This year sees the inauguration of what might be one of the most prestigious competitions in the UK bikepack racing scene – a UK Triple Crown.
The triumvirate will bring three UK nations together with the Dales Divide, Highland Trail 550 and the North Wales 400. The rider with the shortest overall time across all three will be crowned the UK Triple Crown (UK-TC) winner.
The triple crown concept follows in the footsteps of the US, which has its own Triple Crown with the Tour Divide – perhaps the world's most prestigious race of its kind – along with the Colorado Trail Race and Arizona Trail Race.
Held next month, April 18, the Dales Divide is the first in the series, and takes riders on a 600km coast to coast to coast trip from Arnside in Cumbria to Scarborough and back again. The Highland Trail 550 follows on May 24, taking riders on a 550-mile (885km) route from the bottom to the top of the Scottish Highlands and back.
All three organisers of the UK events are interconnected, and have been at the bikepacking coalface for some while, says Dales Divide organiser Chris Ellison.
"Each of us have raced in each other's races, and each of us has been around ever since this kind of scene was around in the UK," he says.
"We're going for the US approach of grass-roots events that cost very little to enter," says High Trail 550 organiser Alan Goldsmith. "It won't cost you a fortune to do them. They're all loops, they're all easily accessible, so people that haven't got much time or money would still find these possible to do, but it's a big challenge."
It is perhaps no huge surprise that the UK version has its own connections with the US original, with Goldsmith having ridden the Tour Divide (twice) and the Colorado Trail Race – both part of the US triple, and his own event having been conceived as a training race for the Colorado event – "It's no coincidence that they're the same length," he smiles.
Ellison has ridden the Tour Divide twice too, while Tom Bruce conceived the North Wales 400 as a training event for the Highland Trail race, leaving a trail of intermingling rocks, dust and mud all the way from here to Colorado.
However, Colorado is one place the three men are hoping UK riders might not feel they need to go to ride now – or at least less often.
"One of the main motivations for setting this up, is if we can stop people flying all over the world, that'd be good," Goldsmith says.
His own event has limited entry capacity and is usually oversubscribed, so it isn't an extra influx of riders Goldsmith is hoping for. However, Ellison is more than happy to see new faces on the Dales Divide, he says.
"I'm allowing most, if not all [entries] at the moment," he says, and emphasises an air of inclusivity.
"If this is your first ever, and you want to ride around as a pair [not usually allowed], that's OK, that's fine. The aim is to allow you to get out and have a go. If you do go against the rules – doing it as a pair or anything else, you're not able to go and win, but you can go ride out."
Ellison and Goldsmith also reveal that bikepacking also boasts a 'nice problem to have', in that both are turning down potential major sponsors in order to keep their events true to their very much non-corporate, free-spirited origins.
"It isn't the way that I got into it, and it isn't the way that I'd like it to go," Ellison says. "It would be dead easy to go and hand it on, it would, but that isn't the deal."
Part of that free-spiritedness is that you don't actually have to ride the official events to earn a place in the hall of fame. All three events allow riders to do Individual Time Trials – essentially their own private ride over the course, sticking to all the rules, of course.
You can become a UK-TC finisher this way, and even win the crown itself.
All riders sign up to the Track Leaders tracking website in order to do the events, whether privately or on the event itself. That, and the general prevailing code between bikepackers, goes a long way to keeping potential winners honest but, says Goldsmith, "there's a certain amount of trust."
Ellison adds: "Even in the main race, you could arrange for your mate to go and hide some bananas round the back of a wall, halfway around. There is a lot of honesty."
It probably helps that selling yourself out – even to snare the full UK Triple Crown victory – is going to bring you very little except the nagging wish that you done things above board.
Just like the US races in whose footsteps it follows, the Triple Crown comes with no prizes.
"No. No entry fee and no prizes," says Goldsmith.
"In the big races in America, there's no entry fee, there's no prize," says Ellison. "The winner would get the end, and it would be a rock in a car park or a border post, or whatever. It's not unusual."
Put another way, the UK-TC could well be the UK's biggest non-prize prize in bikepacking.
