Northern Roll Roller Ski Race Series 2025

Introduction

The Northern Roll Roller Ski Race Series comprises four challenge events run by the Snowsport England affiliated cross-country ski clubs in the North of England. Those clubs are:

Lakeland Cross Country Ski Club
Manchester Cross Country Ski Club
Tyneside Loipers
Yorkshire Dales Cross Country Ski Club

Each event is organised and run by the respective club in accordance with their rules, but they have been grouped together to form a series to encourage roller skiers to travel to participate in some or all of the events.

Each event takes place on a cycle circuit closed to non-participants, with each skier encouraged to complete as many laps as they can in an hour. The events are designed to be inclusive to encourage more roller skiers to challenge themselves.

For details of entry and rules pertaining to the particular event, please contact the relevant club, view their website or search the Next race page on this website.

Events in 2025

The four events comprising the series in 2025 are:

Event #1 – Saturday 10 May – Preston, Lancashire (Hosted by Manchester Cross Country Ski Club)
Event #2 – Saturday 14 June – Leeds, Yorkshire (Hosted by Yorkshire Dales Cross Country Ski Club)
Event #3 – Sunday 6 July – Lancaster, Lancashire (Hosted by Lakeland Cross Country Ski Club)
Event #4 – Sunday 17 August – Hartlepool, County Durham (hosted by Tyneside Loipers)

Event format

Each event is a challenge against the clock and designed to be accessible for all standard of skiers from improvers upwards. Some skiers will be travelling at racing speed; others going at a more moderate pace.

Each skier sets out to complete as many laps of a cycle track within an hour. Where they are still part way around a lap when the 60 minutes is complete, they can complete the lap they are on. The skier’s result is the number of full laps they have completed in that time. They can stop at any point during the event (should they not wish to ski for the full hour). Similarly, they can stop and restart within that hour.

Each event is run in free technique (skating and classic) or classic only. Details of technique is given on the Calendar page on this website and confirmed by the relevant club in their event information.

Entry information

Skiers should be suitably proficient to be able to slow down and stop safely when required. They should be proficient to be able to ski moderate downhills under control. Each event will have four categories:

Open senior for adults aged over 18
Female senior for women aged over 18
Open junior for young people aged under 18*
Female junior for young women and girls aged under 18*

Junior racers can opt to compete in the series as a junior throughout, even if their 18th birthday was to fall between the first and last races in the series. A skier will be classed as a junior if they were aged under 18 as of 1st April of the series year.

Each club is required only to gather for the series the following information at each race:

first and second name,
category (as detailed above),
club they are representing (first preference club where they may be members of one or more club),
number of laps skied by each participant,
length of each lap,
time over the hour they crossed the finished line (where relevant).

Those taking part can be a member of any Snowsport England, Snowsport Scotland or Snowsport Cymru Wales affiliated club. ‘Unaffiliated’ participants (those not a member of a club linked to the above organisations) are also welcome to take also part.

The organiser of the event may request further information from participants as required, such as disclaimer, emergency contact details and consent for sharing photographs on social media or websites.

Safety and equipment

All participants are responsible for their own safety during any Northern Roll event. A cycle helmet in good condition and fitted appropriately must be worn throughout the event and whenever on roller skis. The event organisers will refuse permission for any skier to take part who is not wearing a properly-fitted cycle helmet. Suitable eyewear must also be worn to avoid the risk of injury from ski pole tips.

The wearing of knee and elbow pads and other protection is at the skier’s discretion.

All roller ski types are permissible (unless the event organiser states otherwise). The skier is responsible the condition of their own skis, ensuring that bindings and skis are in good working order and not likely to pose a hazard to themselves or other track users.

Faster skiers are responsible for passing slower skiers safely. They have no right to require the slower ski to yield, but should moderate their speed until they can pass the skier safely. The event organiser reserves the right to disqualify a skier if it is judged that an overtaking manoeuvre is unsafe.

Event results and prizes

The event organiser will produce a single list of results, showing the full name of the skier, the club they are representing, their category, completed laps, and finishing time over the hour (as shown in the example below).

The order will be the skier with the most laps completed at the top, to the skier with the fewest completed laps at the bottom. There is no requirement to produce a separate finishers’ list for each category.

Where skiers have completed an identical number of laps, the skier who completed the laps in the least time over the hour is judged to be ahead in the list of finishers.

Results for each event will be published on the British Roller Ski Series webpage: https://www.bmccsa.org.uk/brss-home. The awarding of prizes is at the discretion of the organising club for that event.

Series results

There will be a prize for the series winner in each category. These will be awarded at the end of the fourth and final event.

The series winner is calculated as the person (in each category) who has the highest cumulative number of kilometres skied (only complete laps count). This total can have been accrued by taking part in any number of series events in that year (from one event to four events).

For age categories, the young person will need to be aged below 18 on the date of the final event (1 September 2024) to qualify for the junior category across the whole event series.

The event series prizes will be:

Most km skied – open senior
Most km skied – female senior
Most km skied – open junior
Most km skied – female junior

Team award

New for 2025 is a team prize for the series overall. The intention of this is to encourage more participants from each club to travel to different events. There will be one winning team across the series, being calculated based on the total distance skied for the top three skiers (regardless of age category or gender) from a given club for each event.

The club represented by each skier will be based on their first preference club and the name of the club they have stated they are representing at the time of booking their place at each event. It is not necessary for the same skiers to be present throughout the series for the results to count to the team total.

The club with the highest cumulative score (kms travelled) at the end of the series is the team winner.