Discussion: Orange....

Not a classic Classic

Note to self: Train harder to pull away from Musty during the next one :-)

Certainly not a classic but it will stick in my mind.

An area to avoid, or one that would be ok with better planning?

It was a new area - maybe there was a reason for it not having been used before.
Western end was dull plantation, the eastern side was more interesting but small and a bit scrappy. These two areas were linked by dead running of 750m each way along a track thru a swampy area. It would have been hard to do much better planning wise.
Having been brought up locally I love the New Forest and there are some fantastic areas of natural woodland but the plantations can be a bit rubbish. Unless they are really runnable you just end up using the tracks and any classic (as opposed to middle) course turns into a wayfaring course.

Just seen it on Routegadget... doesn't inspire. Completely agree on the natural woodland bits though, always enjoyed my trips down to those areas.

I wanted to say the planning was pants but having spent 15 minutes trying to do better, my conclusion is that the area is pants full stop.

It’s the second year in a row of a poor area (last year having been flat open heathland) so I think the event is at risk of losing its lustre, especially for people like me who need a 3h round trip to take part.

Personally, I would have had a remote start for the longer courses so that there was only 1 segment of dead running.

Paul - I agree. Also with a remote start you would also have got further into the western area which looks like it got better further to the west. The longer courses do look slightly better.

I agree. There are planner’s comments saying “you wouldn’t have wanted a long walk to the start” but it’s not clear why.

I also wondered whether we could have gone straight from 1 to 5 to save some dead running, not sure if they considered but rejected that.