An outside view on orienteering

[Guest]

It was good to read how us orienteers are viewed from those folk from Adventure Racing.

...."soon treated to the sight of all sorts of "oh, it's just a bit of fun, nothing serious" pretenders turn up in team strips of long-sleeved airtex V necks tucked into moth-eaten Ronhills, all in faded shades of the most garish colours imaginable. The best prepared completed the look with padded gaiters (for thrashing through heavy vegetation apparently) and headbands, but these paled into insignificance compared to the bizarre array of contraptions employed to make the simple task of holding two pieces of paper and a compass look like heart surgery. Amazing!"

Maybe this information could be used for advertising other events to other ADventur Racers?

see full article at http://www.sleepmonsters.co.uk/racereport.php?race_id=2301

[eddie]

They dress like they're going to a roller-disco, but Orienteers are a nice, welcoming bunch.

Hey: Disco Stu doesn't advertise

[DesignatedDriver]

i can see their point - if you don't know what all the contraptions are for, it would look slightly odd!

I'm sure there are orienteers out there can remember the time when they used to orienteer using road maps - control description being "bend in contour", alas a little bit before my orienteering experience started.
i do however remember when orienteering used to be, map compass and the ground beneath you. i must confess, more through a lack of equipment of late, i have taken to not running with a compass or control descriptions. i felt incredibly naked on my walk to the start. at no point during my run did i say to myself i needed a compass - in fact i found myself being more in contact with the map.
all our extra contraptions - anybody else feel like they could do without them?

[awk]

... in fact i found myself being more in contact with the map.
all our extra contraptions - anybody else feel like they could do without them?

No - would definitely be out of contact with the map without my magnifier nowadays!

[Nails]

Training and being able to read the map, without compass must be useful. If you can do it without, then if you have a compass in a race you must be futher advantaged. This is exactly what Pasi did a few years back, he decided he was too reliant on his compass, and wasn't using the map. So he ditched the compass and now runs without. Though i can think of areas where you'd be stuffed without one...Harvesters this year....ploughing through head high nettles in the dark.

[brooner]

Though i can think of areas where you'd be stuffed without one...Harvesters this year....ploughing through head high nettles in the dark.

yup, i've run most races in the past 10 months (the length of time since my 6 Jet went awol - I can't afford to replace it!!!) without a compass but the harvesters weren't one of them, I was also quite glad to have one with me in my pocket at the JK after the early first control bingoness suggested I might well be needing it.

Its definately an advantage to be able to focus on the map and navigate by that and that alone, its so easy when you have a compass to switch off and just run on the needle and stop checking off features, ending up god knows where. But then again its also easy without a compass to lose your mind and run off not fully thinking and end up who knows where ala me at trossachs this year! - but thats probably just me.

[FatBoy]

Here's a top idea - how about run with the needle AND check off features. I wonder how many of the top guys do that

[brooner]

obviously, but i switch off pretty easily and if i'm just following the needle rather than focusing on features its much more likely to happen.

I don't trust compasses anyway, they lie (mind you, so do a lot of maps)

[Nails]

Here's a top idea - how about run with the needle AND check off features. I wonder how many of the top guys do that

Most of them?

[FatBoy]

We really need that sarcasm emoticon...

[Nails]

I'm not being sarcastic, i'm serious...

[Nails]

ha ha

[Kitch]

Mweanwhile, an orienteers view of adventure racing...

So they do very long races, but thats just a matter of going slowly enough, anfd they can't half go slowly. They'd be a damn sight quicker if they knew where they were going.

They run and they canoe and they mountian bike and they climb and they abseil all adventurous things which can take you into a remote wilderness, but roller skating, how adventurous it that, can anyone roller skate the Cairngorms for instance ?

Then come the games, juggling, frisbee, tiddly winks, whatever. How are these things adventurous ? I mean, how would these skills save your life ? Unless I suppose you ended up in an Austin Powers movie and Doctor Evil wisked you off to the Arctic and sealed you into an ice cave to meet a frozen doom. You could frisbee a convientiently placed metal dinner plate at the icey roof and chip you way to freedom ( and a nice scoth on the rocks). But I went to Greenland and that never happened.
I'll tell you what did happen, one of the adveture race team missed a check point, but it didn't matter.
The thing is that navigation is a proper survival skill, because whilst yur adventure racers are all lost in a bog, unable to Kerplunk their way to safety, the orienteers will be safe and warm infront of the fire with a cup of tea, having completed the race hours ago.

[bendover]

exactly. did you read his report. he made out like he did really amazingly well on the light green. look at the results on the saxons website and he was way down. arrogant prat.

[P2B]

At least he tried it and wrote about it on the AR forum. I read the report the other day and thought it was a true reflection on O. He obviously enjoyed it so much so that he wrote about it as a 'race report'.

Bendover, why don't you join my AR team next weekend at the Ace Race on Exmoor - now there's a challenge! (it wouldn't be the first time we'd shared a tent together either)