Easter Arrow Follow Up/ Summer Arrows 2017

[mattc]

<some editing here, forgive me ...>

... my suggestion for GPS validation was intended to be IN ADDITION to the current method.
...

... I do not think this will happen, but it would form an interesting model to add to the current paper based offering.

...

As for the current organisation I think this was my 7th Arrow and am always impressed by the organisation. So woul be happy for no change. But it will not attract many new teams and the growing band of cyclists who are up for a challenge.

BB

+1 to all that.

It's a great event, but I could see potential for expanding the format as BB has suggested. Perhaps a parallel/simultaneous event (the Easter Trail has tested this model)? Long-distance team riding is something that seems quite popular in the wider world (or at least the bit I read about in Social Meeja! ) A 24hour* ride can seem a much more manageable endeavour than a 600km, or 4 day trek across northern France.



_{*24h MTB races - especially tackled as a relay - are getting quite popular.}

[Phil W]

There was some discussion in our team of this rule that applies if you don't finish your intended route in the 24 hours.

The team will be validated if the actual distance covered is within 20%

Actual distance could be taken as the distance as measured by the GPS trip computer or a standard bike computer. Actual distance is not minimum distance. But some interpreted it as so.

So who is right and how do you validate it?

Absolute minimum distance for a validated ride is 360km (24 hours of 15km/hour) e.g. 400km target, 360km ridden = OK.
Your ridden distance must be within 20% of your nominated distance e.g. 500km target, 360km ridden = not OK.

We got that bit. The bit that was up for discussion was how the ridden distance is calculated.  Take the receipted locations in order and run through Google Walking to come up with distance ridden or take the distance ridden as recorded by GPS or basic bike computer?

[mattc]

I assumed that - partly because no computer/GPS is required in the rules - it was the MDBC*. so in this case, take the Proofs-Of-Passage and use a tool such as Google-Maps-Walking to calculate a distance.

But this was always just an assumption!


*Minimum Distance Between Controls

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Organiser's discretion IMHO but typically cummulative minimum distance between controls.

[psyclist]

I think it was clear in terms of adding up minimum distances between controls. The question that was discussed mid-ride was what happens if you finish between controls ... the rules are that you note your distance and get a receipt at the next available opportunity.

The distance could be noted as per a Garmin (or similar device), but that would show actual distance ridden.

My thought on this would have been to note a location at the end of the 24 hours, get the receipt as per the rules, and then use Google walking to determine the distance from the previous control to the location where the 24 hours finished. That distance would then be added to the sum of minimum distances between all the controls that had been ridden to that point, and be the distance noted on the brevet card.

[jsabine]

My thought on this would have been to note a location at the end of the 24 hours, get the receipt as per the rules, and then use Google walking to determine the distance from the previous control to the location where the 24 hours finished. That distance would then be added to the sum of minimum distances between all the controls that had been ridden to that point, and be the distance noted on the brevet card.

That's the way we were assuming it would work.

We did cock up in not getting a photo of the team by an identifiable sign or landmark - but given my receipted Pop from the next available point is a mere 7 minutes after our nominal finish time, I hope we can pray the organiser's latitude ...

[Feanor]

You didn't cock up; you don't need to prove where you were at 24:00:00.

5. CONTROLS Each team member shall obtain proof of passage at the starting point and each designated control in the form of a stamp, ATM or till receipt. If proof of passage is not available a photo of the whole team clearly identifying the place (e.g. in front of a road sign) may be substituted.  During the 22nd hour and at the end of the 24th hour the exact time and location of the team must be noted in the brevet card and proof of passage obtained.  The team must ride until the end of the 24th hour. If proof of passage is not available at that point they must continue riding to the next available place where it may be obtained. This does not have to be York, it can be on the way to York.  A minimum of 25km must be ridden between the 22nd hour control point and the finish.

If the Next Available Place is 7 minutes down the road, that's fine.
The Next Available Place could potentially be rather more than that!

[Ivo]

I've been organising the Dutch Arrow this weekend together with Joost and a few volunteers.
We did it in a slightly different way.
Our Arrow was on saturday/sunday since hardly anyone in the Netherlands has Good Friday off. As a finish we choose the village hall of Odijk which we also use for the Randonneurs Nederland AGM's. It's quite handily located bang on the old Roman border. The village hall would provide a light lunch for everyone. Finishcontrol was open from 11am to 2pm, teams were told to start at 12am sharp on easter saturday. 3 finish volunteers were at hand, one to greet the riders, one to check the cards and one to collect all other sorts of evidence (GPS tracks and photo's). We decided to use the cards as main proof. The usual extra's were also accepted (receipts, ferry tickets etc.). Any photo's for photo evidence would be downloaded by a volunteer with a laptop. From every team we requested 1 GPS track. No comments whatsoever on that, everyone was happy with that.
The GPS evidence is mainly chosen because there are a lot of ferries around which have limited working hours, some not functioning on sundays. So any check via the shortest distance between two points would be problematic since the shortest realistic distance on a given hour could be completely different. Teams had to hand in a GPS track of their intended route. Deviations due to roadworks, roadblocks and other reasonable reasons would be accepted, just like using a different street in a build up area.

First teams arrived around 11.30, last team arrived at 12.20. When arriving in Odijk I spotted two teams lounging on the grass at the village entrance and waiting until 11.58 to move on to the village hall.

Next year the Arrow will be organised by Randonneurs Belgium, Randonneurs Netherlands will do another one in 2019.

[Ivo]

One extra bit which struck us, since a lot of riders checked the AUK or ARA rules they were thinking that they had to fix the 22h control beforehand. We didn't require that so a few teams deleted the final scheduled control after we told them that it's not a requirement for us.

[wilkyboy]

You know, I think my team, who were all first-timers, quite enjoyed the mystique associated with the 2-hour rule, the 22nd-hour rule, the 24-hour rule, etc.  In a sense they had to let themselves trust that their team captain (me, this year) knew what they were doing and everything would work out in the end — I'm sure they'll be along in a minute to corroborate or contradict, as is the way.  Tomsk did the same last year when I rode on his team — a list of controls, a sketch of a route, and a sense of "follow me".  Simplifying this would seem, to me at least, to turn it into a time-limited 400, instead of the 24-hour team event that it is.

The 22nd-hour rule is the new offside rule 

As for digital — while I am fully digital, I do like my paper.  I think paper works just fine for the Arrow, I wouldn't want to rely on the digital skills of the rest of the team for validation (nor them on mine) — this time everyone was fine, but it would be a bit rubbish if one team member cocked it up at the cost of the rest, and digital is much easier to cock up than paper (DAMHIKT).

And as for increasing its reach — do people really think that it's not already growing year-on-year?  Is it not already attracting more people?  This year over 130 riders were Out There — that's almost the same size as the Brian Chapman and Ritchie doesn't rely on the goodwill of a random pub as the final meeting place.  I would be concerned that if it became too big then it would need a formal booking at a nominated finish venue, as per Ivo's post, and all the expense and hassle that would cause, especially given that the org doesn't live anywhere near York.

I think it also helps if team members one year go on to captain teams in subsequent years, taking the experience with them.  Hence five (is that correct?) Essex teams plus one Cambridge team this year branching from (as far as I know) Tomsk's stewardship over the years, which is quite a feather in his cap    Not as quick growth this way compared to simplifying the format into something different, but probably a better result overall.

Don'tcha think?

[jsabine]

I suspect (to put words into her mouth) that megajoules may be looking at improving the presentation of info and streamlining the entry process rather than seeking to change rules and remove mystique - to a point we're constrained by needing to have a ruleset that is visibly based on/compatible with the Fleche Velocio.

I quite like the mysterious undercurrents of things like the 22 hour rule (though in fact it's all fairly simple if you break it down) - but this year I'm mostly just pleased that I think it ought to have been 4th time lucky in terms of actually getting to York with a validatable ride.

[arabella]

I think it also helps if team members one year go on to captain teams in subsequent years, taking the experience with them.  Hence five (is that correct?) Essex teams plus one Cambridge team this year branching from (as far as I know) Tomsk's stewardship over the years, which is quite a feather in his cap    Not as quick growth this way compared to simplifying the format into something different, but probably a better result overall.

My original non-captain arrow was also with Tomsk so you can add Ipswich/Suffolk to that list
One year I even had my own spin-off...

[Phil W]

I've just put up an Easter Arrow 2018 event in my Hertfordshire Audax Group.  I didn't get enough interest this year to form our own team, so joined the Essex crew.  Hopefully with a year's notice and encouragement we'll be seeing me captain a team from Hertfordshire next year.  So another team potentially branching from Tomsk's efforts and enthusiasm.

[megajoulesexpenditure]

There's always the Summer arrows this year too. You might have more chance of persuading people out in the warm sunny weather

I've just put up an Easter Arrow 2018 event in my Hertfordshire Audax Group.  I didn't get enough interest this year to form our own team, so joined the Essex crew.  Hopefully with a year's notice and encouragement we'll be seeing me captain a team from Hertfordshire next year.  So another team potentially branching from Tomsk's efforts and enthusiasm.

[megajoulesexpenditure]

Sorry for not replying to all of the above but many thanks for replying to the thread and will ponder everything once things quieten down and cards are safely away to collect their ACP stickers.

I am also intending to put together an Arrivee article with the results and various stats plus a few anecdotes from teams reports.(Let me know if there's anything particular you might like to see included)

Would be good if there were some ride reports from the teams in Arrivee too

PS Thanks for the congrats Frankly Frankie and others. It was great to get so many teams entering and I hope many teams will come out again for the Summer version in June.

Lucy:
What %age of teams went for a Friday morning start, 8-10am ish?

[from skim-reading the threads, it seems to be almost everyone - whereas in previous years I got the feeling there were always a small minority of awkward sods squads outliers ]

[Phil W]

There's always the Summer arrows this year too. You might have more chance of persuading people out in the warm sunny weather

I've just put up an Easter Arrow 2018 event in my Hertfordshire Audax Group.  I didn't get enough interest this year to form our own team, so joined the Essex crew.  Hopefully with a year's notice and encouragement we'll be seeing me captain a team from Hertfordshire next year.  So another team potentially branching from Tomsk's efforts and enthusiasm.

I'll be in Ireland then for a 1000

[bobw]

There's not been much noise about the Summer Arrow. Is it not as popular as the Easter variant?

I was trying to put together a team starting from Reading, but I've not managed to recruit any willing participants. I feel I'm rapidly running out of time to plot a route.

Are there any teams, starting in the South East, seeking more members?

[mattc]

I'm Reading-ish, and want to do a Summer Arrow/Dart some day. Couple of reasons in the way this year:
- I can never remember the date ("Easter" is a lot easier to remember!)
- If it's June, then my calendar is pretty chokka already. Which suggests that when I *did* know the date, I decided to arrange other rides instead

One year. One year ...

[Delph Cyclist]

I rode another Summer Dart this weekend, a great ride from Saddleworth to Hornsea with the wind behind me, before turning into the wind and the Wolds to finish in York.  My first Randonnee for weeks, with lots of life stopping me getting on the bike.

Was I the only one?  There has been little talk of Darts and Arrows this year.  Perhaps you were all riding the National 400?

[megajoulesexpenditure]

There were 4 teams in total for the Summer arrows and 7 individual Darts. Cards still to return from some so not sure of exact finish numbers yet.

History records that the Summer arrows and darts used to be more popular than the Easter version so it would be good to gradually improve numbers for the warmer Summer version. (Hopefully the clash with the National 400 can be avoided next year too.)