Nopesport Urban League 2011 speculation & other urban races

[brooner]

Interesting to see if the Nopesport guys would consider allowing two events at either end of the country on the same weekend if the dates clash.

By allowing, I presume you mean 'include in the league' - very very unlikely.

NOC are putting on the Nottingham Urban event on 5th June next year. Likely start and finish as this year but accessing some different areas of the City. Not yet on BO fixtures but definitely work in progress for mapping and permissions.

That would be a very unfortunate clash with the Urban event in Shrewsbury on 5th June on a newly extended map (which I would be out surveying today if it weren't teeming with rain). Unfortunately the 5th is the only date that the event can be held on.

Given the first point, and the above, it looks like competition for dates/weekends is going to become even more of an issue in future which is frustrating, as really we want to encourage as many events as possible - not create competition amongst them. This is especially true given the spread issue:

Thanks for the urban list, Martin. The geographical spread is interesting:-

none in Northern Ireland
none in Wales
2 in the South of England
7 in the Midlands/East Anglia
15 in the North of England
4 in Scotland

Anyone have any suggestions about how to even these out? Those of us in SW Britain have little choice!

It's about clubs getting involved and putting on Urban Races, which mean its down to those in the SW and SE to get out mapping and organising!

Its really good to see how many urban races are taking place in the north, mainly thanks to the Yorkshire urban league. How long until we get similar leagues for Scotland/Midlands/SW/SE? Regional urban leagues each with a couple of 'bigger' races as part of a national league?

[andy]

How long until we get similar leagues for Scotland/Midlands/SW/SE?

there's been an Edinburgh league for the past 2 years

[madmike]

Anyone have any suggestions about how to even these out? Those of us in SW Britain have little choice!

Include the inagural St Alban's City Race to bump up the southern numbers

[binman]

Gramp are planning a September Sprint Series in Aberdeen (4 events) but they'll all be on Wednesday evenings; might not be much good for those in the SE or SW but shows it's increasingly popular up (proper) north too.

[Spookster]

none in Northern Ireland

Oops, sorry, I missed one, which will be the largest participation urban race next year! JK Day 1 Sprint in Belfast. I missed it because I searched for type "urban", or the word "urban" or "city" in the event title. Strangely JK Day 1 has none of those in the system, everything is TBA/TBC.

Anyone have any suggestions about how to even these out? Those of us in SW Britain have little choice!

As Brooner says, get mapping and organising. Bristol, Bath, Cardiff, Swansea, Bangor, etc must all have city centres and/or Unis with urban map potential...

[mike g]

Guildford was v good this year and should definitely be included.

I thought when staying in Ilfracombe for the JK that it would make a great urban race venue. Maybe one year there could be a Tamar Triple that combines it with a couple of days on Braunton...

@DJM - Does Monmouth not have any potential?

[yted]

York is missing from the list I guess because it has TBC rather than urban on the BO site - usual bank holiday Monday date and half the area is new!! For those who missed the British elite champs in Scarborough a few years ago, a chance to run on a wonderful map of a wonderful area this year on Saturday 4th December - a very small but very classy event.
Filey next year has some similar bits and some 100 metre crags. What's the symbol for via ferrata?
see http://www.photorecce.co.uk/filey_brigg ... ginfo.html

[Roger]

Could I make a couple of pleas?

1. Include only events that are willing to provide / publish / send to me the results in some format (the BOF ranking format would do) that includes BOF number. Being able to use a reliable 'primary key' would simplify the work considerably. Manual intervention is still likely to be needed, e.g. to cope with veterans or juniors who 'run up' on Open for most of the season but run one or more events where the Vets are on the same course as Open runners, but indexing the results by BOF number would help a lot.

One side-effect would be to exclude from the scoring people who don't have a BOF number, which may or may not be desirable. Lots of foreigners pushed down the likes of Madmike in London this year, and it's probably sensible to exclude them from a UK league. Do local members have BOF numbers?

2. Include only events where the Urban League categories are allocated to a single course, designated unequivocally on the day and in the pre-event advertising.
Junior: M/W 16- (changed from M/W18- this year following the safety guidelines)
Open: M/W18 to M/W34
Veteran: M/W40 to M/W50
Supervet: M/W 55+

In my opinion there aren't yet enough Hypervets (a dozen M70+ and a dozen W70+ registered one or more scores in this year's league) to make this a reasonably competitive separate category. The time will come, but probably not in 2011.

[Homer]

We decided to make cut off for 'Ultra-vet' at M/W65 rather than M/W70 in Guideline E if that makes any difference Roger.

[Roger]

We decided to make cut off for 'Ultra-vet' at M/W65 rather than M/W70 in Guideline E if that makes any difference Roger.

Putting the junior boundary at 16 and an ultravet at 65 on this year's figures would give, for men and women respectively,
Junior 75 52
Open 290 168
Veteran 293 181
Supervet 176 83
Ultravet 46 26
Of the Ultravets, three women and two men did more than two races (10, 6, 4; 10, 4).
The Supervets would certainly still be a viable competition without their elder brethren and it's clear from other data that performance does drop off increasingly quickly beyond 50.

I'd be open to persuasion that the thrill of a separate category would drive Ultravet participation, so if there's good support here and if team Nopesport is happy to find another two housebricks then I'd be prepared to score another two categories.

[SAL]

Do local members have BOF numbers?

Yes, BOF numbers work in the same way, regardless of membership level. You wouldn't be excluding Local members if you used BOF number as the primary key.

[Mrs H]

I'm not sure the BOF number is a good idea - supposing we get some keen Inds come along who discover they are doing okay in the league so go to more events and get hooked. Not including them in the league is a disincentive - even though it would be in my interest to not admit them I guess.

I think ultra vets at 65 is a good idea - some of them are bloody fast and beat me - it's an incentive to keep going and they wouldn't need an extra course.

[EddieH]

I don't see a problem with the BOF number requirement so long as the odd person that subsequently joins BOF can have their previous run(s) included. As Roger says there will inevitably need to be some manual input.

[DaveK]

Looking ahead a bit, Canterbury (down here in the South-east), in 2012 will be awesome.

[NeilC]

Since Dave's plugging SE urban events here's another: Wednesday Dec 15th for the Brighton City Race http://www.brightoncityrace.org.uk/. This year the whole event is on a 1:5000 ISSOM map with mass-start courses (not score).