Didcot Urban Race, 30 August

[Roger]

Entries are now open at fabian4 for the Didcot Urban Race that's taking place on Bank Holiday Monday, 30 August.

The area being used is a large modern housing estate (the map's A3 size at 1:5000), full of twisty roads and alleyways but also with some nice landscaped areas. Careful study of the provisional straight-line and running distances on the flyer will reveal that Pythagoras does not apply. Even the locals get lost. Can you do better?

The assembly area is 10 minutes' walk from Didcot Parkway station. Didcot is about 45 minutes from Paddington on the main Great Western line and has a reasonable service even on Bank Holidays. It also has connections to Oxford and thence Birmingham etc. The true rail enthusiasts will wish to visit the Didcot Railway Centre, which forms one of the boundaries to the map, while others will doubtless sit at the pub and watch the runners go by.

Oh, and I'm planning the courses.

Roger

[Tatty]

Wish we'd known before we decided to go to the White Rose!! Seem much more preferable to slogging round the NYMoors forests. Too late as we're all booked up.
Second time that's happebed this year, as we were in Norway for the Winchester & Gosport races which are right on our doorstep. Boo We need more notice

[RCB]

Winchester & Gosport races which are right on our doorstep. Boo We need more notice

I agree; some events are not being advertised long/well enough in advance. Perhaps the fixtures committee can encourage clubs/regions to improve a little.

[Blanka]

Wish we'd known before we decided to go to the White Rose!! [...snip...] We need more notice

I agree; some events are not being advertised long/well enough in advance. Perhaps the fixtures committee can encourage clubs/regions to improve a little.

I knew about it ages ago (something like way back in February), as I was considering doing a triathlon on that Bank Holiday Monday. It has been in the BOF fixtures for ages and I think for a low key event like this, advertising a couple of months in advance is just fine.

[andypat]

Interesting looking map - Looks a similar type of area to some of the Erskine map used for the sprint qualifier event for the WOC.

Its difficult to tell from the flier but the underpass symbol doesnt appear to be in use on the map. Is that a deliberate decision?

[Roger]

There are some peripheral underpasses (under the A-road round the north, connecting to footpaths into the countryside, and under the railway, connecting to the town centre) but none in the body of the map: all the places where the paths cross the roads are 'level crossings' rather than underpasses. Fortunately most of the roads are traffic-calmed with chicanes and speed-bumps near the crossings, so traffic speeds are low. There are however several building pass-throughs, which definitely are 'in play'.

Re publicity: although draft courses have been planned for a long time (I planned what I thought were good courses, measured them and then defined those as the ones available: it's blissful not to be constrained by a guideline!), we couldn't start the publicity in earnest until we had an organiser and he'd obtained the various permissions.

[andypat]

Ah I see - they looked a bit like underpasses on the flier sorry. I think its probably just the colour.

[Tatty]

The problem with the BOF fixture list, is that unless you know there is going to be a certain event on a certain day it's hard to pick up unexpected events. Blanka knew a specific date, we didn't have a date in mind, just like doing this tyoe of event

[Mrs H]

.There is a filter facility for urban events - i don't know how good it is

[Tatty]

Thanks. I'll give it a whirl when I've more time. No 1 son is getting married on Saturday so a bit hectic at the moment!

[IanD]

.There is a filter facility for urban events - i don't know how good it is

The filter is as good as the data put into it. It requires somebody to input the event to the BOF system and specify "event type" as urban. Obviously if the event isn't on the system, or event type is defaulted to "TBC", it won't be found.

Furthermore, if you use the free web page monitor at http://www.changedetection.com to track http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/e ... rch=Search , you can get an email whenever a new urban event is added!

The only drawback is that, owing to the way BOF publicise cancellations, you will also get an email whenever an event of any type is cancelled.

We all like to criticise BOF, I think this is one thing they have done really well.

[roadrunner]

That was a great event - some really tricky route choices in places, caught me out a few times. I'll look forward to seeing the "best" route on RouteGadget as I know I ran quite a bit further than the "50% extra suggested", so I obviously missed a trick somewhere. Thanks to TVOC for putting it on.

[Roger]

Results are on the TVOC website and Routegadget is up. Don't forget to use the comment box: competitors' remarks make fascinating reading and help to improve things for next time.

Apologies for the delay on Routegadget: we needed to do some manual work on the splits for people who were reinstated after a resident briefly moved a control. (He was worried that an eminently crossable and rather sturdy wooden fence between two public areas would be damaged by people climbing over it. Controller John Spence did a marvellous job: a notice pinned to the fence simply asked people to go between the rails rather than over; John and the resident are now best friends and the resident has a lovely pristine map of the estate.)

The revised file should shortly be uploaded to Splitsbrowser, where with luck it will cure the error that is presently being generated.

[King Penguin]

I agree - an excellent course, definitely one of the best urban events I have competed in. Ther were plent of "traps" for those who did not plan ahead, but all fair. i managed to avoid getting dead-ended but detracted from anotherwise excellent run by tring to navigate from 17 to 18 when I was at 16 !

[drobin]

Analysing splits as one does, see Medium race, position 52nd, leg 8(134) to 9(136). Methinks he won't be marking his route.