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I have only just started on the Duval so the idea is not yet fully formed so please bear with me.
Starting point A and end point B are X miles apart if you draw a straight line on the globe (okay, slightly curved).
The racers start at the start and end at the end and are timed to get their average MPH.
This is then adjusted to penalise anyone who has deviated from the straight line.
Clearly they will have to deviate from a straight line because of things like fields, houses, roads etc. Sometimes it will be quicker to deviate such as riding along and over a bridge rather than through a wood and wading the river.
I will come up with a clever formula to punish the deviation so the straighter the line, the bigger the benefit.
Has this been done before?
I seem to remember the original steeple chases were this sort of idea.
The idea of picking your own route between A and B, and choosing between the shorter off road or faster road route, sounds a little bit like trailquesting. That should put all the rad gnar sick stoked dudes off.
What's the distance between A and B going to be ?
What about getting back to the event start after the event ? Maybe three stages would work better, A to B, B to C, C to A.
A, B and potentially C could be pubs and about 10 - 15 miles between them.
Trail quest sounds similar but I may introduce more alcohol and gnar.
All suggestions welcome. Perhaps open to windsurfers and canoests
Canoeists, now there's an idea.
OK, just a wild idea from my own local knowledge, and with a hint of Man versus Horse, a race from [url= http://goo.gl/maps/pZvrU ]Bridgnorth to Bewdley[/url], that's about 15 miles.
Canoeists on the River.
Runners on the river bank footpath.
Mountain bikers on Sustrans Route 45.
Roadies on the B4194.
A bit different to your original suggestion, but then again, a bit similar.
I always thought of having similar, but in a city.....
"straighlining" I was going to call it.... You'd need parkour and climbing skills...
DrP
You are both scouting around the edges of my idea.
Spinikar Tower is a landmark in Portsmouth.
Lymington is a town in the New Forest.
look on Google Earth for straight lines and water
Ventnor to My House
Douglas (Isle of Man) to Someone elses house from here who lives in Manchester
Your suggestions?
Straight over a long edge like Stanage or Langattock? Climbing one of those with a bike on your back could be fun
doesn't the guy with the fastest helicopter win every time ? 😕
Kind of like direct routes in climbing. But it probably works better there than trying to straight-line a route in a city or in the woods / hills on a bike..
Privateer had an interesting article on Polaris challenges recently. Apparently if you add map reading and navigation into an event it halves the entries over a waymarked event. I was suprised, thought it'd be quartered )
But the WRT and other bearbones events seem to be pulling back that polaris attitude from the brink, I like the sound of them. If I want to make up a route I'd usually just go for a ride as I normally do.. so the location and social aspect is most important in an event.
Sounds like my first night at uni in sheffield. Went to a mates house (second year) and got blootered. Wwhen I insisted on going back to my new flat, he pointed to a tower in the middle distance. An unconfirmed number of hours later, I made it, having tried to go in a straight line. I remember a couple of stream crossings and gardens with lots of washing lines.
What's the prizes?