The hardest map in the world?

Thursday, 26 July 2007

Tuesday we trained on the area used for the 2006 European champs.  It’s a forest park just east of Warsaw; a mere 15 km from the city centre and surely one of the best and most fun MBO areas in the world!  The area is basically a suburb on the edge of the forest.  So it gets lots of use.  As around Prague the Poles also seem much more enlightened than us Aussies in that multiple users of bushland areas is the norm.

The course you see above is the M21 sprint course from the regional champs last month.  It’s about 9.5 km.  The map is pretty accurate, although as you can imagine with an area which gets so much use, there are some very small paths which aren’t on the map.  But once one gets used to this it’s reasonably clear what the mapper has included and left off.

So how does one actually find their way in such a maze?  Well first you need to know that the paths are generally very smooth.  A bit sandy, but otherwise good riding.  Like you see below.  This pic is taken at the junction just north of #11 looking NE along the big track.

First step in getting around a course like this is to ride much slower than we’re used to in Australia.  Then, if you want to have a fast time, you have to vary your speed a lot, so you’re constantly speeding up for a short way and then slowing down to read the map.  Second you need to pick routes which reduce the amount of map reading you do.  So to #1 you’d be best to head out to the edge of the houses to the north of the triangle, then take the 2^nd right after the end of the sealed road, which would lead you into the check point.

Thursday we leave for the Polish Euro meeting races in Ladek Zdroj, a spa town in the Polish mountains.  This should be a beautiful place to visit.