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Planning & Routegadget

at Club Night

Steve R on steep Lakeland terrain, JK '15

Steve R on steep Lakeland terrain, JK '15
Credit: CLARO

Published: Fri 20 Oct 2017

Steve Robertson gave us a richly illustrated and well-observed run-through of techniques used at big events to make courses as challenging and entertaining as possible. And next up at Club Night: Brian Pearson shows us how to get the most out of Routegadget

Advanced planning talk

Steve managed to condense the contents of a full day advanced planning conference he attended Exeter earlier this month into one hour.

Recycling the slideshow presentation from the conference, Steve drew to our attention the issues involved in top level planning, as seen through the eyes of those who do it. Amongst other things, we learned:

  • what happens when you "overload" a control, as evidenced in spectacular fashion at 12,000-competitor event- we witnessed a rugby-style scrum to punch the first control (captured on video) at the start of the Scandanavian Jukola night relay event
  • why it wasn't always best to reuse the same map, controls or legs for a night event as might be used for a day event
using Routegadget

using Routegadget

  • why our club or others in the South West probably won't put on too many middle distance events (a fast, technical format)
  • why certain urban areas are so much better than others for Urban and Sprint races- even if they aren't necessarily the most attractive part of town (or the ones the mayor wants clubs to use!)

Because of demographics, the section on planning for higher age group competitors was probably the most pertinent for our club. Course limits are set around the amount of climb - but aging joints need to avoid steep downhill too and this can get overlooked. Topical, as at the recent Scottish 6 Days the Start was invariably located much higher up than the Finish.

Finally, thankfully, given the gradient of the Quantocks, Steve suggested that all climb isn't necessarily bad- it's just the quality of it!

Attending

Dave Harrison, Chris Hasler, Spencer Modica, Pete Akers, Jim & Graham Pearson, Julia Robertson & Jeff Pakes

Brian P (on SI at last year's QWO)

Brian P (on SI at last year's QWO)

Next up

This Thursday (26th), Brian Pearson will be showing us how to get the most out of the route-recording software Routegadget

There will be supply of QO laptops for participants to log on and experiment with courses and previous events.

If you have gpx files from your devices, you can bring these on memory sticks and should be able to view your routes.

The session will run from 6.30 to 7.30pm.