The decline of 24 hour MTB races.

I was wondering why so many races were be discontinued. Granny Gear has dropped 4 races. Seven Springs has cancelled their race. Adenaline series dropped several races (Conyers Gone)!

Anyone have any insider knowledge? Is this just the normal decline with a sport?

The short answer is money...

I participated in 3 of the 24Hrs of Adrenaline races here in Colorado (once as a support person after crashing 2 weeks before while night training - damn skunk!, and twice as a competitor on a team). Just as we were gearing up for the next race, the Adrenaline folks cancelled all but the (?) California races.  I place a call to the organizations spokesperson, and he blamed us MTB'rs in Colorado because we did not "support" the event.

His point was the turnout just didn't garner the return that they needed to come back. Seemed like a heck of a lot of folks were there at every race I did, but I don't know what the total numbers were, especially compared to the Cali races.

IMHO - the problem is too many races. When there is a 24 hour race every weekend and all over the country nobody wants to travel to the races. Then all of the races become too small to be viable. It's a shame that you have to lose good races because of this.

I also think the 100 mile races are taking alot of the 24 hour racers away from the 24 hour races.

There was a rumor that Laird Knight of Granny Gear sued the promoters of the Adrenaline Series for 'stealing' the rules and the patented name of 24 hours racing.

I suspect that Granny Gear got more than they could handle in this instance.

Truly sad that Conyers is no longer, nice course for this WV MTBer. Also, this was the MTB venue for the Atlanta Olympics.

Every 24 hour race, I have been to, seemed very crowded. They ran out of campsites and parking at Big Bear last year.

That being said, the participants seem more hard core, than previous years. Less people out there to have fun.

I have also noticed that the wvmba 'ultra' series has been adding more races.