southerndownhill.com - Forum

Fresh off the press here is a quick note to get these dates in your diary for the Downhill National Points Series (NPS) in 2008..

Please note the middle three rounds will all have UCI Points!

Rd 1 April 20th
Rd 2 May 25th
Rd 3 July 6th
Rd 4 August 10th
Rd 5 September 21st

Venues are still to be confirmed

My RSS feed said that there were two new posts on the NPS site yesterday, but I can't see them?  Is it just me, I tried ctrl+F5 etc to make sure the page isn't being cached, but maybe it's some weird proxy thing?

Looks like the venues are up...  taken from www.npsdh.com
   
1.  April 27th - Ae Forest
   2. May 25th - Innerleithen
   3. July 6th - Fort William
   4. August 10th - Moelfre
   5. September 21st Carlton Bank

Looking forward to Ae and Carlton Bank!

I'm thinking about moving to the North.... ;)

Brilliant for the southern riders i will do; 900 mile round trip for ae and then for inners, and over 1000 miles for fort william, and thats taking in to account that i dont know where carton bank is.

Doesnt make it very appealing considering it will use half of my holiday traveling to the events! They could at least do half wales and half scotland FFS.

But then if i dont do it in f**ked for 2008. Bit annoying to say the least.

Carlton Bank is by Plymouth I believe.

Orge.

North Yorkshire!

Hahaha! :D

NPS= Northern points series

i kind of agree with the travelling issue!

my rents arent to happy having to take me to scotland 3 times! lol

whats wrong with wales and the midlands??

josh

Slightly annoying but that's the way it goes I suppose.

Anyway I'm gonna be scabbing lifts off people from down this way all year to save on petrol costs...

Haha!

I Think I'm goin to have to look into getting a place at a uni In the north of the country when i go next year...

The Nps is officially 3/5 of the SDA's

Theres plenty of Track Choice more central..

Although the courses are great and are good selections. Its Becoming very pricey. Roughly goin to be 3000miles just for the nps this year..

There are some very good reasons for going all that way to Scotland, main 1's being spectater numbers, council's are a lot more helpful, and finally as you rightly say the venues are excellent. Things will be different in 2009 though, we are currently in talks for 3 new venues in and around Wales, so the shoe will be on the other foot in 09 when the Scot's come down here ;)

do you reckon we could at least have the national champs down this way?

Josh

Not got anything to do with the Champs, so can't help you there

Apart from 04 the champs have been in the south for as long as i can remember

Rehola, Moelfre, bringewood,the fort, bringewood, hopton,bringewood

And for the people annoyed at having to travel so much you might want to remember Si and Steve are from brum so they have to travel up there too

the NPS last year was spot on so expect to to fill up this year
it is a long way for anybody from the south west or east I think I will do Molfre and possibly one other
Keeny none of the track you have mentioned are down south either ther just more down this way than others

Keeny

Thanks for pointing out that we travel from the Midlands as well, so its just as far for us. ;)

You can claim your milage ;)

barely any of those places are south...the cloest one to me is a good 200 mile Northern drive...1 way!

brum... just as far?? 2 hours less far actually!! Anyway, travelling to races with your mates, acting the fool all the way and having a right old laugh is all part of the racing experience!

Maybe its a deliberate move to encourage people to lift share, thus lessening their carbon footprint... or maybe not! ;)

you lot have got it made.... if i wanna do any serious 24 hour race i have to travel past shrewsbury ........EVERY time ...... thats a 700 mileish one way trip ....

Terry,
you need to learn to read a map - going via Shrewsbury to get to the Strathpuffer 24 aint the best
George

i said serious ...... puffers not a very serious race ... if i wanna do any of the major ones ...mayhem at eastnor or sleepless or 24/12 ......

None of the tracks down South are what SPS are looking for and if were honest not taking the sport forward, there is a but though, we will be looking at 1 very shortly, with the possibility of using it in 2009 and thats sort of South West way.

Steve, I know its probably set in stone and not possible to change, but would you be able to change the UCI ranking rounds to include the first round?? For those people who want to try for a WC round but dont have the points at beggining of season? Seems to make more sense?

no, you have to register races with the UCI aaaages in advance, so it'll be too late now I'd imagine. Are there any Maxxis cups earlier int he year you could do? I think there's frequently one in March??

Emily is right the rounds have to be sent off to UCi well in advance of you finding out, the reasoning behind having the second round UCi is that we should be in full swing with the little things that make the whole event feel right, were as at the first round we might just miss something, SPS have never done anything with the UCi so its important we get it right.
If you checkout descent world there is a thread on there explaining how far in advance we have to put venues in place, I am actually now starting to look at 2009 venues

And it will be worth the wait I assure everyone. :)

This course certainly has a Champery feel about it....

plus you now need 20 points to race a world cup. and as most UCI races are E2, you'll only get 10 for winning.

I'm guessing the NPS is going to be E2?  Is it steve?

so even if you won a round, beating some of the worlds finest races, in the eyes of the new UCI rules, you wouldn't be good enough to race a world cup.  Until you'd racked up 20 points.  Which if you only race in the UK is pretty much impossible to do.

not that I'm saying being forced to travel to race on big WC style tracks in europe and beyond before you can race world cups is a bad thing.

Oh right, no harm in asking i guess! Beginning to be a pain seeing as it was one point and now instead you have people who would find it hard to get UCI's but instead doing World Cups cause they can get on a trade team!! I think the NPS always used to be 20 points for 1st which i guess is E1 ranking? 2 SDA's are normally E2 but i think the NPS should be E1?

NPS is UCi E2 rated, personally I'm not a great fan of the "Trade team" back door, good move on the Uci's part for moving the points total up, but bad move leaving the back door wide open for abuse.

The trade team "Back door" has allowed many riders the opportunity to race WCs who would not be there otherwise, who in my opinion deserved to be there.

The UCI need more race categories, to have the British NPS as an E2 race while the Portuguese Nationals have the same status is just daft. The current ranking system makes it possible for a much less talented rider to race at WC level as long as they happen to live in a country with a lower overall standard of riders.

Yeah, surely they should have a system that takes into account the overall standard of racing in the different countries!! There's plenty of people in the UK that cant race the WC's that could do far better than plenty of other world riders that do race the WC's!!

ok, this is going to seem like a bit of a rant......... but bare with me.

Steve - how can you say this?

do you have any idea how it works?

no one can be on a trade team without the UCI's approval, if they don't think they are good enough, they can't be on.

We were I think the only trade team last year set up exclusively with people who would otherwise not be able to race world cups.  Out team was top 10 in the world for most of the season. 

If it wasn't for this "back door" riders like Adam Brayton, Sam Dale, Josh, Ruaridh Cunningham etc etc etc.  couldn't have raced world cups last season.  All of whom got awesome results and all have now signed deals with proper pro teams.  Its not a back door, its playing by the rules to the best of our ability.  Part of life is making the best of things that go on around you.

The other problem is that the rule on trade teams for the UK are totally different than they are for other countries.  Which is also unfair.

in the UK you now have to be an Elite, or one of the top juniors/experts to get on a trade team.  This is decided by Roger.  How he knows who the top juniors and experts are going to be before the Feb 15th trade team application deadline is I'm not sure. 


The NPS hasn't been UCI ranked for years, because for a while it was down to your federation to say if you could ride a world cup or not.  But if you had 1 point, you defo could ride.  So BC just said, that if you got a top 20 at a NPS they'd let you ride, you didn't actually get any points.

Going from E1 to E2, is a lot of money for the organisors, and under the current system, there is little point having UCI points, cos every rider that gets them will probably already have them.  Its a lot easier to get points at a world cup than anywhere else.

What the NPS should be doing imho is.  Set up a trade team.  It costs alot less than registering a whole series for UCi status.  Then SPS can say, that one of the prizes they will offer is a place on the trade team to anyone who gets a top 20 overall finish at an NPS in 2008, meaning that they can then race world cups in 2009.   As it currently stands, you could win an NPS and still not be able to race world cups.

The other issue, is that britain is pretty much the only country with an Elite / Expert / Senior cat system.  So there are riders over here who are senior, but if they went to Croatia, or Austria or somewhere to race they'd be classed as Elite, and therefore able to join a trade team, but here they can't.

The system at the moment is unfair for a number of reasons, it could work very well if handled properly and discussed with people who actually understand it.

The simple answer at the moment is that if you think you are good enough to race world cups, you need to travel to get your points, and at the moment that pretty much means get yourself to Portugal.

Feel sorry for the yanks.  Have a look at how many UCI races there are over there! 

The level of riding over here is so high, that even if the full NPS and SDA when UCI ranked it really wouldn't mean any more riders got the chance to race world cups, cos the top 10-20 riders at most races are all pretty much the same people.

Colin - I can say it quite easily, its my opinion! just like you have 1.

ok Steve, sorry, fair point.

but can you explain why you feel moving the points requirement up to 20, when the current system of E1 and E2 qualifying races doesn't allow any but a very few riders to score 20 points in a season, is a good idea.

As it currently stands riders who race world cups, stay racing them.  Good riders who want to move up to that level have no chance - even if they are good enough.  Its a way of keeping the elite, the elite and not letting anyone threaten them.

plus.  how can you say its a back door?  can you give any examples on anyone abusing it?

I'm not trying to start an argument, I'm just interested to see your side of things.

Cheers
Col.

so colin are you running another UCI team this year?

the application is about to go off to the UCI.  If they approve it, then yes :)

Colin,
just read through your post and it does make sense and some good points for debate,
it would be worth writing a letter/e-mail to BC or i can raise this at the next BC commission meeting.

Chris

Cheers Chris,

I've been chatting with Roger at BC about this for ages now.  He knows my feelings and for some reason can't see that the current system is unfair.

BC are making rules to limit the number of riders from here that can race, that they are not actually required to do by the UCI.  I can't work out why BC aren't doing everything they can to get British riders onto the world scene (as long as they are good enough!) not the other way round.

At the moment, its possible for me to go to Taiwan, or somewhere like that, register a trade team there and put a load of useless people on.  However if I want to give BC my money, and register some of the top Juniors, Elites and Experts on the team, who otherwise can't race..... he's not having any of it.

I've given up with BC to be honest.  I'll take my cash and pay it to another federation.

But yes feel free to bring it up at a meeting.  Because BC talk to the UCI about this all the time, and don't seem to have considered developing riders at all!!!

they only care about the elite.

Col.

Colin - Totally agree with you that's it's unfair about the 20 point rule, to go from 1 point required to 20 is, well, ridiculous! Then to put the "trade team" in, that you could pay for 650 euro, i think was the figure, just made the 20 point rule a total waste of time, in theory, as you have rightly said, Billy Jo Jim bob and his Uncle could register with the outer Mongolian Cycling federation and be racing World Cups. The 20 point rule was bought in make the World cups the race series that only the best 200 from around the world attended. The "trade team" is another way of lining the federation pocket with money, my opinion.
What should happen, this is something I will bring up with the BC, UK should have a development type team, like the Scottish, that select riders from all ages and take them along for training and then after this onto world cups.
The person in charge of the UK development team should be someone like Will Longden or Rob Warner, they have seen it all and got several of the tee shirts, Warner's has probably got beer stains all down the front

trade teams are a lot more than 650euros steve.  They were 1000 last year and this year its more like 1800euros.

however there are lots of other benefits to being a trade team.  One of which is 60m2 of free pit space at each world cup.  So thats worth it alone for us.

plus when your riders get the team into the top 10 trade teams (as we were last year) its free entry for the entire team, which can save quite a bit.

the 20 point rule was brought in because there were loads of riders at events like Vigo and Schladming who simply were not good enough, because the previous requirement was simply the approval of your federation, and as we all know different federations have different standards.  It was not brought into reduce the number of people who can enter world cups down to just 200.  How many of those 200 do you then think would enter....... we'd end up with not even 80.  Its low enough already at courses like Brazil and Canada.  Will be interested to see how many go to Australia.

the standard needed to be brought up across the planet...... NOT HERE!

this is a good idea Steve, but I can't see the BC bothering to do it, because at the moment they've got people like me and Wayne doing all the hard work for them, and we have to pay them money.  If they ran it, they'd loose the money we pay them and also have to do the work themselves.

any one fancy giving me a lift to the nps ill chip in with fule money and bring some kicking tunes ;D

baised near stafford

please plaese please!


cooper

They did... and Aimee Dix asked them if they could let her go on it so she could do some world cups and she was apparently told that they weren't looking for applications from people like her. Encouraging ey. Presumably because she's neither a junior nor a potential WC medalist at the mo. Fortunately a very well known top ranked female rider put a word in for her and she was allowed to race on the national team at Schladming, wearing a GB jersey. She now has enough points to be able to race wherever she likes.

But isn't it crap that she was turned away when she's perfectly able of racing world cups, and it took someone who knows someone to get her in.


the trouble with BC is they're too fussy by far and they won't just let someone in on the off chance they might actually be any good. Anja had to fight her way into the World Champs this year, despite the number of spaces and that it was in our own country. I could have fought it and got in as well but as I was quite happy working in sunny France I didn't bother. Both of us had made the qualifying criteria, me at the very first world cup, and Anja at Mt Ste Anne, which is probably one of the toughest roughest races around. What's the point of setting qualifying criteria if they then go back on it. aaagh!

Out of interest... is there any reason that everything HAS to be done through BC? can it not be done through an independent DH specific federation?

they are the UCI appointed governing body.  So everything has to go through them.

I am guessing any changing of that would be tricky, given they also do road/track where BC is actually pretty well run.

3 rounds in scotland!?!? Do they think us southerners are made of money?

its where the hills are!!!

would you rather the northerners headed south and we had to race somewhere rubbish?

some of the best uk tracks are in wales

No, but 3 out of 5 rounds... come on! The petrol alone to get from the south coast to scotland once could bankrupt me, let alone three times with fecking entry. There are plentry tracks in the middle that would be good.
An actual piss take if you ask me.

i do have some sympathy for you.

but its your choice of hobby, and your choice where you live, so you can't really complain.

Its like me arguing that the surfing round me is rubbish, when I live in the middle of the country.

or someone in Brittany complaining that all the French National are in the Alps.

but yes they could use tracks in the Midlands or Wales, but I'm guessing there are good reasons why they are not.

what a shame, burford wont be at the nationals again this year then, damn.

deal with it burford!! they;ve given out the dates way in advance, get saving!

I live down south and can under stand what burf is on about Iam in the same boat, for me its not the money, its the time of work for every trip up that end is 2 day Holiday gone so that's 8 in all.
The nps was very good last year and we would like to do it again , but I think this year we are going to do the MSS instead which is also a very good series and will mean no days off work I can save them for the mega . As Col say Iam sure SPS have there reasons lets just hope it stops raining.

We do have very good reasons for going to Scotland 3 times and Col says it quite nicely, "it's were the Hills are" If you can find something down South worth seriously considering then I will come and look at it, but until then we go were them Hills/mountains are.
Milky - Ignore this, will be checking your venue probably end Feb/Early March

Jake-Snake and burf have a good point about the travel, but as steve says the hills are up there...however there are plenty of good hills in S.wales and the midlands, which are hlaf the distance away for the propper southerners. Perosnally I don't midd too much, the scottish tracks are brilliant and it makes it a bit more of an adventure going al the way up there, but an expensive one! maybe in '09 the majority of the tracks will be a bit more southern?
 I bet no one would have moaned if they had been mixed up a bit, rather than the 3 socttish ones as the first 3.

The solution is not to go to Fort William and drive to the alps for a week of sunshine and the mega instead... i mean you could do both, but only if you're a driving machine, or you have someone to drive for you... I'm going to the sunshine :) Then "your" NPS is split evenly between Scotland and Wales.

Anyone know the nearest nps track to me? Im an nps newbie and i live in sheffield

carlton bank? in north yorkshire probably

Thanks, this will be my second race..... all done on a hardtail

Have you read the thread about the points you need?

Yes, although I don't quite understand. I know you need them though, but I have no idea about how this is counted, run et cetera

The idea of the NPS is that it is the Premier UK Series, I'd get a bit more experience & a DH bike before you enter the NPS

KK, I have bben riding for a long time, just never raced much...

You got a licence with 5 BC points if you havn't raced much?

I don't how you can have been riding for a long time! Your like 13/14!  I don't think I even had a bike at your age!

Good luck anyway.

Well, 2 1-2 years may not be a long time but...... oh well!   
Thanks, I'm workin on my speed..... Hopefully it will be enough