Race tools: Speed vs Distance chart to help your support crew out
The attached spreadsheet (now actually available) shows the major race landmarks on both days, and the distances between each. The first table looks at total distance from the start, while the second only considers the time between points. The times are calculated for a variety of speeds. To use the table, get your support crew to start a stopwatch when you start, or to note the time when you leave a major landmark.
Note: This is the first in a series of Race Tools that we will offer in the lead-up to the Avon Descent. The remainder will only be made available to Registered Users of this site. Take the opportunity to register with us, so we can start to tailor what we offer to suit your interests.
You may have a fair idea of your predicted speed before the start, in which case you could sketch onto the sheet your 'race plan'. Otherwise, your crew can get an idea of your speed by timing you down to Katrine bridge and working out your speed based on your time getting to there.
Of course loads of things will impact on speed: tiredness, bingles, rest breaks etc but at least some crew have something to work from. Meeting up with your support crew is a practiced art - it's very difficult for them to find you in the chaos on the roads combined with the chaos on the river.
This chart is tried and tested for over a decade with a number of support crews, and it works. Of course, knowing when your paddler should show up is one thing, being able to get there, spot them and provide them with what they need is a whole set of other challenges.
Feedback and refinements invited!
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Speed vs time point to point Avon Descent.XLS | 37.5 KB |
- Great vid
9 hours 9 min ago - My speed
11 hours 52 min ago - m
18 hours 2 min ago - Cut run
20 hours 12 min ago - Cut Run
1 day 10 hours ago - LP Partner sought for City Lights
1 day 10 hours ago - Traumatic
3 days 9 min ago - and in the background
3 days 10 hours ago - spam
3 days 10 hours ago - Ouch
3 days 19 hours ago
support crew tool
This is useful for crew, to figure out how long your paddler will take to get various places.
support crew times
Bumping this up for the benefit of anyone doing support crew this weekend!!
RE Signs on trees
Signs on the trees would surely remove a little of the mystery? Where's the advantage in knowing where you are then? A mate of mine is logging the rapids into his GPS and putting the names in, so the machine will announce to him the name of each rapid as he approaches. He can also add this a little advice for each one if he likes... "Feral Carcass rapid, enter top and head down the LHS" for example.
Next up... Intelligent devices that say "Bob, you know you can do this one, just watch for that ski wrapped in half on the main rock and ignore the advice of the person on the left bank."
gps and the rapids
if you turn on Google Earth community
(gallery> Google Earth Community)
I have entered them all, with some descriptions.
You could use the lat/longs to enter hthem in. I guess
Hal calls the rapids
Or worse... Hal (2001 A Space Odyssey) takes over the GPS...
HAL GPS: "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid you can't do that."
Dave: "Sc*ew you Hal, I'm doing extracts regardless!"
grid
is this based purely on distance & speed? Not allowing for shallow/deep/trees etc?
Yep just basic
Yep Fiasco just does the maths on distance and speed to calculate time. You can do the tweaks for scraping the bottom along the shallows into Toodyay, and for running out of puff while paddling the last couple of hours each day!
RAPID + RAPID
WHAT A FIASCO. I dont use my gps on race day. I fit my watch to spray deck and my list has times between rapids. minor adjustments for water levels.(not last year though.) This advice only to be used by real kayakers.
and ignore the info on the Avon Descent site and their sticker!
The standard stuff from Avon Descent is badly out of whack in places.
In particular, they suggest Bolgart Bridge to West Toodyay Bridge is 14km!!
Blonde moment??
Am I having a blonde moment or can no-one else see this 'attached chart' either? I think it will be most helpful so I am VERY excited about it!!
Now visible to the masses
Ahhh a technical stuff up from RBP admin. Thanks Ski Girl, and dual-identity-weather-man. The super brilliant spreadsheet is now available to the great unwashed. As a matter of site policy we will continue to deliberately stuff things up on a regular basis, just to demonstrate that we would Rather Be Paddling.
Meanwhile Fiasco pulls out his rapid super sticker, thereby wrecking the very next Race Tool release from this site. Might have to jack up his privileges and makes him official as well, so he can work from the inside.
Speaking of technical issues
Is anyone else having trouble viewing the DoW river level map?
Brilliant!
Thanks guys that will be most helpful as I follow the boys down the river!! Hugs and kisses from your 'ocean paddler'.
more aids
Although I have prev posted this elsewhere, this is my list of rapids, compiled out of Terry Bolland's book. Stick it on your foredeck for something to read on those lonely trips down the valley. Problem is...I am going to have to produce a large-print version for myself, as i can't see it w/o glasses!
http://members.iinet.net.au/~fiasco/fiasco/printable-rapids.jpg
oh no, it's Goolies !!
I can't believe anyone would put that on their deck !!. Some of those features are really hard to find. "Did that Island have a lizard on it" - or is it the next one?
Was that stump black? Oooh, there's a stump over there... woah. Helipad - where my aeronautical chart. Spaghetti junction, yet another nondescript island. Crocodile carcass - not sure which this one is - seriously. Deadly mistake - maybe this should be called K2 snapper.
I could go on... but many of these are either not rapids, or are better named as that one after XXX, of the one just before ABC...
A good way to gauge distance: It's 6km's from Posselts to Emu's, another 8km to Moondyne (with Bonebreaker just before half way), 10km to Brockman river (and "Heartstopper"). 2km to Lookout, 4km to Syds - then 7 to Bells.
Easy: 6, 8, 10, 2, 4, 7.
Double Scoop - yes please, with Chocolate sauce and sprinkles...
To each their own
Either use the names Terry dreamed up (and god knows where half of them came from), or make your own. If it helps you remember rapids, lines, or whatever then it's useful. If you're fine with a collection of numbers then go for it.
I've done 20-odd valley runs in 4 years and I still can't recognise every rapid when I'm 100m above it. The newbies I've taken down this season have asked repeatedly "so what was that one?" at the bottom of rapids - particularly ones they found hard - and I can't give them an answer.
How does that help them learn the river, when they have nothing to identify a rapid that gave them trouble other than "oh, it was somewhere between The Wall and Heartstopper". Yeah, there's nothing huge between those two but any rapid can end your day (or worse) as two guys found out at K2Snapper...er...Deadly Mistake.
NAMING
AND I'VE DONE MORE THAN 20 VALLEY RUNS. I didn't have names until I got TB's book (Needed it to locate the rapid where I buried a K2 around a rock in 2000...oddly enough at Deadly Mistake)
The names don't matter but you do need to know what is coming next. Otherwise, how will you know what line to take? Unless you're on a ski and it doesn't matter.
Second, it helps the psychology of the valley to see where you're up to.
Even worse, the experienced guys have hteir pet names for sections of the ti-trees.
naming is good...
...but first a quick quiz:
Name the odd one out:
1. Rice Pud
2. Stodgey Porridge
3. Tea Strainer
4. Scared Rabbit
5. Tinkabell
6. Lonely bush
7. Double scoop
I'm all for knowing where you are - very important - where you're going - how long it will take, and what tricky section is around the corner. But Fi' - I think you're taking it a bit too far.
Next time you successfully navigate the right channel on stodgey porridge - watch out after 300m - for many a paddler has come to grief taking the wrong route at tinkabell.
Naming
Whats in a name , some of them put the fear of God into you, once you are in a rapid the way you have chosen is the right way cause you can't go back - you cope with what's in front of you.
I have been away for a week and paddled today, good to get back into the boat - didnt miss much as the water hasn't been too good.
SP
I can see it....
...but my Secret Identity can't.
Just needs to be poked a bit to make it public, I'm guessing. *prods admin* :)