Discussion: Where do you order map bags?

My club is looking for a supplier of 4 mil flat poly bags in various sizes. For many years we used a company with reasonably good results, but a year or so ago, they stopped supplying bags.

We then ordered from a different supplier, but were quite disappointed in the bag quality. Far from crystal clear, they were rather hazy, to the point that you could hold up just a few together and completely obscure whatever was behind. Not exactly an invisibility cloak, but not optimum for reading a map!

Anyway, we are looking for a new supplier, ideally midwestern United States, so I'd really like to hear where your club orders bags, and any experiences with quality, delivery, etc.

www.uline.com

We are very happy with them.

I second the Uline recommendation

Hudson Poly Bag in Hudson, MA, has often been used by clubs in this area, though it's obviously not very close to you.

Associated Bag ; to find the ones you probably want, search Plastic Bags/Flat Poly Bags/Low Density + the mil thickness you want and then the width needed

(or uline)

Should OUSA help clubs with map bag purchases?

(This question is partly, but not entirely facetious)

O-store.ca has them as well.

Bradley's has slightly better prices than Uline.

Bradley's also lets you order in units of 100 bags rather than 1000. www.bradleybag.com

For a short moment there I was wondering just what you had planned for 4 million map bags.

Here's a semi-related question:

Are map bags recyclable (eg, like #4 plastic grocery bags)?

I'd say they are as long as the orienteers don't want to keep them as souvenirs.

"I used this map bag in the '53 national championships and it won me a bronze medal. You kids these days are lucky with your fancy waterproof paper and not having to draw the map yourself during your race time. Trying to get an ISOM approved brown pencil to hand draw contours was a real challenge during the depression. I saw people using MUD I tells you!"

A lot of people in California don't like to reuse bags because they are concerned about urushiol (active ingredient in poison oak) being left on the bag. Polyethylene is very recyclable; it would have a number 1 if the recycling logo is on it.

How about a national order for one of the waterproof papers.

Thread hijack warning:
...having to draw the map yourself during your race time...

Wouldn´t that be a great idea for a fun event...?

How about a national order for one of the waterproof papers.

Maybe OUSA should just merge with Orienteering Australia and let the Aussies come up with all our ideas for us.

" I saw people using MUD I tells you!"

Mud - Luxury! We had to use horse sh** - and the kids of today.........

Thread hijack warning:

bubo, I hosted that exact event back in the mid 1990s in Colorado. The map was Mt. Falcon, which was not particularly good, so the courses always had to be kind of easy to compensate. I set courses up through Intermediate level, then for the advanced course, the competitors got a blank sheet of paper, and I had an assortment of colored pens available. After the clock started, they could put as little or as much information on their paper as they liked. They also had the option of returning to the start at any time if they needed to look at the master map again. I think the extreme on the "little" end was one experienced competitor who tried to get away with a series of compass bearings (and no distances). He did complete the course, but the time saved in not copying more information did not make up for the lack of a map.

Now which ones do you buy, these ones?

"* Not recommended for dry ice."

Well then, forget it.

At WPOC, most large plastic cases are from PrismPak

Please avoid zipper-type bags for A meets. The zipper gets in the way of folding the map.

Even if there's a cost savings of the national organization ordering waterproof paper (or bags), there is no warehouse capacity. Costs to store and reship would probably negate what's saved in bulk ordering (though I haven't done any cost comparison).

"Poly" bags used for map cases are usually low density polyethylene (LDPE), so are recycling code 4. LDPE is less likely to be accepted in municipal recycling programs since it has lower recycle value than some other plastics (like PET(E), recycle code 1).

Flat, 4 mil poly bags are best for map cases IMHO. Seal with a heat sealer or clear tape.

@guskov: these ones.

We generally use 3mil but Uline also has 4mil.

Has anyone tried these?
http://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-8478/Reseala...

the difference is that there is an adhesive seal, not a zipper

Yeah, we are not putting any A-meets, but zippers are a bit of a problem, that's why I asked -- what are the alternatives.

What do you use to seal them, just want to know the specifics :)

Sealer.

jjcote >> That´s exactly what I thought would be a possible outcome of an exercise like that. Copying the important details of the map vs. map memory or some other smart-ass tricks...

PS. Why not make it a National Championship? Could be a lot of interesting rules discussions...

Would GPS gives you any advantage, and should it be banned, I wonder?

We also have one of these.

Thread hijack warning:
...having to draw the map yourself during your race time...

Wouldn´t that be a great idea for a fun event...?

Oh, you mean the final stage of the 2012 Giant's Rib Raid (GHO)? I had to use a thick black marker for everything including writing the letter Y to stand for yellow/open. It really was totally awesome.

p.s. Uline is the best - our office/shipping is stocked with anything and everything by them. I had no idea they have map-type-bags too though. Thanks for the tip.

"Poly" bags used for map cases are usually low density polyethylene (LDPE), so are recycling code 4. LDPE is less likely to be accepted in municipal recycling programs...

At least in my area, many supermarkets have bins for recycling plastic bags.

The map sealer that Sandy linked to is pricey, but those things rock. If you're doing something like an A-meet, it's totally worth it to have one. OUSA owns one (purchased for WOC93) that circulates around to the clubs in the northeast. It's a serious piece of equipment that will last virtually forever given the workload we put on these things.

On the other hand, depending on the climate, sealing the map cases may be unnecessary.

@Guskov, if you're not putting on A meets, let your competitors seal them as they wish. If the club wants to have a roll of tape handy for them to use that's great too.

We use 3M clear package tape which travels in our family O kit.

For A meets, though, the cases should be sealed.

I know that OUSA doesn't currently have a storage facility or anyone to process lots of orders. But there are already several north-american orienteering gear vendors out there. Not saying that this should happen - but under the right circumstances I can imagine a world where OUSA partnered with one or more of these vendors to license a line of "official" OUSA products. I doubt it would save any costs - but it could be used to raise money, simplify A-meet logistics, encourage use of proper materials, and establish OUSA as an organization that provides useful services.

PS - I organized a training camp about 3 years ago where I made the competitors draw their own map on the clock. It worked really well. It's a very good exercise for teaching map simplification and it really forces people to think through their navigation strategy.

Having to carry a clock around must have been a real pain.

We are very happy with Uline as well. You call them on the phone and they know who you are and the boxes are on your porch in two days. They will bill you, which your Treasurer will appreciate. Unfortunately you get a new catalog every two months which is exactly like the previous catalog. A waste of paper. But interesting reading (once).

Why should the map bags be sealed for an A meet? I don't think it is in the rules. At O-Ringen the map bags are not sealed and (I'm guessing) not one of the 15,000 competitors complained.

You're right, it's not in the rules, and I'd say sealing depends on ambient conditions. In the dry mountain states it's optional but I prefer a sealed case in the potentially wet north and southeast states.

http://orienteeringusa.org/rules#A16

I've done lots of trainings with unsealed map bags with no problems. However, at an A meet, I would want it sealed and have taken to checking the map case seal when I pick-up my map. If the seal isn't good (and sometimes they aren't), I take a different one. The issue is falling in a swamp or whatever and the map will get wet if the case isn't sealed.

At the O-Ringen the maps are printed on waterproof paper that is also tear-resistant.

Same way at the Scottish Six-Day. The maps seem to survive the Scottish weather, including being dropped in a bog.

And yes, I've asked about getting the paper in North America (where they don't have a distributor) but the minimum order is $5000 ... the cost of 10e5+ map cases ...

Greg, what's the paper they use for O-Ringen?

CascadeOC switched to waterproof paper (Rite In The Rain) for our Winter Series a few years ago. We certainly didn't buy $5000 worth of it, but we did work with the manufacturer (here in Tacoma) to get pricing. I wasn't the one working that project, so I don't have exact numbers about how much we bought for what price. We use 2500+ sheets per year, which saves on buying and disposing that many plastic bags.

Falling in a swamp? Seriously? Is this a common enough occurrence that it's something that organizers need to worry about it?

I´ve been orienteering in Sweden and abroad for close to 50 years and have never* really had the need for a sealed map case.
I know several runners who come back with their maps looking like crumpled toilet paper** though - but how they have done that I can´t really understand.

*) well it occasionally gets a bit wet but very seldom bad enough to be illegible.
**) particularly when they use the "waterproof" paper

Patrick: http://www.neenah-lahnstein.de/en/products/pretex/

Using a map case keeps the map inside in decent shape for route-marking and and storing. Even if waterproof paper won't disintegrate, the map could still be in nasty shape after a run.

The ink better be waterproof too...

@jjcote--what's your point? that map cases don't need to be sealed?

If it isn't going to rain, then yeah, it really doesn't matter if they're sealed. At local meets, my map case is never sealed, even when it's been raining pretty hard, and it's generally been fine. Perfect sealing is really overkill.

Sad thing is the guy who ran with this map beat me on the legs he didn't even completely have! (map bag failed on a rainy day)

Mike SLOC get their map cases from Checker Bag a local supplyer. They come in boxes of 500 with a minimum order of 5000 bags. The cost for our last order was about $50 per box. Map cases are heavy so if you have them shipped to you that will add to the cost.