Today, the merch is our podcast episode number 19. I'm gonna talk to you about how to fix a bad race course with a good design strategy. How do you do that? Well, by walking the course, testing the design, and getting feedback from real racers. That's how. By the way, OMG. Who the heck designed this race course? How can they expect us to run uphill the whole time? And then I had to climb boulders For a trailer on, I'm never going back to that race again.
Thank you for joining me for the Merchant Center podcast. I am Kyle Bondo, your professional extraordinaire and racing business coach. I'm here to make the art and science behind building, promoting, and directing off road races. Simple and understandable.
Along with me is my cohost that everyone loves to hate, Mister Murphy. He likes to wreck your races. That's why you like to hate it. And together we're on a mission to teach you how to build better races. I'm gonna teach you how to do it right. Murphy's gonna wreck it and show you how to do it wrong. But together,
we're going to make it easy for you to understand how to survive when things go wrong and then how to do things better, and that's the whole point. Our website is merchandisinger dot com. And if you're new to the merchandising podcast, welcome aboard. Today is all about course design strategy and how not to design courses that will cost you customers, especially after the race is over. You want them to come back.
You don't wanna design a course that will repel them and make them never come back. So where do you start with a course design strategy? Well, at the beginning, of course, and any good course design starts with a very simple process, and that's with a walk. This may seem a little elementary, but the major event of course design is to physically walk the thing.
Race course design is just as much a physical job as it is mental. And that means getting out into the wild and seeing things with your own 2 eyes miles of walking is kind of tough if you're out of shape. But the insight you will gain from this activity will serve you well when you go to build your final course. Let me say that again, it'll serve you well Because seeing you with your own 2 eyes has gives you a huge advantage, and you yourself may not need to walk it, but someone has to.
And if you're the 1 who's actually in control of the race design itself, it should be you. Don't do this from from the from a chair. With information gained by other people unless they are doing the design themselves. So as a race promoter, it is near best interest to have firsthand knowledge of your course. So when you're out there on that walk, what are you looking for? You shouldn't
ride or run the course your first time out. Now why is that? Because you often miss things while running or riding that you will notice for sure on your feet. What kind of things would I miss? Well, you're looking for things you need to keep track of. And if you're setting up a mountain bike course or a trailer on course, You should be thinking of those danger areas that like to eat people's bikes, like to eat people's legs
like the people. I might be looking for those too.holes, deep ruts, loose rocks, They're all out to get most everything when it comes to career racers. These danger zones are extreme areas that you should come back with a chainsaw or a shovel and deal with. You may need to remove downed trees, fill in ruts caused by those people who are out riding on wet trails, reclaim missing trails from overgrowth, or drain those puddles, you you mean never see the that never seemed to go away.
Maybe surprise when you're on a walk that you'll you find trails, you didn't even know where they're. I mean, there's plenty of natural things that can also mess up your course between now and race day. You can't plan for bad weather, especially if it rolls in overnight and ruins your plans. A sudden storm might even produce enough rain mud to actually change the geography of a trail. Just wipe off the side of a mountain.
But you won't know that. You won't know the extent of the damage until you go out and look for yourself. Only then can you anticipate how much work it'll take to fix it? So it's time for the
for what I like to call the crunch crunch survey. I mean, crunch crunch survey. Well, a lot of times you're doing course designs when they're leaves down in the fall. Crunch crunch is the sound of your feet crunching. So I call it the crunch crunch survey. It goes right along with my alley boo boo bag. Right? Anyway, you walk the trails and it allows you to see both the good and the bad firsthand. But sometimes,
when you walk the trails is just as important as walking the trails themselves. You may not realize how fast a stream fills up unless you visit it right after a rainstorm. So show up after a race storm, find out. Think of all the problems you remember as a writer or as a runner on race day. If conditions change for you on race day, what things could become problems? Milwaukee, it also tells you how bad the overgrowth is and what other kinds of obstacles you're gonna need to plan for.
I mean, on a recent trail that I walked for a race, I saw a thorny weeds and sticker bushes that need to be cut, and I discovered some local construction. Put up a temporary fencing right across the trail. I was gonna use my force. Now I knew there was gonna be construction out there, but I did not know they were gonna put a fencing, and I did not know they were gonna reroute trails. Now they
they were really kind. And when I say they're really kind is they they put up fencing with a gate so that you could go through the trail, through the through the fence. But the trail opening was what for this fence is 4 feet wide. Now if you've ever been on the mountain bike, a 4 feet wide trail opening 2 big 4 by 4 posts in each side. That's incredibly dangerous, especially approaching it at speed. So if you didn't know that the week before going to the race, you would have been really screwed.
And construction fencing doesn't just move by itself especially if the contractor is still on-site. You may need a property manager, a park manager, to help you work around these things. And this way, getting the advanced warning very important for your race's health. So you ought to be paying attention to these things. These are the kind of things that can ruin your race. Walking a trail,
can help you see these things. You may not see while you're running, while you got your headphones in, or while you're riding your bike, you get your helmet on. So let's got let's talk about the what to pay attention to. And the first thing you need to pay attention to is new trail changes. The alteration of the trail by humans is a very, very big source of concern. There are plenty instances where people who see messy patches such as mud puddles often find ways around them.
They don't wanna get their new trail shoes or mountain bike tires all muddy. Seriously, they fight you go to a a mudpuddle that never goes away, and there is tons of ride arounds. But they mash up all the trail around the spot in the process, and they make it a bigger mess. And this can lead to overly wide trails or linking trails that had not been connected in the past. They could also be a source of damage that can cause people to crash or trip
if you don't repair this. So who will be able to look at for those kind of things? This is the good thing that could serve you well when you do trail maintenance later on, is to know what trail maintenance actually needs to be done. Another thing you wanna do is you need to take some technology with you. You need to use it as an aid. Technology can be your ally when walking your trail. You can use Straub up. You can use your Garmin GPS.
You can keep track of your progress. You can remember your locations that you need to second look. It can even build yourself a draft course map afterwards. This can help you jog your memory when you go back to the planning, especially if you discover a side trail. Or new connectors that may not have been there in previous years. At some of the parks that that are around where I'm at, there are
Organizations that are out there taking care of trails and putting in new trails. And a lot of times, they don't advertise when they put in a new connector or when they've add a new trail or they reroute something. They don't let the you have to be dialed into the community to know that a new trail took place there. Same goes with Wiska's construction.
There was a huge construction project done here last year and still extending onto this year, where they cleared out they wanted to clear the creek bed of all the sediment because it was filling up a local lake with too much sediment. And
tourists were getting stuck in their little paddle boats out on sandbars. So they wanted to go and dredge the lake 1 more time, but they wanted to clear the passage to that lake to get rid of all the dirt that was going downstream. Well, that required them to reroute all sorts of trails within the park that led to that the stream crossings that led to that creek, which led to the lake.
That's you're talking backhoes and trench buckets and and bulldozers and all sorts of trucks and fencing everywhere, poles everywhere, temporary bridges, that's a huge disruption. You have to know that's taking place. And your GPS system, your technologies, can help you when you start thinking about how I'm gonna work my way around with those kind of obstacles.
So this can help you not only jog your memory, but jog your memory about where that new stuff has been put in, where the old trail map doesn't apply anymore. And trail stewards are also tweaking the trail layout and building new bypasses with even with, like I said, without notification that could alter the way your race course functions. Because there could be 2 trails connected that weren't connected ever before, they could add a whole new dynamic to your race.
By walking the zoo sections, you gain the advantage of having a map is more comp no more current than maybe a competitor that you also use in that park.
You can develop new routes see things you didn't see while while riding or or running around, but allow you to to split your focus between what will work especially for a bike, what will work for trail runners, what will work for adventure racing, what will work for orienteering, These are the kind of things you'll see on your walk because you can actually stand there
and observe something maybe you can see before. Some of these trails are not obvious, especially when you get into the spring and the overgrowth and the green takes place, or maybe it's the fall and they're covered in leaves and you can't see anything. The trail just disappears. Peers. So these are the things you didn't remember. With technology, you can help jog your memory. So what's next? Clean as you go. Here's a thought. On your trail walk, you can also be a good steward of the trail.
But walking the sections that you wish you could come back and fix or add a bypass, You may think, wow. It should be nice if someone could come back and fix that next year. I mean, some of those include really bad law logovers and the features that they'll ride around. They might work for your event, but they are constantly, you know, sticking out and annoying parts of your course.
If you really care about the trail, you need to remember to come back and fix those things. When you have the time and money, you'll also see how some humans are just sorry to say this. Some people are just plain skull. I mean, often improving the trail is simply a matter of just caring. So take a trash bag with you and pick up a garbage along the way. You might make it trail nice again.
I mean, this might be might be extra work, but while you're doing your trailer design, you can be picking up trash too. There are plenty of places where you can come and find garbage. People just don't care. They throw everything what they want on the trail. Take a garbage bag while you're doing course design.
Don't have to. But heck, why not? I mean, you're out there. My little pick up some trash where you're at it. And you also see some trail features. You'll know it's like I need to take a chainsaw to that piece of log and open up that trail because that tree came down and then just cut a path to the middle of it or worse mountain biking does this all the time. They kinda notch out of the tree as to leave the trail car the tree across the trail. Oh, it's natural now. No. You just created an obstacle, especially in the tree like landed at the top of a hill. So here comes some newbie riding up to the top of the hill. Kids just the top of the hill, and there's a logover. Now, if you're an experienced writer, that's not really a good deal. But now you have newbies gonna get off their bike, maybe fall off their bike, or worse.
Logovers are a bike shop's best friend. Because the 1 thing they love more than than putting on new tires for flats and fixing all sorts of chain stuff is seeing you, you know, with a bent crank. They're gonna love that bent crank is their favorite. So logovers, that's the best friend. Not that they're advocating for that, but it just seems that People who are interested in making mountain bike obstacles
don't really think that through too much. So when you're gonna do a race out of a trail system, Think about not only cleaning the trail, but making the trail better. And that's that's kinda goes into our next point. Is
I'm talking about trim as you go on top of that. So now you're taking a trash base. You're so you're observing the trail. You see the new trails. You see where erosion may take place. These were some some stewards may have put some new trail in. You pick it up some garbage. You spot some logs in some areas that you wanna come back and cut. You can also take some trimming shares with you. You can hack away those gnarly sections that that you walk up on.
I mean, you could even you can go as far as rather than just walking the course by yourself or the course you plan on walking. You could bring your trail maintenance team with you. So on your survey could be a group of you, and you could walk, you know, walk the parks and the You could have clubs give you points.
Where do they need to work on a trail before a race or there's some parts of the trail and maybe they know about that you don't know about. You can learn a lot by bringing other people out there to the trail with you. So when you're inspecting the trail, you're gonna be earning those points that take care of of the obvious issues While also helping get back to the community, this could benefit benefit your event standing in the community.
And just make the trail better. I mean, cleaning up after all those idiots who make the messes in the first place. So this is just kind of like the the first couple of hours of just doing trail of going out there and looking at the course and just just absorbing what the trail has offer you. This might be a park you've been to a hundred times.
I'd guarantee you when you go out there, you're gonna see things you didn't see before. Leave the bike, leave the trail shoes, put on your boots, put on your hiking stick, bring your dog, and walk the trail as if you were seeing it for the first time. And this is how you you begin to develop a good design strategy because when you know what you have to work with, you know things about the trail that other people will not see.
They'll not be out there looking in as for a race course. They will not be out there thinking about corners and turns and where to connect to pieces of trail and how to make loops and where the challenges will be. Or the straight o's would be, where finish line will be, where start line will be. They won't be out there doing that. They're out there for having fun. They're out there, you know, exercising. They're about experiencing
the the the trail has the offer. You're going out there with a critical eye. So go out there with a critical eye. And while you're out there, make the trip triple beneficial. Bring the team. Do some do some cutting. Do some brush moving. Do some hole filling. And make it a worthwhile endeavor. Okay. So that's kind of the the 10,000 foot level of how to go about doing a survey.
So I'm gonna give you some some this is some of the inside baseball about doing this kind of this this kind of work for this good design of what I've learned after 3 hours into a survey. You might be thinking, whoa, win a go. 3 hours in a survey? Yes. Some trails are long. I know, spoilers. Right? And at a good pace. You can probably walk about 8 miles in about 3 hours. Good afternoon. We're talking about stopping and looking
and taking photos and checking your GPS. And observing the trail, it might take longer than 3 hours. You might not make 8 hours. Make 8 miles 3 hours. But after you walk the course about 3 hours, You discover all sorts of trail sections you never knew existed. Started working, you know, you started working out the rough course in your head.
You start piecing together the parts that you can you can use in placing those parts in an order you think might work, and you also see the parts you know will not work. You know that it's gonna take too much effort to correct a piece of trail or maybe that's a there's there's, like, a road that's just kinda the the the nature is just kinda gobbled back up again. That would be great because it would connect a bunch of pieces, of course, that you didn't even think you could do. But, you know,
the nature's gobbled up too much. And it's gonna really take a lot of effort to to unbouble it, to reveal it back to the world. So you're gonna figure out the pieces you can't use either. So I find that there's a considerable lack of of mobile resources for doing this kind of survey. The GPS is GPS is great, but I wanna include photos and notes and reasons for the issue and none of which strava or Garmin will support out of the box.
But in their defense, they're not really designed to do that. Right? So strange enough, you're gonna find yourself starting to think about other courses that you could design for other kind of events than the 1 you're actually thinking about doing. When walking the trail gives you the insight into the land, you can never really appreciate from the saddle of a bike and definitely not understand just looking at the map online. So you're gonna you're gonna come up with ideas
for different kinds of events, not just the 1 you're planning for too. This is another huge advantage of walking a trail. Because you're gonna start to discover that not only could a bit of trail in here and get a mountain bike in here, maybe you can do short track. There's a great hill. Get into some downhill. These 2 trails together. That's a dual slaw. I can do a super d. I can do timed events. Wow. It's been great for a 12 hour.
You're gonna start finding all these pieces. You're gonna start discovering these pieces that no 1 else really considered this park being a able to do. And that is the that is the reason why you why you do this and the reason why you do it for a long period of time. I see 3 hours to 5 hours is a good time to spend in the park. Plus, it's the park.
I mean, who wants to doesn't wanna be out in nature. For 5 hours. I mean, spend it, you know, spend it on at some time where you can get some considerable, you know, consider a sunlight. So enjoy the environment. And just become you know, as it become a sponge. These are the thing about the importance of good trail features too.
You find those those parts of the trail that people enjoy the most. You know which ones those are because they're probably the same ones you enjoy too. The parts of the trail section you like to run down or the Haley like to climb. And you need to make your draft designs include these sections. I mean, if you wanna take them out of reversal sections, it's not gonna make the course of substandard,
but it will remove the parts that other people like too, and it could potentially take away from the trail that makes your course really fun to ride. There's gonna be locals that have come to this trail, and they know the parts of the trail they like too. If you include those parts into into your race,
it adds an element that people like. Because people love when they come to a race, they're like, oh, a race at that park. Oh, that has that 1 place. Where you come on the downhill holes corners and you drop into the the rock garden. Oh, I love doing that. If you don't have that in your race, could potentially not be good.
So know what those are. Ask questions. Do you see riders on the trail? Hey. What's your favorite part of the trail? Oh, I like to do the orange course. Oh, okay. You can look at the orange course. That might be your 1st race course. That's what that's that's a draft 1. That's how you approach that. So you need to know what racers like. I mean, alien in your audience is not understanding
the trail in a good way to make people not come back. Now by piecing these trails together, you will realize you can do some things, you never thought you could make a trail do before. This gives you something that you may not have had before either, which is options. It also forces you to keep it simple. I mean, there are plenty of trails that do not need any more attention other than having
the brush trim back and some rutts filled in. There are parts of the trail that you just cannot mess with. If you take too much time and manpower to change things considerably. So you need to consider those changes out of scope in your overall course plan. Think of the places that were provide you the minimum amount of effort to take care of. And then think of that as your first draft
course. And if you wanna go back and make changes to some course to add that to your race, then you need to prioritize that. So having options does give you something unexpected, especially if you're forced to change the course from previous years due to unexpected constraints. Like weather damage erosion, like I talked about, event planning construction. Force design changes can add a new element or to an even local rides and and runs. I mean, you'll be surprised
that many drivers will not expect you to link certain trails in a particular way. And make an unexpected route that'll make your event stand out. In 1 particular park, we were told several times that no park manager will ever allow you to connect park a with park b. Apparently, it was done back in the day. Never been done before. Turns out, The reason why they never connected park a, park b, no 1 ever asked. So when he asked, the park manager like, hey, that sounds really cool. Let's do that.
So an unexpected way. And people who are racing that course were like, oh my gosh. I didn't know we could do that. That is really cool. So it adds that unexpected unexpected thing. It makes it stand out. I mean, throw throw some razors off guard with a new course is a good thing. Sure. Some will complain, but most will enjoy it.
With our with our construction problem, we had to reroute course. The course for using parts of the trail. We've never used before, but that added an element to the course to my 5 mile loop for mountain bikes. That added elements of the course that it was pretty flat for the first 3 miles, and people would go all out at 3 miles. They hit mile 3. Surprise. That's where all the hills are. So the next 2 2 miles were up and down and back and forth and all the features.
Really, really changing whole dynamic of how their race was raced, changed how you prepared yourself, changed how you researched yourself, changed it made the whole course and the whole park brand new brand new experience. People like that. Sure. Some people like it's too long. I don't like the new course. It's too flat at the beginning. You know how many people were? Those people were, like, 5 tops out of 200 per event.
That's that's not much, especially when it's counterbalanced with the 50 or 60 people who loved it. So although 5 could be a problem, you know, 50 liking it just overshadows that completely. So focus your efforts on the ones that do enjoy it because those are the ones that will come back. So on the flip side, if you're only charging $20 eraser, you don't want to do too much extra on the course unless that is your
your effort to give back to community. I mean, you need to stick to sections that will only need minimal love for for your first design. You can't devote your limited time and resources, I. E, your volunteers. To the entire course.
So focus on then what needs work. Turn the brush, melt the grass, and leave the series rebuilding work to it for another day. But do come back and do another day. When you think about it in the race course when you're doing the first your first do your first good race design. Make it simple. Put it on the places that don't require a whole lot of work,
and then come back and do the work, knowing that you're gonna add those pieces for your next race. These are the kind of things you need to think about. So when you're all done, so you've done your initial survey, you've done some garbage collection, you've trimmed some brushes, and you've kind of looked trails. And then you've been out there for some time, and you've got a got a draft course design in your head, and you've kind of figured out where you're gonna go, and you've walked all those pieces of trail
So after you're all done with the curse course survey and you've walked all that trail, you can walk. It's time to go back and rethink your event routing. And what do we mean by that? You need to seriously consider what pieces of the trail you're going to use and not use. You're going to segment out what you're going to use and not use and make a few different course designs and show some options. But a maximum of 2 course designs should be your limit.
Use your GPS map with your limited detail or even your Google Map of the park that you that you can draw on and keep everything you build as a sketch. Keep in sketch form, so you don't overdo the details. I mean, things will change. So keep it simple enough to be usable by other folks other than yourself. But don't don't put a whole lot of work into it until you've kind of solidified
the course you want. So once you've made those decisions and you have a draft course laid out on paper and any people that need to approve it, they've seen it, that's what's time to vet your course. It's time to test it. So what do I mean with that? Test. What's test me? Yep. It's finally time to take that monster on and see whether or not your design is plausible.
And that's just what it sounds like. Now is the moment you've been waiting for. You're you're racing the course of this. It was really race day. This means either getting on your mountain bike or putting on your trail shoes or grabbing your map in compass. Whatever kind of race you've designed, always bring your map with you of the course. So if you find problems, you mark them on the map and redo your course test.
So think of this as a so you've have your your draft design in your back pocket. Think of it as your your quality control, and you do your race, and you come around corners too sharp. Maybe we need to change it to that piece of trail. So you mark that on your map. Maybe you maybe you find a place that would be better because the flow works better. Whatever kind of race you've designed, you kind of figure out the better ways of designing your course
that tweak it, that works. I mean, think about the flow. Where are the dangerous bots are? You know, mark those those spots so that you can remove them or come race day. You know where to put tape up and arrows up. If you don't wanna send riders into a ditch and you wanna make
turns too sharp and you don't wanna have a trail that's right by its cliff edge with a bunch of people who are just new trail running, You don't wanna do that. So if you have a problem with it, everyone who's erasing it is going to have a problem with it too. So now is the time to change stuff. So make sure you do. On race day, it's gonna be too late. So remember to go back to your principles during during these steps and keep your course simple,
A nice flow to a chorus is better than having a hill or a turn or whatever makes the flow go wrong. Don't make racers think. Have sections naturally work into other sections in a logical way. And as you ride or run or track, You'll know which is which. Flow is important to your design, and you wanna keep as much as it as you can, and that is the goal to the walk before you run or walk before you ride concept.
You just go out there and absorb the trail and understand how it works. And go out there and do some maintenance and do some changing, and do the things that make the trail better, pick up the trash, remove that dead tree, and then write it all down, compile it into a couple courses that that are possible, and then vet that. Test it. And then once you've tested it, you make some changes, and that becomes your dress course. And that is a simple way to do courses on.
So the other aspect of course design is understanding how people give you feedback after they have ridden their your course design. So chances are you're going to reuse course designs more than once. So you wanna get feedback. So you've done the walk, you've done the testing, You have an understanding of what the course is gonna be. You have it set up. You've it's race day. People come ridden your race. And
now you're gonna get feedback. It's gonna hit the real world. This is where race promotion hits, you know, touches the real world. When you have planned and built and have everything ready to go, it's time to allow other people to experience it. And when you have other people experience the art that you have created because creating a the race course design is a kind of art.
Because you're gonna do it in a way. It's gonna be different other people. It's gonna be a way that you like it. You're just gonna be your expression of what you think the race course should be. Based upon, you know, some data and some feedback you've gotten initially. But this is where other people maybe people you do not know People who have experienced all those other things are coming to experience your race, and they are going to tell you what they think. And you have to ask yourself,
are you prepared for that? Are you prepared to hear what other people have to say about your course? You better be. Because as a race promoter, this should be the thing you are seeking out. When you go to talk to racers, when they are at your race, when they have done finish their their event. This is the kind of thing you need to be finding out from them. You need to be going, and mining that data from their head. What did they think? Because a lot of people won't tell you.
And racers are likely to forgive you for most of the minor course design issues. Unfortunately, you can't please Oh, everybody. Right? How's it saying go? You can only please half the people, half of the time. You know? So think that through in your head. Half people have a time. So I have a hundred people. You can only place 5050 of those people, and you only place those 50 people
50% of the time. So you'll never know who's gonna be upset and who's gonna love it. You're never gonna know. So some customers really care about your course design. They really, really, really care about your course design. Especially accurate course links. Course links for some people are just so important. They'll come back and tell you You told me it was 5 miles, and my Garmin says it's 4.93.
Really? Yeah. Really. Those people are gonna come and and they're gonna be upset. They're gonna be upset that it's point 07 less than they thought it was. Depending on which GPS satellite was where and what orbit of the sky and what clouds and sun and electromagnetic
activity and where they were and how accurate the device is. Yeah. That's irrelevant to them. What's irrelevant to them is from the start line and finish line, wasn't as accurate as they thought they was gonna be. What kind of race program are you? You're so inaccurate. You mean, you said 5 miles. It's 4 point it's 4.93. This is a travesty. I just I can't I just I can't race anymore.
Yeah. You're gonna get those people. They exist. I know. I think that doesn't wanna exist. Yeah, go do a couple dozen races. You're gonna find those people. You're gonna love those people. That's that that doesn't include what we're gonna talk about next next week. Which is timing. You get those people with their their clocks of race time and finish time and what you told them your time was. Oh, yeah. Those are the same people. Sometimes. Race length is really important. Anyway, I digress.
For locals, whether or not you include a certain feature, comes in a close second. Those are the people who wanna know, why didn't you put in the Salamander slippy hill? And why didn't you put in the rock garden, and why did you leave the pump track out? This is this is baloney. I'm not gonna race your race. If you can put in the cool hill that I like to race down, Yeah. You need those people too. So you have to be able to deal with those.
So if you get those course elements wrong, there is no forgiveness with these people. They will barbecue you an assortment of torches and pitchforks shadowing things like, oh, I've never raised with you again. But the plus side to the races, especially for racers that hate your course, is you know exactly how they feel. Instant feedback is easy to understand. However, How do you know how the other racers that hated your course feel? Do you even are there other people who hated your course?
You know the quiet ones that simply walked back to the cars and are never seen or heard from again? Do you know how they felt? Or how they they thought your course was bad, do you know? The short answer is you don't. You're never gonna know. But if every vocal course hater you hear, you should probably assume 10 other races silently hated it to. Is it true? It's a rule of I call it the rule of thumb. It's it's 1 of those kind of things that it might not be true.
But We're talking about feedback and feedback in a course design. So take everyone you hear, every angry voice you hear about your course, and I'm talking about minor things. Course length and whether or not the features, there's minor things. I mean, what if it's something major, you know, like a sharp corner that everyone wipes out at? So if you hear back from 5 angry racers, I thought your course was not worth racing, consider that represents 50 racers strong.
I mean, that's a lot of razors that didn't have a good experience with your course design. Doesn't matter if you thought it was good or not. If you thought it was good or not. If you hear that much feedback from your target customer, you need to make some changes. Luckily for you, it's not too late to change the course now. I'm gonna give you some common complaints that race promoters and race directors receive about their races. We're talking about 3 in particular.
And learn from these examples and help remove potential problems from your next race course in design. And this has to do with negative feedback you get, with 0 positive feedback. If you only get negative feedback, you need to take pay attention. Now so so so an asterisk to this is if you receive a bunch of negative feedback only to receive 10 times the amount of positive feedback, take that with a grain of salt.
These are common mistakes that you need to think about that you should already be thinking about. But if you're not, you need to add this to your course design strategy. These are 3 principles that you need to consider when you're designing your course, or Feedback wise, what you need to do to change your course when you hear these things come up. So what are they? Number 1, this is so simple. Don't make me think. If I'm a racer, don't make me think. Heroes in survey tape do not cost that much.
This means that you should never have a reason for course confusion. Anytime you have an intersection, a questionable deer path and open area, you should have some clear and visible indication of which way the racers should go. Period. The lack of a simple directions take racers out of their race head and makes them have to make decisions about what might be the course. May always pick wrong.
So this is a bad deal for any race director that did not take the time. Or have someone trustworthy enough to take the time to go check the course for the race. Unfortunately, adventure racers are the most sensitive to bad courses. Since most venture razors are built upon orienteering, you better have your checkpoints plotted correctly, And if a race has has you plot their own points on a map, so some venture races venture races make you plot your own geo coordinates for UTM's
so that this that that should be spot on. So they give you they give you a bunch of coordinates and say, hey, go plot these points. So some maps are like that. Other maps are already done for you. So it depends on the level that you venture race. But in a race that is all about navigation, your rear core center needs to be needs to be a master's implanting. Setting and confirming locations.
Now I've made this mistake before. I plotted a course for an orienteering event where 1 of my points was not where it was on the map. Actually, 2 were, but 1 was close enough that it was within reason. The other 1 was not even close. And oh my gosh. The anger.
The orienteering community is not like misplotted points on a map. They will I mean, porch forex porch forex and torches. Yeah. That's where they go. That's how they they feel about that. That is the thing that orientators hate the most is poorly plot of points. It's not just the point it was plotted poorly. The flag was hung in the wrong location. So you have vice versa. Is the plot the plot on the map correct or is the flag correct?
Now some people found it. Some people didn't find it. People didn't find it with the ones who came and complained. People that did find it didn't think the other 1 was wrong. They thought, oh, there's a thing. Oh, there's a trail off. So they made a mistake and found it. Yeah. These are the things you need to worry about. So if you put a control on a course, you it better be where you say it is in the map. I mean, don't get clever until racers the checkpoint is, you know, the clue is a bridge.
But really, it's hidden in a bush 50 yards away. Don't be doing that stuff either. Make it simple. Don't make racers think. Do not overthink your courses by trying to be clever. I mean, moving over distance is difficult enough without having to guess where the race director intended you to go. You can expect racers to be a mix of new and veteran razors and always plan their experiences if they've never raced before. You must always be looking at that.
If the location looks confusing, mark it well and check it on race day, or don't use it in your race. Same goes, intersections are probably the biggest 1 when it comes to trail runs or mountain bike races. If an intersection looks confusing, and you mark it up with tape and still looks confusing, it's wrong. Make it simple. Don't make people think.
That's a simple 1. So if you come to any kind of intersection or trail and you think, will someone think that's a trail that need to go down, then you need to market. Just racers will take it. You'll do not be surprised how many racers will actually take a a a trail or miss a corner. They didn't see the arrow. Because you made this 80 bitty tiny arrow. Don't make 80 bitty tiny arrows. Make giant arrows. Tape corners. Survey tape and arrows are cheap.
How a lot of them, overkill sometimes is better than making it make trying to save a buck. Alright. What's the second 1? You want me to do what exactly, including dangerous areas is another area of concern. This is especially true for mountain bike races. Just because you can ride something doesn't mean everyone else can too. Not having any rightarounds
adds to this problem. We kinda talked about this before in understanding that rightarounds can destroy trails. Well, some some trail areas have right around on purpose, but there are some course designers and there are some people who build courses who like to put obstacles into trails and not provide a ride around because they think if you can't ride this obstacle, well, then you shouldn't be on this trail. And that is a poor excuse for not having a ride around.
Right around are for people who don't wanna try that obstacle yet. Give them an opportunity to bail out. Because they will eventually get better at riding and do the obstacle. Give them a choice. Obstacles
are for more experienced riders and they should always have a ride around. That's just my personal opinion. A lot of people disagree with this, which is surprising. In fact, around here, Some people even go as far as put rocks and sticks on the right around to prevent the right around from actually taking place. And they call that Well, we're protecting the trail because it ain't too wide. No. You're not. No. You're not. If you got a a bridge
that's a a small little 6 6 inch wide bridge for mountain biking. A lot of people can't ride that. They wanna ride around it. It's too scary. If it's only 2 feet off there, it's too scary. Is there a ride around for that? No. They covered it all up. So some people came out and uncovered it. And then other people came and covered it back up eating. It's a toll. It gets silly after a while. Don't be those don't be those people.
If you're gonna if you're gonna have a course and you're gonna have an obstacles in this course, have ride arounds. When you're talking about racing and racing at speed, Sometimes, ride arounds are just better for racing than the actual obstacle. The obstacles are for a time when you can think about it. You're doing technical riding. Obstacles are not a time for high speed running or racing. So you should always have some ways to get around an obstacle.
So you don't have to you don't have to think about those kind of things so people don't get hurt. So trailers have this problem too. When the course includes ruts or rocks and holes above and beyond what's expected, runners either have to walk that section or risk an ankle. Sometimes this has to do with trails that that are just just bolder sized rocks or or or or, like, a rock climb. There's a trail run at a at a park, Romaine Nameless company, a Romaine Nameless.
Where you had to you had to climb down into a big hole, cross a creek, climb up through the trees, and then you come to giant almost like a roofer, pick an ancient river bed and climb up these riverbed is almost if you were rock climbing. This is a trail run. It's you almost wanna break out your your chalk and repelling gear. So when you have a Boulder course at middle of your race course, you need to reconsider the trail you're using.
It's understandable to wanna put features on a course that attract elite racers However, if you think that elite elite racers showing up will make you money, you need to reevaluate who your target customers are. The racers that actually come back to your events time and time again are not elite athletes. Some might not even be what you would even call athletic If you design a course that only elite racers can raise, then maybe only elite racers are going to come back.
You say that again. If you design a course that only elite racers can race, only elite racers are gonna come race it. If they come race it, they're very picky. That's a strong maybe the elite razors even come. Scaring off your target customer is bad for business. Remember who you were designing your course for. Good course design could be challenging for both novice as any lead racers without being heavily technical.
If you put some thought into it, you can build a course that works on several different levels. But if you make it too hard, and you don't listen to that feedback, don't expect to see regular racers come back next year. And that leads into number 3. Is you made this too hard. You know, some courses are just not as advertised.
This has to a lot to do with a course that has never been tested. This is why you should always be testing your courses. But when you leave out the testing phase of your course design, you invite trouble, a course design is not finished until you fully vetted the course and found all the problems. This includes how difficult you plan on making everything. If you have a 5 mile course laid out, how long does it take for the average racer to complete 1 lap? You better know this?
Especially if you if you have hard deadlines for when your permit requires you to vacate the the park or simply when the sun starts setting, you wanna be looking for people when it's dark. So, additionally, racers like adventure races have cut off times in support of allowing 1 or more of the Cecil teams at certain parts of the course. These cuff times get rid you don't stop the the slow courts slow teams.
For going on the course because you don't want volunteers and your permit and all that stuff is to extend on and on and on and on. That starts costing money, especially goes into other days. So you have cut off points. If you only plan for teams to arrive at a cutoff point at a certain time, but only 3 out of the 50 teams showed up to actually make the cutoff, you have a big problem. Same goes to trail sections that that racers will repeat.
If you have a distance that is just too difficult for the average racer, you may have all sorts of scheduling problems. What you thought would take racers 25 minutes on paper actually took them 45 minutes. Why did it take him 45 minutes? You think it should only take 25 minutes to complete? Well, you have no clue unless you actually tested the section and found the problem. The number of laps might also be impacted by just the time of year. The hot summer day may may make 4 laps of a course.
Something that was not a problem in the spring, an outright disaster. If you build a course in March, but are now racing in August, you might not know that temperatures are changing everything about your race. Same goes to the course that you created in a dry day. And it has been now it has it has weeks of rain on it. Test your trail with real racers in conditions that real races will race in. Think about that. Are you designing your course in September?
For races in September? Or are you designing a course in March? For raises September. Chances aren't the latter. So just understand what conditions are gonna be available to you would come September. Unseasonably hot, unseasonably cold, winter, rain, what have you? If they come back to the finish line in times that are way off your estimates, You might need to change some things. I mean, chances are these races or these racers, you use to test your trail already to be giving you feedback.
So your job is to pay attention and make some changes. Test, test, test, test. Right? It's never too late to learn from feedback. Even if you make some of these mistakes, you might need to first accept that your customers deserve to have a course that is fun to race. You need to filter that feedback and decide what is a real complaint and what is just an unhappy person because face it, unhappy people are not happy with anything.
However, if you hear from Worth and 2 or 3 racers that your course needs some changes, Take that as a good indication that something is wrong. Also need to take action until your racers that you took action. And talk on after the fact that they've complained
and you decided to make some changes, tell them. Tell them you took some action and made those changes. Hopefully, you gave they gave you your e their email address when they register for your race. So announce those changes, show the new course design, and demonstrate that you've taken these cuss this customer Feedback seriously. You might be surprised to see who comes back when you use real customer feedback to build better races. And now for some final thoughts. Always get some feedback.
After you test your final course design, you should always seek out a second opinion. Take others through your course who understand what you're trying to do. You can also show off your work with the free group events that goes through the entire course without stopping. This could be a great way to do a b testing of your course as well.
Let me take 1 group through course a and of course is I a and then another through course is I b. Then ask everyone what they thought of each course. If you get a few negative comments about certain sections, take note. But once you have a good, honest feedback, Then you know your course is done and you are ready to race. All that is left now is to make a final map and share it with your racers. And now you know, In our next episode, it's
That's right. We're gonna be talking about timing. Timing the essential part of every race. Having your race results is how you decide who won and who lost. In my next episode, I'll be talking timing and why timely race results pays for future races. That and more in the next merchandiser podcast.
Well, that's it for this week's episode. Thank you so much for listening to the merchandiser podcast. I would love to hear from you. So please reach out to me on Twitter at merchants of dirt or go to the merchants of dirt.com and click join and get my monthly newsletter. Where I give you exclusive content only for subscribers. Meanwhile, the show keeps growing thanks to to having you subscribe But if you're new, make sure you never miss an episode by going to the merchandiser.com
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I'll see you on the next episode of the versus your podcast. Until then, go build better races. Take care.