THE RACING COLLECTIVE
"We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the road in Robert Frost's famous poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth super-highway on which we progress with great speed, but at the end lies disaster. The other fork in the road - the one 'less travelled by' - offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of our earth."
Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, 1962
About us
The Racing Collective is a not-for-profit bikepacking club for self-supported racers.
Inspired by races like the Transcontinental and the Tour Divide, we set out to construct a series of UK trials that carried this spirit of self-sufficiency, but which could be completed closer to home.
We take the road less travelled by, in our riding and in our search for a sustainable way of living.
Our objective is to apply the ultracyclist mindset (self-supported, self-actualised, self-motivated) to go beyond 'Leave No Trace' (#beyondleavenotrace) to leave the world in a better state than we found it. This means not just following the 'Leave No Trace' principles when riding/wild camping, but extending these principles over time to permeate every aspect of our lives. As a club we endeavour to take the path less travelled, to reject business-as-usual, and to drive forward change by showing there is a demand for sustainable solutions. Doing this alone is lonely and futile; doing it together is difficult but empowering - it was on this bedrock that the club was founded.
The founding members of the collective met on the #ClimateKilometre ride from London to Paris for the UN climate talks in December 2015 (COP21). The formation of the collective was Inspired by Erlend Knudsen and Daniel Price of Pole to Paris, two climate scientists who ran and cycled to COP21 in Paris from the North and South Poles respectively... they made us realise the future is in our own hands... if we want it enough.
Our values are best summed up by Yvon Chouinard (founder of 'Patagonia' in his book 'let my people go surfing' 2016...
"The basic tenants of our philosophy are a deep appreciation for the environment and a strong motivation to help solve the environmental crisis; a passionate love for the natural world; a healthy skepticism toward authority, a love for difficult, human-powered sports that require practice and mastery, a disdain for motorised sports, a bias for whacko, often self-deprecating humour; a respect and taste for real adventure (defined best as a journey from which you may not come back alive - and certainly not as the same person), and a belief that less is more (in design and in consumption)."
Inspired by races like the Transcontinental and the Tour Divide, we set out to construct a series of UK trials that carried this spirit of self-sufficiency, but which could be completed closer to home.
We take the road less travelled by, in our riding and in our search for a sustainable way of living.
Our objective is to apply the ultracyclist mindset (self-supported, self-actualised, self-motivated) to go beyond 'Leave No Trace' (#beyondleavenotrace) to leave the world in a better state than we found it. This means not just following the 'Leave No Trace' principles when riding/wild camping, but extending these principles over time to permeate every aspect of our lives. As a club we endeavour to take the path less travelled, to reject business-as-usual, and to drive forward change by showing there is a demand for sustainable solutions. Doing this alone is lonely and futile; doing it together is difficult but empowering - it was on this bedrock that the club was founded.
The founding members of the collective met on the #ClimateKilometre ride from London to Paris for the UN climate talks in December 2015 (COP21). The formation of the collective was Inspired by Erlend Knudsen and Daniel Price of Pole to Paris, two climate scientists who ran and cycled to COP21 in Paris from the North and South Poles respectively... they made us realise the future is in our own hands... if we want it enough.
Our values are best summed up by Yvon Chouinard (founder of 'Patagonia' in his book 'let my people go surfing' 2016...
"The basic tenants of our philosophy are a deep appreciation for the environment and a strong motivation to help solve the environmental crisis; a passionate love for the natural world; a healthy skepticism toward authority, a love for difficult, human-powered sports that require practice and mastery, a disdain for motorised sports, a bias for whacko, often self-deprecating humour; a respect and taste for real adventure (defined best as a journey from which you may not come back alive - and certainly not as the same person), and a belief that less is more (in design and in consumption)."
Our mission
"THE FACT THAT SUSTAINABILITY SEEMS ALMOST A NON-ISSUE FOR MOST CYCLISTS BEWILDERS ME, AS THE FREEDOM WE EXPERIENCE AS CYCLISTS IS SO CLOSELY INTERTWINED WITH THE ENVIRONMENT WE RIDE IN. IF WE LOVE WHERE WE RIDE, WHY NOT ACT ACCORDINGLY?"
LIAN VAN LEEUWEN, FOUNDER OF SHIFT CYCLING CULTURE, FRIEND OF THE RACING COLLECTIVE
To rewild ourselves through self-sufficiency
To help prepare TCR hopefuls for the challenges that lie ahead
To create 'wilderness' by supporting rewilding projects
- A hundred thousand years ago, our Stone Age ancestors were as "wild" as the animals they tracked and hunted for food and clothing. Life was intense, often desperate, but undeniably human.
- 21st-century people are fully domesticated. We eat processed and packaged meals, sleep in climate-controlled houses, and the closest most of us come to an authentic wilderness experience is watching a survival reality show on TV.
- The Racing Collective is an attempt to rewild ourselves; a chance to get away from 'organised-fun' and instead ride routes that make us feel alive, free, and wild.
To help prepare TCR hopefuls for the challenges that lie ahead
- Don't expect to finish the TCR if you've just 'put the miles in' at a collection of audaxes.
- Most people fail because they aren't proficient at route planning, navigation, and night riding.
- The Trans trials are designed to allow you to practise these skills with distances ramped up over the months to create milestones in your TCR training plan. Please note we are not affiliated with the TCR.
- The XDURO trials are designed more because we love gravel, bikepacking, wilderness, and adventure, but there's no doubt they contribute to your bikehandling skillset.
To create 'wilderness' by supporting rewilding projects
- As ultracyclists we believe in setting objectives that seem unattainable at first - indeed, if failure is not a significant risk, then our ambition isn't high enough.
- With that in mind, our long-term aim is to establish a series of rewilding projects. Together, we will buy land and rewild it through the restoration of natural forests and wildlife for our adventurous ancestors to enjoy in the same vain as Awaroa beach (NZ) and The Great Smoky Mountains (USA).
- Our first step is to establish a Feral Fund - a pot of money TRC members and other adventure-seeking organisations pay into, which will be used to produce a series of short-films and written articles to support a series of crowdfunding initiatives.
- In the interim while we establish the fund, our members are encouraged to become members of Trees for Life and attend our tree-planting days (announced on an ad hoc basis throughout the planting season).
"Respecting the environment is respecting yourself"
Caterine Ibargüen, Olympic gold-medalist in athletics
A history of firsts
- In 2023 we experimented with a pack it in, pack it out waste rule for GBDURO, to level the playing-field for low-impact riders - riders carried all non-biodegradable waste packaging to the end of each stage, where it was sorted for recycling, documented and disposed of. The logic for this was the mantra that what gets measured, gets managed. Since this introduction in Jan 2023, friend of TRC, Taylor Doyle published the excellent concept of the Plastic Free Time ultra in April 2023.
- Ran our first every 'Bikes, Bees & Trees Rally' held in April 2023, which involved combining conservation work near Stirling, a wee ride to Isle of Mull overnight, and some more conservation work when there; achieved over 50% women on this trip
- In 2022 our MediaRiders captured GBDURO from the saddle, required riders to sleep outside for the duration of the ride so that riders carry enough kit with them to be safe if encountering a unplanned stop in a remote area (also has the advantage that it keeps it a bikepacking event and not a sprint between hotels and from leading riders gaining an unfair advantage securing certain resources at the checkpoints), and introduced leave no trace time penalties for riders who acknowledged they dropped items. We also welcomed three kickass Ultra Distance Scholarship riders from underrepresented walks of life onto the startline. We also started running a Zero Waste Week in September each year.
- Dec 2021 - second TRC tree planting trip, back at Heart of England Forest, camping outside Cottage of Content pub in Barton (in gale force winds!)
- In November 2021 we organised the Route to Net Zero ride to COP26 (Gravel Union article) [6 years on from our initial (pre-TRC) ClimateKilometre ride to Paris for COP21] to show our support for strong climate leadership. The outcomes of the COP process were a dud (a promise to "phase down (not even phase out) coal use") but the ride was fantastic, seeing about 40 members ride from their front doors to coalesce onto our mainline route from London to Glasgow
- 2021 saw us break new ground at GBDURO:
- our photographers used two EVs to shoot from (not straight forward given the embryonic stage of the charging infrastructure), meanwhile Markus Stitz documented it using nothing but a bike and public transport to get around
- 43% of our riders on the start-line were women; and 50% of the top ten finishers were women
- For #GBDURO20 (COVID edition), pioneered a new self-sufficient format whereby riders cannot rely on any outside assistance for the entirety of the ride i.e. must carry all food required for the journey and carry all non-biodegradable waste
- Announced #GBDURO20 would be a no-fly ride in December 2019, ahead of any other organiser, hoping others would follow our lead (to date, Lost Dot's The Accursed Race (May 2024 first edition) is the only other no-fly ultra we know about and are doing an amazing job by providing a low-carbon travel fund and a coach service to help riders, despite the sometimes negative reaction their announcement initially received; multi-grand tour legend Svein Tuft rides 1000km to the start and 1000km home again (we wrote about his exploits and how this contrasts with the Pro Tour ethos here)
- GB DIVIDE route published online on 5 July 2019
- #GBDURO19 - first to re-invent the ultradistance stage-format, plus advocating for 50% women on the start line (one of the few, if not first, ultra to make this a guiding principle (see Dotwatcher roundtable discussion from 2021), which has now become the norm not the exception), first time a major pro (Lachlan Morton) rode an ultradistance event
- Feb 2019 - first ever TRC tree planting day, at Heart of England Forest, based out of Drakes Broughton Village Hall
- In our opening year (2017) we pioneered the concept of scraping Strava segments for the XDURO format rides, and used timestamped social media posts for time-keeping, both of which have been used since the club's inception
- Founded on 1 January 2017 when there was 407ppm of carbon in the atmosphere
Mike Hall was a self-supported ultracyclist who won the inaugural World Cycle Race, the Tour Divide twice, and the Trans Am Bike Race. He was founder and race director of The Transcontinental, a race that has brought the soul and adventure back into bike racing. Tragically he died after being struck by a car during the Indian Pacific Wheel Race in 2017. Known for his uncompromising determination and passion to foster a vibrant bikepacking community , Mike will be in our thoughts as we endeavour to stay safe and to #bemoremike.
Contact
The Racing Collective is run by volunteers with busy schedules so please only get in touch after you have read the info on this website in depth and have subscribed to our mail-list.
Please email [email protected] directly if you have any issues with results/timings; for everything else please use the form below.
Please email [email protected] directly if you have any issues with results/timings; for everything else please use the form below.
