MDOC Town and Country weekend.

[RS]

Many thanks to MDOC for a terrific weekend only marred by poor control placement on Sunday which many punters took advantage of and punched through fences. Splits show the culprits.
Macclesfield forest North is much nicer than I remembered (still steep) and well worth a visit.
Thank you again MDOC for a very enjoyable weekend.

[King Penguin]

Could only do Saturday, but echo the sentiments above - very enjoyable, despite the climb.
Thought the walk to assembly from the FC compound parking might have been a bit challenging for some, both old and young.

[Gnitworp]

The Black on Saturday was excellent; one of the best Blue Courses I've run for ages

[johnhrobinson]

i would also like to thank MDOC two good days competition in first a better forest than i remember it being? and second a most interesting town and then quite challenging estate area..Good planning made the most of the urban areas i thought , although like RS I noted that some control placements could lead to temptation.
If a planner is going to try to fool people into going to the wrong side of a titular uncrossable fence then the control has to be unreachable or they can gain an advantage from what is effectively an error which is not of course the intention.
Still generally excellent legs with a lot of thought required.

[johnhrobinson]

In spite of my previous comments i did have some issues with the map colours. I know we have been here before but.

macclesfield town bridge crossing

macc town.JPG (25.15 KiB) Viewed 5723 times

the footbridge up onto and across the dual carriage way had a light brown infill, to my eyes at reading distance this was indistinguishable from the olive green alongside it. So i ran in hope as it was the only way to go. I can not recall seeing this with other urban maps where the road colour seems to extend through the bridges.

Also the same pavement or paved passage colour was used in the SUN urban event and again was hard to distinguish esp in small passages from adjacent green.

is this just different printing or different interpretation of guidlines?

[70plus]

Could only do Saturday, but echo the sentiments above - very enjoyable, despite the climb. Thought the walk to assembly from the FC compound parking might have been a bit challenging for some, both old and young.

Yes, it's a pity there isn't any closer parking, when the walk to and from Assembly (and the Start ) can be easily further than the course itself. I did wonder whether parking might have been possible in the assembly field, but that must be too bumpy, and a potential disaster in the wet.

And thanks, Gnitworp - I said you would enjoy the forest

[Spookster]

the footbridge up onto and across the dual carriage way had a light brown infill, to my eyes at reading distance this was indistinguishable from the olive green alongside it. So i ran in hope as it was the only way to go. I can not recall seeing this with other urban maps where the road colour seems to extend through the bridges.

Also the same pavement or paved passage colour was used in the SUN urban event and again was hard to distinguish esp in small passages from adjacent green.

is this just different printing or different interpretation of guidlines?

The ISSOM Map Spec does allow for different densities of brown infill to be used, though it is intended that lighter infill is used in urban areas and 20% darker infill in non-urban areas. However, some mappers have used darker infill to mean other things, for example in Venice it means "streets with a higher density of tourists" that you may prefer to avoid. Perhaps the mapper in Macclesfield wanted to suggest something similar?

[johnhrobinson]

They seemed to be distinguishing between the road surface and the path surface.. other urban events I have been to recently, ripon, york seemed to use the same colour infill as road surfaces for paths
Not a bad idea IMO but this colour when between thick close black lines and adjacent to green or olive just didn't have enough contrast and several times I discounted an alley route on first look that on a closer viewing was ok.
Now this might be just me , having just got new glasses at vast expense , I thought I would try out a reactolite option to cut glare..This might be having the effect of reducing the contrasts I would like to hear how other people found this while I have the chance to get out of the deal..

[johnhrobinson]

for comparison ( if the colours reproduce accurately)

ripon park2.JPG (40.98 KiB) Viewed 5400 times

macc park 2.JPG (43.83 KiB) Viewed 5401 times

[epocian]

Wonder if MDOC are going to put the correct map up for the Prologue event on Routegadget - it's currently showing the final map

[paul]

Wonder if MDOC are going to put the correct map up for the Prologue event on Routegadget - it's currently showing the final map

Scroll down and right...

[Mrs H]

Looking at John's extracts I agree the map is a lot harder to understand than Ripon. It seems odd that the paths change colour once they leave the pavement - but why are the roads white anyway?

[epocian]

Wonder if MDOC are going to put the correct map up for the Prologue event on Routegadget - it's currently showing the final map

Scroll down and right...

Got it - thank you!

[Spookster]

It seems odd that the paths change colour once they leave the pavement - but why are the roads white anyway?

I guess the difference in colour between the roads and the separated pavements (paths) is a mapping error. The roads can be white (actaully "0% brown") in the ISSOM spec.

[johnhrobinson]

Sorry.
My scanner seems to have lightened the colour of the road somewhat , it was a little darker than that, a very pale brown. i just wondered why the difference as it doesn't seem to convey any useful information. Unlike Venice where it was potentially useful, if you paid attention to it