Oxford City Race

[awk]

I have to say I went to the north because the circle looked centred on that side. I did think at the time that the control did need a locator though.

[Paul T]

At a guess, the site was chosen for security - it was discreet enough hardly to be noticed by non-orienteers. At the time I thought it deserved a fuller description, but it did give me half an excuse to run through the Bodleian courtyard - it was a few seconds longer but some things just have to be done.

[Spookster]

It's bad planning/controlling to have a control on one side of an uncrossable line feature which can be approached from either side and is a long way round: you should be able to navigate to the circle using the map alone.

I think a protest would have been thrown out, because the planner didn't make a mistake.

This is an awful line of reasoning. Its quite possible for a control to be unfair without "the planner making a mistake", and its quite possible for a planner to make a mistake without the course needing to be thrown out. The deciding feature should be whether competitors lost significant time unfairly, no need to blame the organisers.

OK, I didn't properly explain what I meant. I think it is not fair to say the planner made a mistake, when strictly it was not a mistake. But I agree that it could have been better described in its present location, or as you say, it could have been beneficially relocated slightly.

[Roger]

course 1 ... was a road race with hardly any route choice at all... Course 2 was a slight improvement but again had lots of dead running with little route choice.

I totally agree about the lack of intricate navigation (and the planner has explained how this came about). But on route choice, I think that course 2 offers plenty. The ten quickest routes that are presently on Routegadget show:
S-1 two viable options, with the shorter one being twisty and hard to spot;
1-2 four options, and again the shortest is twisty whereas the others can be run harder;
2-3 no choice; 3-4 three options, with one of them offering a slow and twisty short-cut;
4-5 two, plus a couple of minor modifications to the northern one;
5-6 two; 6-7 only one good choice, although two others were made; 7-8 one;
8-9 one that's best, although three other inferior routes were chosen;
9-10-11-12-13 only one real route, although at least one person made the same error as me and failed to cut the corner on 11-12;
13-14 one, with possible minor deviations through the Bodleian Library;
14-15 two; 15-16 two, with three or four variations at the end; 16-17-F one.

Once you'd made your choice, the longish leg from 15 to 16 was very straightforward until the final 100m. Combine this with the fact that the second half offered much less route choice than the first and perhaps it's not surprising that the competitors were left with that 'road race' feeling. But the criticism quoted seems excessive to me.

[graeme]

Really? I thought that was half the fun/challenge of ISSOM urban races - e.g. navigating to a bridge base and then discovering the control is directly above you, i.e. on the bridge itself. aka a "trap.

Nothing wrong with traps.

Edinburgh street v2.jpg (35.92 KiB) Viewed 7053 times

S-2 is a good trap leg.

but S-1 is just an exercise in whether you know the IOF symbol for "underneath", or maybe "top", or indeed for maximal fun/challenge whether you know the IOF default location for a control on a bridge.

Which is surely the sort of geeky thing we should be avoiding.

PS Sorry, not allowed to show you the new bit where you need to worry about the contours too. You'll have to come to Burns weekend.

[Scott]

S-2 is a good trap leg.

...but would be much better if the start triangle were a bit further south .

[awk]

But on route choice, I think that course 2 offers plenty.

I'd have to disagree. After no. 5 (which wasn't a significant choice), there was pretty much no route choice except for 14-15 and to a lesser extent 15-16. Even those, I felt, were made a lot easier by having a fair amount of dead running before hand in which to plan.

The key route choice legs were 3-4 and 14-15. I don't think there were any others which occupied a significant amount of time.

[roadrunner]

Looking at the map, I think course 2 had some more interesting route choice options than course 1. While there were route choices throughout course 1, there weren't many where you had to think carefully about which way to go (such as Graeme's example) - it was mostly going for the shorter or the easier one. Even without the colleges, I think a few more controls in the area south of the start, the area west of the finish, and the castle would have improved the course no end.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the day, and thanks to OUOC for putting the event on.

[awk]

Even without the colleges, I think a few more controls in the area south of the start, the area west of the finish, and the castle would have improved the course no end.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the day, and thanks to OUOC for putting the event on.

Would totally agree with all of this!!

[madmike]

Even without the colleges, I think a few more controls in the area south of the start, the area west of the finish, and the castle would have improved the course no end.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the day, and thanks to OUOC for putting the event on.

Would totally agree with all of this!!

Me too

[Knee Deep Mud!]

Rather a lot of moaning about the courses on this thread. With limited access to the colleges planning a technical course is always going to be a challenge in the remainder of this area.

As far as I am concerned, the most important thing is that I had an enjoyable day in Oxford. Nice weather, nice run, no navigational errors (didn't leave my brain at home for this city race!), some sightseeing round a few of the museums, and back home in time to make the evening firework display too.

Thanks to OUOC for putting it on.

[RS]

Have to agree with Knee Deep Mud. An enjoyable day out in spite of the lack of technicality. Surprised Chester didn't get similar coverage for the most boring event to date. Think we were a little disappointed with Oxford after their great inaugural. Inexperience showed through in the organisation as well - eg instructions at start were very poor, but hey, practice makes perfect
Thanks to OUOC for their efforts.

[Producer]

Lots of debate about 1 control - an educated guess (which I made) took me to the right side. However, the injustice was the poor course. Lots of people mentioned the planner was hampered by lack of colleges but these were greyed out on the map. Taking the map as it is, it is easy to plan better courses - even using some of the vegetation on the north side of the park we started in would have been nmore interesting than long legs with a straight road between the controls. Why given a N-S, E-W street layout were lots of legs N-S or E-W - diagonal legs, short legs, changes of direction and 30 controls rather than 19, would have madce the course much better. I don';t think there are any real excuses other than the planner (and controller) either like road running or aren't up to the job.. As I said before, it seems like course 1 was the course to suffer most - at least half of course 2 was ok. Hopefully lessons leanrt and we won't see this again or I won't be going to Oxford again.

[madmike]

Have to agree with Knee Deep Mud.

I think you are also agreeing with Mrs H, Roadrunner, AWK and I!

I sense a raging agreement going on here

[Mrs H]

[
I think you are also agreeing with Roadrunner, AWK and I!

and me