Which was your favourite City Race?

[Roger]

I ran Kingussie, Lincoln, Warwick and Oxford. All were good, and fantastic enjoyment, but Warwick just shades it.

To ensure that I finish with praise, I'll start with some things that could be better next time, collected from all the races:

* control descriptions should be based on what you can see on the map rather than what's on the ground
* consistent mapping of man-made 'point' features
* shorter / no queues to start
* more clarity on where it's permissible / possible to go (avoid overprints obscuring detail or cutting an uncrossable feature, differentiate bridge from uncrossable boundary, make crossing points clear), bearing in mind that the maps are going to be read at pace and any slight ambiguity will be misinterpreted by some people
* avoid hanging controls on the 'nearest available object', at varying heights and sometimes not precisely at the described site (the wooden stands used for Oxford 2006 were perfect)
* think about the three-dimensional issues -- if someone approaches from this direction and wants to go that way, does the map accurately portray the ease of doing so?
* descriptions occasionally could have done with more detail (which side / end, whether 'building' was 2m high or 8m high)
* consistent age-class structure, with as few courses as are required to cope with the demand and to ensure that people aren't running an inappropriately (whatever that may mean) short or long distance, or (for the younger juniors) mixing with cars.

I was never particularly bothered by the traffic.

The things that I liked far outnumbered the quibbles:

* route choice, particularly when contours played a part (Kingussie)
* variety of leg length, with some legs <10s (particularly Warwick, Kingussie)
* variety of terrain: streets and parks as well as complicated areas of buildings (all four venues)
* touch-free Emit (Kingussie, Oxford)
* hitherto unvisited places to run round (Warwick and Lincoln completely new, ditto most of Kingussie, and even some bits of Oxford
* atmosphere (finish at Kingussie, assembly at Oxford and Warwick -- Lincoln just needed some more people and that would have been great too)
* food and drink on hand (especially Warwick and Lincoln; Kingussie hotel looked a bit up-market and the Oxford vending van didn't)
* beautiful parts of the cities, displayed to their best advantage (Lincoln, Warwick; Oxford was always going to be dependent on which close-enough colleges granted permission, but missing out on some of the most scenic bits was slightly disappointing even for a local)
* racing among and between people going about their 'normal' business (Lincoln and Warwick especially)
* the thrill, every time, of racing at a significantly faster pace than I would in a forest.

Congratulations to the nope team for having the vision to link the races into the Cities Cup -- thank you.

[epocian]

Roger posted
shorter / no queues to start
I only ran York, Lincoln and Warwick but never had much of a queue

[EddieH]

I suspect Roger's queues were at Kingussie. An innevitable problem when you have no allocated start times and a huge entry. Fantastic event once one gt started though. There was a very clear benefit of having the mapper known in the village - he got permission to go into all sorts of places.

[Roger]

Yes the queues were at Kingussie, where the organisers were overwhelmed by the popularity of the event. Flexible start times were a nice idea, but after I'd warmed up thoroughly in preparation for a fast race, it was frustrating to have to stand in a queue for 20 minutes before starting. Especially given that the elite had pre-set times and that I had actually pre-entered. In hindsight, booking a start slot on the day and then being free to warm up would have been better, although of course this would have increased the bureaucracy.

This is not a problem unique to City (or in this case Village) Races. Perhaps the message is that, given the prospect of decent weather and a significant number of orienteers in the vicinity, urban races can be very popular.