 1. Race package preparation and distribution 2. Parking 3. Numerous course marshalls 4. Timing and scoring team 5. Event site structures set-up and take down 6. Food and beverage 7. Course marking team 8. Safety/Medical Team 9. Master of Ceremonies/Music
10. Awards and prize give-away Timing & Scoring You will want to have a dedicated and experienced team to fulfill the timing and scoring duties. This is the most important job of the event. This team will also be required to calculate Team Overall and King and Queen of the Mountain awards as well as to implement tie breaker protocols (see Rules and Regulations document). Timing for All-Mountain is pretty straight forward and could be done using stopwatches. Timing for Enduro is much more involved and requires accuracy to hundreths of a second. This is best accomplished by using a digital chip timing system. Funding Grant applications that you prepare in your community BCSS funding - $1000 gaming grant, $1500 specifically for timing and scoring, $500 from the BCSS annual grant, $250 for safety/medical Sponsorship that you solicit in your community Entry fee revenue ( Number of Anticipated Entries X $25.00) - base your budget on 175 entries to be on the safe side. Budget You will be required to produce a budget document for your event and submit it to BCSS. Sample budgets will be available from previous years. Accounts Payable You will undoubtedly have receipts for reimbursement and invoices to pay. Collect and submit these to Merrilla Thorpe at BCSS. She handles all the accounting for our commission. Scheduling Be sure to review the detailed schedule on the Weebly site from the previous year. Things to consider: Race package pick-up on Friday afternoon/evening and Saturday morning Coach s Meeting on Friday evening BCSS MTB AGM combined with coach s meeting on Friday evening Racer Meeting - early race day morning All-Mountain in the morning Lunch break Enduro in the early afternoon Awards
Event Clothing Event organizers typically provide an article of clothing representative of the event. Historically, the cost of this article of clothing has been incorporated into the event registration fee, although not always. Examples include hats, socks, tees or toques. Awards Medals can be purchased through BCSS. Cost is ~$6.00 each. Your organization can also choose to purchase custom made medals locally. Either way you will require 56 medals in total as follows: 24 Gold (16 for All-Mountain & Enduro; 8 for KOM & QOM) 16 Silver 16 Bronze The event organizer will need to ensure that they have secured the championship banner from BCSS to present to the overall school team winner Ensure that the championship winning team from the previous year returns the trophy complete with the updated placard Food & Beverage The event organizer should ensure that there is water and light snacks available to the racers before race heats and at the end of each race heat. In the past event organizers have offered food and beverage options either on a pay as you go basis, or occasionally included in the event entry fee. These have ranged from bag lunches to BBQs. Resources BCSS Event Management Guidelines Manual BCCS Event Manual 2018 BCSS Mountain Biking Commission - Championship Event Team Roles & Responsibilities BCSS Mountain Biking Commission - Provincial Championship Rules and Regulations (2017) BCSS Mountain Biking Commission - Commissioner, Executive Council and past Event Coordinators. We re here to help you with this.