Minimum requirements for muni trails
This discussion has an associated proposal. View Proposal Details here.Comments about this discussion:
Started
Last time we decided to introduce the Muni Difficulty Scale which allows to score Downhill und Cross Country trails.
Now that we have a scoring system, we can use it to demand minimum requirements for muni courses to guarantee a minimum difficulty for unicons and to allow riders to better prepare for the race.
If you are not familiar with the Muni Difficulty Scale yet, you can read the descriptions and experiment with different fictional trails here: https://muni-scale.info (UDH and UXC)
What should be accomplished
- ensure that downhill courses deserve to be called downhill course (btw. does anybody have a GPS trace from the unicon DH in Japan?)
- ensure that an xc course deserves to be called xc course
- manage participants' expectations and allow them to better prepare for the competition trail (choose the right setup, etc.)
What should be avoided
- As an organizer it is not easy to find a suitable track, which is also legally usable for a competition. New rules should not prevent events from being organized.
- The trails shouldn't be identical at every event. An easy 8 km downhill trail can have the same overall difficulty as a 1 km hardcore trail.
Other opportunities
- So far we've had hosts introducing disciplines like "beginner downhill/xc", "advanced downhil/xc", but how do you distinguish between beginner courses and advanced/normal courses?
- maybe reduce complaints of disappointed participants as they know what expects them
Current relevant rules
- 4.1 Definition (...) Mountains are not required. Terrain can be anything from dirt to paved areas, hills, ditches, curbs, rocks, sand, mud, or grass. (...)
- 4.10 Downhill Race (...) Courses must be primarily downhill but may include flat or uphill sections. Recommended course length is 2.5 km, or 1 km at a minimum, depending on available terrain, trails and schedule time.(...)
- 4.11 XC A Cross Country race should be at least 10 km or longer, depending on available terrain, trails and schedule time. (...) It is basically any muni race that is not specifically focused on downhill or uphill.
Practical questions
- What minimum difficulty (for xc and dh) is adequate for unicons?
- Do we need to define an upper bound for "beginner" diciplines?
- Who is responsible for scoring the trails in advance?
Comment
Great post! Somehow I didn't get an email notification, I just discovered it now.
I am very much for a minimum UXC/UDH rating requirement in the future, specified explicitly in the rulebook. Of course, this requirement must not be too tough to meet to avoid getting the organizers into troubles finding a track. Maybe it's even too early this round of the rulebook committee, as we don't have that much experience with the scales yet. Instead a requirement, we could give a recommendation like UDH/UXC > 20 this year and see what happens.
What we could require already this year is that the hosts have to publish ratings of the tracks in advance. I think the persons to rate the track in advance would be the hosts and local riders who they are working with, for big events also the muni director(s) and possibly muni riders with functions in the IUF. Everyone else can of course also rate the track and contact the hosts if their rating is not realistic.
Comment
I would like to read more about MDS.
How does one obtain an MDS account?
I tried logging in via Facebook but received an error: The parameter app_id is required
Comment
As far as I know, an account allows you to upload tracks to the site, but all information about the MDS is available to everyone.
https://muni-scale.info/#/udh-scale
https://muni-scale.info/#/uxc-scale
https://muni-scale.info/#/mts
The account issues should be fixed of course, but so far Rocco did a great job programming this site!
Comment
Login via facebook should be working now. However, new users do not have permissions to create trails or ratings at the moment (only once I granted them).
I think a score of 20 is reasonable and not too demanding. But it is definitely a good idea to start with a recommendation first or with a lower score until we gathered more experience with it.
It should be required to publish the trail/rating details at least 7 days prior to the race. Slight modifications to the track in the meantime should be permitted as long as they don't change the overall score.
Comment
I love the idea of quantifying muni difficulties, but I couldn't access the website. Even when I chose different tabs, it kept routing me back to the main page. :'(
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This sounds like a great idea. Only problem I see if what if the unicon is held in flat country?
Comment
In any case where the conditions of Unicon make it impossible to follow a rule in the IUF Rulebook, the Unicon organizers always have the ability to petition the IUF Board to get permission to work around the rule.
Comment
I tried logging in via Facebook and this time and got something, unfortunately it is an advertisement for the Home app:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.home
All I want to do is read about how the trails are evaluated and assigned a number. Is this the only site with that information?
Comment
https://muni-scale.info/ this really doesn't work for anybody? It works really well for me! All sections works!
I'll explore a bit and come back with comments, I already feel so bad to never have took the time to explore the website -__-
It's probably the most exciting muni development project I know, I'm super impress!
And yes I agree we should use this tool to set a minimum requirement for Muni events.
Out of curiosity Rocco, how do you classify Unicon 17 Expert XC race? https://muni-scale.info/#/trails/11/
What average and maximum M-Scale?
B.
Comment
https://muni-scale.info/
I visited the above, and was able to read the site, without having to login, using the links at the top of the page. People having problems should describe what they were using if it's not working for them:
Platform: OSX 10.9.5
Browser: Firefox 35.0 (yes, they're up to 35 now)
Comment
Please send any website related issues to rocco[at]is-gr8.com, as it doesn't really belong to this proposal.
Flat terrain
The score consists of multiple parts, so that a lack of steepness or elevation can be compensated with other factors. E.g. an XC course with the following parameters would still get 20 points:
max slope uphill: 10%, total ascent: 200m, avg difficulty: M1, max difficulty: M2.5, length: 17km (and so would a course with no climbs at all, avg. M1, max. M1 and a length of 40km)
If there is a small hill, then a downhill course would need to be very technical to reach the minimum score. This coul dbe achieved by adding artificial obstacles to the course like ramps or other wooden structures (but not a trials parcour). If however there is not even a small hill, then there is probably no point in running a donwhill competition anyway.
Unicon XC rating
I didn't ride the XC loop in its entirety, but from what I've seen and what I remember I'd rate it with M1.5 and M3, which results in a score of 21 points. @Ben can you confirm this or would you rate it differently?
Due to the rounding of the score it would still be 21 even with the avg being M2 or with the max being M3.5.
Comment
From what I remember: I think the Unicon 17 muni competition tracks could be rated M4/M3.5/M3 maximum difficulty and M2.5/M2/M1.5 average difficulty for DH finals, DH qualification, and XC elite, respectively. Very technical for sure. I took the other parameters from the Unicon website and got 23/21/21 points for these 3 competitions. The XC and DH finals were close to the minimum length and the DH qualification - and to a lesser extent the DH finals - were not very steep on average, which compensated for the technicality. In the end, this is reflected in the slightly above average difficulty ratings.
Comment
Ben, thanks for calculating that for us. It's very helpful.
Comment
Quick update on the website issue: Rocco contacted me and we figured out it was because I was using Internet Explorer at the time. (It was a work computer, I can't choose the browser. :P ) And I think he fixed it so it works now. Anyway.
To address the "Practical Questions" Rocco listed above:
- I do not feel familiar enough with the rating system, or even muni in general, to offer an educated opinion, so I defer to the experts. (I.e., everyone else on this thread.)
- I think an upper bound for the beginner tracks would be good -- we have this rating system, why not use it! Again, though, I can't offer you what those upper bounds should be.
- I think the Unicon Muni organizers should be responsible for rating the difficulty of the trails in advance. People usually ask questions regarding mileage, elevation gains, etc., so I'd like to believe that adding the race rating would not be a very big burden for the muni organizers, especially because it can be done well in advance.
Comment
Thanks very much Rocco for turning this into a proposal. I think it would be very beneficial if this gets accepted. The only changes I would suggest: 1) In addition to the PDF on the IUF site, mention your website https://muni-scale.info, it is much more accessible to most people (and right now the PDF is not even available). 2) For the beginner DH and XC, use the same maximum ratings (now one has 14 and the other 15).
Comment
1) Is done.
Comment
https://unicycling.org/publications/