The Ride UK / Monster Energy 2011 Ride To Glory Trip has now officially finished. All five teams ventured into the unknown, battled the elements and tackled the challenges (well, some teams more than others).

The RTG Challenge Books have been returned and the points have been counted, checked, and then counted again (all except team Lotek, who mysteriously lost their book).

We’ve had to keep you waiting for a couple of days now before we could announce the official winners because of a few miscalculations, miscommunications and other various discrepancies.

The official and final points breakdown is as follows:

5th Place – Lotek = 0 Points
4th Place – DUB BMX = 1225 Points
3rd Place – Nike 6.0 = 4125 Points
2nd Place – BSD = 4625 Points
1st Place – Verde = 4650 Points

Team BSD originally finished with 4825 points in their book, the highest score overall, but were deducted 150 points for arriving late (50 points for every 15 minslate). Also they were deducted 50 points for the “Change the colour of a team member’s bike” challenge as they didn’t physically paint a team member’s original bike but replaced Kriss Kyle’s stolen black bike with a red one.

There has been a lot of confusion over this with some debate over which team should have finished first. Because of this and the closeness of the points we have decided that the fairest option is to offer BSD another opportunity to come back on Ride To Glory in 2012 (this is usually only offered to the 1st place finishing team). They will then join Verde on next year’s competition and 3 other teams.

Next Year’s 2012 Ride To Glory will also see the addition of a tonne of small print added to the Challenge Books so that teams know exactly where they stand on the trips.

4 years ago when we ran the first Ride To Glory it was nothing more than a harmless bit of fun whereby 5 teams could go on an adventure and have a bit of friendly banter competing with each other for a good time, a bit of glory and a cheap trophy.

By no means has that original ethos been lost but it is evident that every year different teams have taken it more and more seriously each time. We know this because of the scores and the amount of challenges each team has been trying. The lure of the cover shot and the opportunity of a re-invite has lit the fires under some teams and as a consequence this year’s competition has been fiercer than ever (this is the first year that 3 teams have finished with over 4000 points).

The DVD edits will be available to buy on the cover-mounted issue of Ride UK (issue 154), which will be on-sale 18th July. Online voting for best edit will take place 3 weeks after that on this website. Stay tuned for more details.

Cheers, the Ride UK team.

Here is an official statement from Grant Smith, the BSD Team Manager:

“It’s a shame we lost points for being late, we were busy picking up Verde’s extra guest rider Dave Thompson who was stranded in London, I guess that’s what you get for doing someone a favour. See you next year, I’ll bring a calculator…”