The Three Peaks Cyclo-cross has been running since 1961 and has around 600 riders compete.You can't ride the route any other time(legally) this is their header photo:-mattheus wrote: ↑19 May 2022, 10:53amI agree these things are worth considering.Nearholmer wrote: ↑19 May 2022, 8:41am Maybe a bigger issue with these mass rides is environmental impact, in that they encourage long car trips (most people don’t bike there!) and, in the case of gravel and MTB events they put the local physical environment under unusual stress.
- I dont stress about the former too much, as every weekend people drive to do other leisure stuff - a bike ride is no worse!
- Cutting up the trails? Not so sure .. I don't have the experience of MTB stuff ... I guess you'd need quite large numbers to do more harm than would occur over a typical weekend? I don't think the off-road events host anywhere near the hordes you see on the bigger sportives.
The IOM End-to-end MTB ride used to get 100s of riders and ran for 25 years.
It's not only the riders but spectators so I would think there'd be more damage than on a typical weekend but that will happen with any event.