MTBO courses

[GFazekas]

Technical questions related to MapRun settings, course settings/planning for MTBO.

[GFazekas]

Recently we uploaded several MTBO courses, where they were biking too fast ; ) Some controls were missed that during slower tests could be even punched.
Is there a recommended value for punching tolerance for events planned for bikers? If we increased the tolerance from 15 m to 25m, would it better to have more stable gps recognition around the controls?

[Peter Effeney]

Interesting question thanks.

Let's say a rider rode directly through a control and there was no GPS error and no error in the position of the control. With a 15m punching tolerance they would be in range of the control for 30m.

If they were riding fast ... let's say 37.5km/hour, then they are moving at 10metres per second. This may mean that if their GPS is getting a good signal and providing a new location every 1second, there would be two data points within the punching circle.

So, in this case MapRunF should punch the control.

However, there is very little margin for error:
- slower GPS updates
- faster rider
- GPS error
- Control location error.

Increasing the punching tolerance would help.

I would be interested to look at any GPS tracks you have to analyse this, if you could email some through or point me to the particular event.

As a final comment... I thought that in a "normal" MTBO event, riders needed to slow down enough to punch with SportsIdent (or even SIAir). I don't think you can do that at 30-40km/hour?

Peter

[Nick Collins]

SI Air specifications are to 40km/h.
My experience in the finish chute is that there is no need to slow down.

[Peter Effeney]

Wow - that would be hard to achieve with GPS if we are only getting 1 data point per second.

Although I think we can get a much higher rate (and better locations) using the option to bluetooth connect an external GPS unit.

Doesn't SIAir do something special for the Finish? ie you don't need to be within 30cm?
Can they achieve 40km/hr at a normal control (30cm approach required?)

Seeing that MTBO is all on tracks, maybe expanding the punching tolerance to say 40m (and avoiding putting controls on parallel tracks closer than 40m) might help.