Map scales (yet again)

[Scott]

I'm really looking forward to the British Nights and Northern Champs weekend - two of my all-time favourite Lake District areas.

I was, however, a bit disappointed to discover that we're going to be given 1:10k maps for the 21E courses at the Northern Champs. Chances to run on technical terrain at 1:15k are rare enough in England, and I can't imagine that Bigland has changed that much since JK2015, when the map was perfectly legible at 1:15k.

[Big Jon]

Take your own scanner/printer to the event and reduce the map scale yourself. Otherwise only read the map at full arm-stretch...

[Scott]

It's the arm-stretch required to fully unfold the map for the longs legs that I'm worried about - I don't have the longest arms

[madmike]

It's the arm-stretch required to fully unfold the map for the longs legs that I'm worried about - I don't have the longest arms

Just for the sake of clarity I don't think you have long legs either Scott

[Scott]

So, credit where it's due: TVOC are offering 1:15k for Black and Brown courses at the Chiltern Challenge, which is at the always-glorious Hambleden on Sunday 9th April. It's a week before the JK, and the terrain isn't entirely dissimilar to Holmbush, so it should be a perfect opportunity to get a bit of practice running on a proper map scale.

[JK]

I was wondering whether everyone was happy with the choice of scales at Torver Back Common. It was Middle distance so we had Black/Brown/Blue at 1:10,000 but I felt that Green and shorter should use 1:7,500

Cheers

JK

[MAPS]

My wife as a W60 was very pleased to have 1:7500 here and at Bleathwaite. I as a M60 would also have preferred 1:7500, and this scale would have still fitted on an A4 sheet.
Where the terrain is more detailed, it should be shown on the larger scale if possible, for M/W55 +
Well done for the women here, but not so the older men!

[JK]

Note that the courses were colour-coded rather than age-groups so you could run the course you wanted, but yes the "suggested" courses [and indeed the ones used for calculations for the whole w/e] had different scales for men and women of similar ages.

I think the "correct" scale for everyone is 1:10k, but I felt that 1:7.5k was more appropriate for the shorter courses. Since I didn't want the same course printed at 2 scales I drew the line between Blue and Green. It meant that W45 [suggested course] was 1:7.5k when they might have preferred 1:10k and as you said M60 had 1:10k when they might have preferred 1:7.5k.

I do agree that 55 sounds the right sort of line to draw if it is done on ages rather than courses.