Threshold Sports: Website Modernisation Proposal

Executive Summary

Threshold runs events that people remember, and we would be delighted to be the studio that rebuilds the websites behind them. This is how we would approach it.

We would rebuild the four Threshold Sports websites as one WordPress multisite, sharing a single theme and design system. Each brand keeps its own domain and its own look. Underneath they share templates, components, plugins and one login.

Level 1 comes to £13,000 for 26 days. Level 2, where we also migrate the event content and build the primary landing pages, comes to £16,500. Both sit inside the £18,000 budget and both are set out under Cost Breakdown.

Endure24 and the Trail Series would launch the week of 15 December, ahead of the January campaigns. Ride Cymru and the corporate site follow in the new year.

Understanding of the Brief

The brief asks for four sites that each feel like their own brand while behaving like one platform, on a budget that works if the second, third and fourth sites cost less than the first which is definitely doable.

We looked at the current sites before writing this, and your answers to our questions filled in the rest. All four run on WordPress, built by Pixelfridge six or seven years ago, hosted on Fortrabbit, and sharing a single theme. Pages are built from fixed content rows filled in through a form. Entries go to Let's Do This, results to Krono Sports and Results Base, FAQs sit on Zendesk across three help centres with chat bots attached, merchandise is on Pressio, and interest forms run through Wufoo into Mailchimp via Zapier. The front-end code was last tweaked in February 2025.

So the foundations are sound and Pixelfridge had the right idea about shared code. What is missing is a design system, an editing experience your marketing team can work quickly in, and a single install. That makes this a rebuild on familiar ground rather than moving to a new platform and makes the timings and budget workable.

Three things shape our approach:

Four distinct brands, one system. Brands differ in colour, type, imagery and tone. They share templates, components and content structure.
December launch. The brief has launch in the last week before Christmas. We would rather launch the week of 15 December and keep a week for last minute tweaks/fixes.
Registration stays where it is. We link out to Let's Do This and style the handover. Rebuilding entries inside WordPress would probably not be a good use of budget.

Recommended Platform & Architecture

We recommend WordPress multisite: one install running all four sites, one login and one set of plugins to keep updated.

A parent theme holds templates, components and functionality. Four child themes hold colours, fonts and logos.

A block library gives editors a set of ready-made sections that match the design: video hero, event card, route block, photo montage, participant story, partner strip, FAQ accordion, countdown.

One shared parent theme and block library serving four child themes

Because the four sites share one install, a serious fault could affect all four at once. Daily backups and testing updates on a copy of the site first guard against that. Four separate installs sharing the theme would also work, and is closer to what you have now. We lean towards multisite because it gives your team one login, one media library and one set of plugins to keep updated, but either is workable and we would be happy to go the other way if the isolation matters more to you.

Video. Hero and gallery video is hosted on a third party service like Vimeo rather than the web server, embedded without their branding. That keeps the sites fast and keeps bandwidth off the hosting bill.

Third-party services. Zendesk, including its chat bots, Pressio and Let's Do This stay where they are. From our understanding they work, and your team knows them but let us know if this is not the case.

Wufoo would be replaced by Gravity Forms inside WordPress, which connects to Mailchimp directly, so every form lives in one place and the Zapier step is no longer needed.

We did consider Webflow. Because your content is already in WordPress it would need rebuilding rather than migrating, and four Webflow sites would mean four subscriptions, so it does not fit the budget as well.

One design system with a different brand treatment for each site. Spacing and text sizes are the same across all four so they feel like one family; colour, typefaces and imagery differ so none of them looks like the same site with a different logo.

At the moment every brand uses Source Sans Pro for headings and body alike. Giving each a proper display face is the simplest step with the biggest effect towards the premium feel the brief asks for.

Endure Relays stays inside Endure24 but gets its own accent, a more urban look to the photography and its own navigation once you are in that section. Splitting it onto a separate domain would cost SEO authority and add a fifth site for three events a year. We would suggest the Endure24 homepage offers a clear choice between the two propositions early on, and would like to test that in discovery.

The same event card component in Endure24 and Endure Relays treatments

The Maverick and Love Trails references point the same way: fixed navigation with key information, video hero with overlay, plain user focused menu, strong heading hierarchy. The dislikes (long copy with no imagery and inconsistent image behaviour) would be prevented by the design system.

Your graphic designer would get a Figma library of the site's components and a short guide to image sizes and crops, so campaign assets fit well without too much back and forth.

Content Management Approach

What we have heard so far. Four people in marketing edit the sites, the current admin is the biggest frustration, and the priority is a CMS that is easy to use, works the same way on every site, and holds up during busy sales periods. That matches our approach. In discovery we would like to sit with the team and watch a real task being done, because that usually reveals new insights and ways to improve things.

What we are looking for. An editor should see the real page as they build it, and only be able to change the things they should be changing. Event details should be structured, so a date lives in one field and appears everywhere it is needed. Training should be quick, and nothing should lock you in.

Where we would start. Using ACF blocks in the WordPress editor, each section appears in the editor exactly as it will on the live page, and the only things an editor can change are the text, images and links inside it.

Editing a hero section now, as a form, and as proposed, in the page

Events as data. Each event is a record with dates, location, distances, price bands, route files and status. Comparison pages, countdowns, current pricing and the details Google shows in search results all read from it, so a date only ever needs changing once.

A tidier admin. Unused menu items removed. A "start here" dashboard, locked page templates, a shorter list of sections to choose from, and a different admin colour per site so nobody publishes to the wrong brand.

Training. Initial hands-on session with the four editors and anyone else keen to learn the new edit flow; screen recordings for common day to day tasks; a follow-up session to cover those things that always come to mind or show up after training.

SEO & Migration Strategy

Endure24 and Race to the Stones have ranked well for a long time and that visibility is worth protecting carefully, so migration planning starts before design.

Crawl all four sites and pull twelve months of Search Console and analytics data into one URL list with traffic, rankings and links. We would not settle the new structure until we can see which pages are earning their place.
Blog posts and news all come across, as you have asked. Pages are reviewed with you, and anything retired is redirected to the nearest relevant page rather than dropped.
Where a URL ranks, we keep it. Where it must change, it gets a hand-mapped permanent redirect. We would not use catch-all redirect rules for anything with meaningful traffic.
Metadata comes across with the content, reviewed rather than copied.
Structured data generated from the event details, so Google can show dates, venues and FAQs in search results.
Redirects tested on staging. Search Console and sitemaps on day one. Rankings and crawl errors checked daily for two weeks, then weekly for a month.

Performance. Video is hosted off the site, images are automatically resized for phones and desktops, and pages are cached so they stay fast when entries open. The current code also loads colour settings for every brand on every site; the rebuild only loads what each site needs.

Zendesk. The FAQs stay on Zendesk because the chat bots depend on it. We can theme the help centres so they match each brand, which is listed as an option, and we would make sure the links out and back feel like one site.

Delivery Options

Level 1 at £13,000 gives you the platform, templates, training and the migration of blog content, with your team populating the event pages and landing pages. We are happy to work this way, and it fits the brief's aim of your team owning the sites. The thing to weigh is time: it puts the content work on four people in the first two weeks of December, in the run-up to the January campaign. We would be on hand throughout, with CMS access from mid-November, two finished reference pages per site to copy from, and questions answered as they come up.

Level 2 at £16,500 adds the event page migration and the primary landing pages, so you take delivery of a populated site and the December content work sits with us.

Both sit inside the budget and both are priced in full under Cost Breakdown. Which fits better depends on how much time your team can give in December, and we would be glad to talk it through.

Timeline. The brief has launch in the last week before Christmas, feeding a January campaign. We propose moving it forward a week, which means starting discovery on 27 October.

Phase	Proposed
Discovery and CMS review	w/c 27 October
UX and design	w/c 10 November
Threshold begins entering event data	w/c 17 November
Build	w/c 24 November
Threshold populates pages on finished templates	w/c 1 December
Testing and fixes	w/c 8 December
Launch Endure24 and Trail Series	w/c 15 December
Ride Cymru and Threshold Sports	January to February 2027

That leaves a working week before the office closes for anything that only shows up live. If 27 October is not possible, we would suggest launch in the first week of January rather than the week before Christmas.

Ride Cymru and the corporate site follow in the new year, as the brief allows. By then the design system and block library exist, so they are mostly configuration and content.

Cost Breakdown

Our day rate is £500 and our hourly rate is £75.

Level 1: Platform Setup & Enablement

Phase	Days	Cost
Discovery, CMS review, content audit, site structure and SEO baseline	3	£1,500
UX, design system and four brand treatments	6	£3,000
Core build: templates, sections and admin setup	7	£3,500
Setting up the four sites	2	£1,000
Functionality and integrations	2	£1,000
SEO migration, redirects and analytics	2	£1,000
QA, accessibility testing and deployment	2	£1,000
Training and documentation	2	£1,000
Total	26	£13,000

Level 2: Collaborative Delivery

Everything above, plus we rebuild the existing event pages in the new format and build the primary landing pages for all four sites.

Phase	Days	Cost
All Level 1 work	26	£13,000
Event page migration, four sites	4	£2,000
Primary landing pages	2	£1,000
QA across populated content	1	£500
Total	33	£16,500

Level 1 already migrates blog posts and news by script. The Level 2 difference is the event pages and landing pages built by us rather than your team.

Payment

30% on appointment, 30% on design sign-off, 30% on launch of Endure24 and Trail Series, 10% on completion of the remaining two sites. Prices valid for 60 days.

Assumptions & Exclusions

Content migration. All blog posts, news and media move by script from the existing databases, with Pixelfridge providing database and repository access as agreed. Event pages are rebuilt in the new format. Under Level 1, Threshold enters event data and populates pages; we provide two finished reference pages per site. FAQ content stays on Zendesk.

Asset provision. Photography and video supplied as high-resolution originals. Brand guidelines and web font licences exist for all four brands and will be supplied.

Creative production. Graphic design excluded, as the brief instructs. We supply the specification your designer works to. Copywriting excluded; we advise on structure and flag gaps.

Technical. Event registration stays with your provider. Results linked or embedded from Krono Sports and Results Base. Merchandise stays on Pressio. Accessibility target is the standard level, WCAG AA. Ongoing SEO and paid media not included.

Security and data. Two-factor authentication on all admin accounts. Regular WP and plugin security updates. You own the hosting account, domains and code repository. 30 day backups. Cookie consent that works with Google Analytics, and a privacy notice and retention setting on every form.

Functional requirements

Requirement	Approach	Core scope
Event landing pages	Template	Yes
Event comparison pages	Built from the event details	Yes
Registration integrations	Link to provider, styled handover	Yes
Dynamic pricing	Taken from the event's price dates	Yes
Countdown timers	Counts down to the event date	Yes
Strava maps	Embed block	Yes
GPX downloads	Download attached to the event	Yes
Interactive route maps and elevation	Strava or Komoot embed	Yes; custom build optional
Route highlights	Content block	Yes
FAQs	Link to Zendesk, chat bots unchanged	Yes
Training resources, guides, event documents	Document library	Yes
Results	Link or embed from Krono Sports and Results Base	Yes
Image and video galleries	Gallery block, Vimeo embed	Yes
Splash and campaign landing pages	Landing template	Yes
Data capture, competition entry, contact forms	Gravity Forms	Yes
Pop-up interest capture	Pop-up on a timer or on scroll	Yes
Newsletter sign-up	Gravity Forms to Mailchimp, replacing Zapier	Yes
Participant stories, ambassador profiles	Profile pages	Yes
Sponsor content and management	Sponsor pages with tiers	Yes
Social media integration	Embed blocks	Yes; live feed optional
Site search	WordPress search, tuned	Yes
Content scheduling	Native	Yes
Multi-event structures	One set of event details, reused everywhere	Yes
Analytics	Google Analytics, one tag container per site	Yes

Optional enhancements

Enhancement	Estimate
Custom interactive route maps with elevation profiles	£3,000
Zendesk help centre theming per brand	£1,500
Strava club and segment integration	£1,500
Participant photo gallery with bib search	£4,000
Live social feed	£1,000
Additional brand skin for a new site or series	£1,000
Extended post-launch support, three months	£1,500

Hosting & Ongoing Costs

We would host on Cloudways. It has no visitor based billing, so entry opening spikes don't get expensive.

Daily backups, a test copy of the site, caching (to keep things speedy) and SSL (to keep things secure) are included.

If you would prefer a fully managed WordPress-specialist host with 24/7 support included, WP Engine does that well but is about 2-3 times the cost.

Figures based on vendor pricing as of October 2026 and shown in pounds at current rates.

Item	Annual estimate
Cloudways hosting	£600 to £800
Video hosting, Vimeo	£120 to £900
Advanced Custom Fields Pro	£115
Gravity Forms	£200
SEO plugin	£90
Backup and security monitoring	£120
Software and hosting	£1,250 to £2,250

Support. A monthly retainer of one hour, £75 a month, covers WordPress and plugin updates, tested before they go live, monitoring, and telephone and email access.

Routine requests are answered within one working day. A site down issue is picked up the same working day.

If you let us know your entry opening and event dates in advance, we will make sure we are reachable by phone on those days, including outside normal hours. Work beyond the retainer is quoted in advance at the day or hourly rate.

Total annual cost of ownership: £2,150 to £3,150 across all four sites, including hosting, licences and the support retainer.

Relevant Experience & Case Studies

London Sport

London Sport is the capital's partnership body for physical activity, with a main site that acts as an umbrella for a family of smaller sites and digital products. Their site was on Drupal, which few people in the organisation could edit, and they wanted to move to WordPress without losing what they had built.

We rebuilt the site on WordPress, migrated the content, and set the team up to run it themselves. That turned into a long relationship: we have since built and supported several of their other projects, including Sport Tech Hub, House of Sport and Get Active, each on the same foundations so they share what makes sense and differ where the brand needs to.

"Attention to detail, no ego, hard working and punctual. Exactly what you want from a web partner." Mieke Stones, Head of Marketing, London Sport

London Youth Games

When Nike became headline sponsor of the London Youth Games in 2019, the website needed to carry a much bolder identity and hold up for a large audience of young people, schools and parents.

We worked with LYG and Nike's design team to rebuild the site around the new brand, translating their creative into a WordPress build the LYG team could update themselves, then took on long-term hosting and support. The result is a site that is unmistakably LYG, fast on phones, and still being run day to day by their own staff.

It is the closest match in our work to this brief: a strong visual identity from an external design team, built into a CMS for a small internal team to own.

"The team provided invaluable support throughout the process and after, and are a pleasure to work with." Nicky Affleck, CEO, London Youth Games

Voices in Exile

Voices in Exile is a Brighton charity supporting refugees, asylum seekers and people with no recourse to public funds. Their WordPress site was very old, slow, and difficult for the team to update, which mattered for an organisation whose visitors are often on older phones and whose funding depends on people being able to donate easily.

We rebuilt it as a clean, easy-to-edit WordPress site with clear routes to the two things that matter most: getting help and giving support. The new site scored highly in Google's speed tests at launch, and the team now make their own updates without needing us.

"Thanks so much to Chris for the new site. It has made such a difference to our team, increased donations and made updates so much easier." Mel Steel, CEO, Voices in Exile

Project Team

We are a micro studio. One person leads and builds every project, with a designer and a second developer we have worked with for years brought in for the parts that need them.

Role	Who	Background	Involvement
Project lead and development	Chris Dunne	Leading the build of enterprise WordPress sites for 14 years	Every phase, discovery to support
Design and UX	Dave Salisbury	Graphic designer and UX specialist	Discovery through design sign-off
Supporting development	Rio Miranda	WordPress specialist developer	Build phase

You have direct access to the person building your site, decisions can be made in a phone call, and there is no account management layer in between. We are not a large team, and we keep the number of clients we work with at any one time small for that reason.

Continuity. The code is held in an account you own. The build is standard WordPress with nothing unusual in how it is built, so any competent WordPress developer can pick it up. Rio works on the build and knows the codebase. Documentation and training recordings are produced during the project.

Each stage ends with a review call, and you can see the staging site from week two.

Threshold Sports