No-one has yet mentioned the Tryfan downhill record of 680 m in 8 minutes, 1.416 m/s.
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No-one has yet mentioned the Tryfan downhill record of 680 m in 8 minutes, 1.416 m/s.
There's a similar question and a bit of an answer on the black combe thread: http://forum.fellrunner.org.uk/showt...k-Combe/page31Quote:
Originally Posted by Woodzy
In fact that record was broken by Pennine's Muir Morton, in front of the TV camera, but Mike claimed that they forgot to start the clock until 30 seconds into the race! Hmm?
Can any record be realistically be compared when there are so many day to day variables such as weather conditions, humidity, undefoot conditions, errosion, pitched paths etc.
IMO the Snowdon and Ben nevis Records will probably not be broken anytime soon because the path have been pitched (or as the fashionable expression goes `fixed`) and therfore a very different terrain to what they were when the records were set.
Thank you for these further nuggets of information and other comments. Some responses to some of your contributions:-
Dave_Mole: I can’t find a record time for the descent at Skirrid, but thanks for the pointer anyway.
nearlyhopeless: Caerketton is already in my dataset, but only an old record (5 mins 5 secs), so thanks for pointing out that this has been broken.
I wasn’t aware of the Nebit race, so that’s a useful new bit of data, especially since it is so steep (though not as steep as the BOFRA Alva race). I see from the SHRA website that there is also a downhill race on Bishop Hill, which I again didn’t know about.
For consistency with the rest of my data, I am only going to be using “official” timings, even if that does include a bit of flat road or field at the bottom of a descent. But these strava timings will help to check the credibility of the other data.
gej: I already have Mike Blake’s 8:00 for the Tryfan Downhill Dash in my dataset. However, the OS map shows a 917m spot height at the summit, and 306m on the road where the race finishes: 611m descent in 480s in 1.273m/s. Does anyone have any idea where the claimed 680m comes from?
JohnK: For a race with many years’ history, one can assume that the record was set in good conditions (weather and underfoot). So when comparing record times of different races, year-to-year variations of weather and underfoot conditions won’t be important; however, differences in the terrain type (e.g. tourist path vs. heather and boulders) certainly will account for much of the variation of pace between races that can’t be explained by differences of gradient.
Some of my data suggests that pitched/fixed paths may be advantageous for climbing speed, but I don’t know about their effect on descending.
Anthony, the height difference is 611m from summit to car park but the distance traveled for this 611m is about 1300m at an average angle of 29 degrees according to my basic triangle maths, making the descent speed 2.7m/s. You can't use the vertical height to calculate speed, it has to be the distanced traveled ie the slope or gradient.Quote:
611m descent in 480s in 1.273m/s.
Slogger, when I refer to "descent speed", I mean rate of height loss (or "vertical descent rate", as I called it in my first post), not the speed down the sloping ground which you have calculated. I do think rate of height loss (and height gain, when climbing) is of interest, but you are right to say that I shouldn't call this "speed".
The problem with trying to calculate speed down (or up) a slope is that simple calculations using trigonometry or Pythagoras' theorem are only accurate if the slope is constant (although the actual error should be small in most cases, when the calculation is done this way for a real mountain with varying slope). So in my published article I never attempted to calculate true speeds over the sloping ground. I only considered vertical ascent/descent rates and horizontal pace, the latter using map distance rather than distance over the sloping ground. But if the distance for the Meltham Maniac Mile and some of the uphill "Killer mile" races in my dataset was measured using a measuring wheel on the road, then there would be a (fairly small) error in my calculated "horizontal" pace.
Thanks for the explanation Anthony, after I read your article fully I realised what you were meaning, the m/s confused me....I should have read the article first.. :-)
There's the another WFRA descent only race; the Jubilee Plunge held the first Sunday after Christmas.
Records M 10:45 Ifan Richards F 11:59 Helen Fines as stated on the website, but I think this is incorrect and the M record 10:22 Adam Peers.
Listed as 2 miles -1500ft.
My track is normally 2.2 miles 1,367ft but a compulsory route during the finishing portion made it 2.4 this year.
Helix, that's another case of a race that's already on my list, but with an old record. I have now found 10:24 for Adam Peers on the wfra website, and thanks for alerting me to possible errors in the stated distance and descent; I will need to find a map of the route.