Cumbernauld - No.761.Cumbernauld Urban Race SOUL 6Sun 03 April, 2022

Regional level event

Results

• •
• • Results and Splits

Report

Organiser's Comments - Terry

Its funny as sometimes you just can't see the wood for the trees. Well that's how our Cumbernauld SOUL now feels but all's well that ends well.

The date had been carefully selected to be pre JK so that a quality urban experience was available for those travelling to the JK in South Wales but I forgot that the school holidays were no longer either side of Easter Sunday which also meant that North Lanarkshire Council were not able to guarantee a School Let - due to Covid-19 uncertainty about employing part time janitorial staff - as it was also the start of the school holidays.

Entries were slow coming in but was this due to 1. The date 2. School Holidays 3. Limited interest in Urban O 4. Clash with an Event in N.England or 5. Cumbernauld which is grossly unfair if it is a reason.

We ended up with 70 entries which was slightly more than CLYDE's Dumbarton SOUL. Very manageable and as there were no indoor facilities or toilets proved the event was financially viable. Tony came up from Yorkshire and several orienteers travelled down from MOR and MAROC and we thank-you for your support.

Event Accounts

Income Si Entries £625.00 + £20 Cash = £645.00.

Expenditure Si Fee £49.06 BOF Levy £ 100.50 STAG Map Royalty £1.50 x 100 maps = £ 150.00 Map & CD printing - £179.60

Officials Expenses including travel to update map £80.00

Surplus of £ 85.84.

The Map

In converting the original map into the New Sprint 2019 specifications a few bizarre changes to symbols happened but most were eventually sorted.

Thanks to Dave Ritchie, A4 Design & Print who guided me through the maximum size of print available. Cumbernauld needs to be at a Scale of 1:4,000 otherwise it is totally unreadable!

However the lack of clarity with stairs was not related to this but due to vector data being accessed to produce the original map where every step was shown. The OCAD programme just automatically reproduced every step which is problematic in places.

This had been pointed out back in 2017 which was the last time we used Cumbernauld but I completely forgot as this was a new part of the town. There are over 200 flights of steps within the area used but not all were so dense that a black blob was visible. I am in the process of editing where necessary.

I must thank Fredrik and Rudi for taking on the planning and they did an excellent job. To John and Gerry for running the Start, Hua for 1st Aid cover , Robin and Sheila for their computing support, members listed under Fredrik/Rudi's comments and to Blair who was unable to be with us on the day itself.

Thanks to everyone who continues to support STAG. We have a wonderful product but the mystery of why so few have discovered it remains for me totally confusing.

Planner's Comments - Fredrik and Rudi

After scaling down plans for our Cumbernauld Triple Weekend to a single SOUL race for this year, we decided that it would be beneficial and fun to share the planning burden between the two of us.

This also meant that getting the controls out on the Sunday morning wasn't too strenuous!

Cumbernauld as a New Town is a wonderful technical area for urban orienteering with intense map reading and bridges and underpasses for route choice.

We tried to offer a mix of shorter, tricky legs and longer legs for route choice, and it was nice to see on Routegadget that we succeeded.

Many thanks to everyone who came up to us after their run to tell us that you enjoyed the courses, much appreciated.

Thanks to Alan, Alison, Ceana, John R, Marta, Lynn, and Ross for help with bringing in the controls.

Controller's Comments - Blair

In Orienteering terms Cumbernauld is certainly not what you expect. With numerous lanes and alleyways and lots of car free areas it presents as a very good area for urban Orienteering.

The other surprising thing for me on my visits was how few people I saw out in the area. There must have been something good on the tv!

Our planners did an excellent job devising courses that maximised the area that Terry managed to squeezed onto the map.

Thank you to everyone who entered and hopefully you enjoyed the challenges presented and we will see you again at a future event in Cumbernauld.

Location Info

Near: Cumbernauld
Lat,Lng: 55.94468,-4.00164
OS Grid Ref: NS751743
Postcode: G67

Open an interactive map in:
GoogleMap - Streetmap (OS 50k)
OpenStreetMap - BingMap (OS 50k)

Pre Event Info

Click here for SI Entries page.

Live Results will be available during the event.

Organiser Terry O'Brien BEM

Planners Fredrik Nordvall Forsberg and Rudi Paul STAG.

Controller Blair Young TINTO.

Directions / Parking

Adjacent to OLHS.

Map / Terrain

1:4,000 of Seafar, Ravenswood, Carbrain and Greenfaulds Estates updated and converted to ISSprOM2019 March 2022 by Terry.

Registration and Start times

Start Blocks in 15 minute chunks pre-selected by competitors from 11am > 12:29pm.

Course Information

As per SOUL Guidelines.

Start and Finish both within 100m of parking.

Warm Up in either adjacent Bus Parking (if empty) or downhill towards Ravenswood Pitches. Do not go south beyond the first blaes football pitch.

Final Course lengths and climb shown below plus the number of controls

Course 1 - 9.2km 170m 30 controls.

Course 2 - 7.7km 135m 26 controls.

Course 3 - 5.7km 95m 21 controls.

Course 4 - 5.0km 100m 17 controls.

Course 5 - 2.9km 80m 14 controls

Course 6 - 4.3km 90m 15 controls - 1 entrant - separate Start.

Main Start shall NOT be taped from parking but Course 6's Start shall be.

No entries for Course 7 so no maps printed.

Entry Details

Seniors £10 ; Juniors £5.