Planning a fun cycling contest: our tips for biking enthusiasts

If you love cycling and have a favourite trail, or simply a competitive spirit, then hosting a cycling competition could be a great way for you to meet new people, raise funds for a good cause or even promote your business.

Whatever your reason, cycling contests require in-depth planning if you want them to succeed and become a core part of the biking competition calendar. As well as legal issues and permits you’ll need for your cycling event, you also need to be aware of the ways that you can market and promote the competition to draw a crowd of spectators and participants. Keep reading to find out more.

Choose The Perfect Route
The route of your event will have a significant impact on who can participate, what type of bikes they can use and the general rules. As such, when you’re thinking about setting up an event, before you consider rules or any other information, you need to plot the route and create a clear map of where it will go. You can then use this to inform future marketing materials and help entice participants.

Create Enticing Prices
Any competition requires prizes, even one that is just for fun and isn’t part of a wider tournament. Cyclists who are entering will want to know what they could win if they do well, so it pays to get some mock-ups made for promotional purposes and to see what kinds of medals or trophies you can get ahead of time. Consider working with providers that offer custom medals so that you can inscribe them with the details of the event and use them as a promotional tool for the future.

Build An Online Presence
Sharing your event online is the fastest and most cost-effective way to get it noticed by a wide range of potential participants and attendees. So, you need to build an event website with details of the route, rules, prizes and cause, then choose off-page platforms like social media sites and cycling forums to promote the website further and get noticed by passionate cycling fans like yourself. If you have the digital marketing, SEO and web design skills, then building your own site and managing your online presence will be easy. If not, consider using a web hosting service and template to quickly create your site, and then collaborating with others to expand its online reach within the cycling community.

Promote Your Event
Once you have an online presence for your event, you can start promoting it and drumming up interest. To begin, focus on the cycling groups and pages you’re already a part of, then broaden your horizons and share your event with the wider road biking community. There are many ways you can promote your event online for free, so that you don’t have to spend a lot and can get it noticed by the avid cycling fans you want to participate. Social media is a great tool for this, as you can put up posts and create online reminders at no additional expense. If you wanted to go one step further, you could also try filming an event promo video and uploading that online, as visuals are arguably the best way of advertising an outdoor event.

Hosting your own cycling contest for fun, whether for fundraising or just for a bit of friendly competition, can be a unique and unforgettable experience for passionate road bikers. To get it off the ground and make the event memorable for the right reasons, use these tips. Good luck!