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  • From: Una Smith <una.smith@att.net>
  • To: msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [MSAR] Mounted orienteering, USOF style rules
  • Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 10:17:49 -0700

Is everyone totally bored yet with this thread?

NACMO and IMO style orienteering rules emphasize searching
above navigating. What about the few groups that put on
mounted orienteering meets using USOF/IOF style rules? I
did a Google search both of the web and of Usenet to find
clubs that do or did organize mounted orienteering meets.
All of them have stopped, due to dwindling interest. Why?
Well, all the USOF-style mounted orienteering meets have
been *trail* orienteering meets. Almost all orienteering
fans consider trail-O to be boring.

There are some strategies to improve interest in trail-O,
including annotating the map to "grade" trails so the user
has some information relevant to route choice other than
distance and elevation change. Another is to run the meet
as a score-O, where controls have varied "point" values
depending on how far they are to reach. From score-O, it
is a very small step to running a mini-rogaine. A score-O
usually is designed with all controls at a similar level
of technical difficulty (White, Yellow, Orange, Red, as I
described in a previous post); in a rogaine all levels of
technical difficulty may be used.

For other strategies to correct deficiencies of trail-O,
investigate course design issues for MTB-O (mountain bike)
and ski-O.

Una Smith
New Mexico




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