London Orienteering Klubb

 

All About Frolics

Frolics is a summer series of 5 orienteering races run by the clubs in and around London. It runs from late June to the end of July and is a club competition (ie clubs compete to win the trophy) – but it operates a handicap system which strongly favours those with less experience (or none!) and who are younger or older – very often those contributing most to their club’s score are relative newcomers. So if you are a recently started orienteer, or even if you have never tried it, you will be welcome.

The races are on 5 successive Sundays (One Saturday this year) generally with start times between 10.00 and 11.30. Although they are inter-club races, they are open to all, including complete beginners who have never orienteered before and are not a member of any club. There is no need to pre-book, you just turn up and enter on the day.

There are 2 course options; the ‘Frolic’ course which is usually about 4-5km and is of moderate navigational difficulty and a ‘Yellow’ course which is about 2km and with much easier navigation. In addition for those doing the Frolic course, there is an optional ‘Extension’ to provide another 3-4 km.

The winning club each year carries off the prestigious London Bus Trophy – and it is always a closely fought battle!

frolicbus.jpg

The 2011 Series

There has been a slight change to the series rules this year. Once again club scoring will be 'best 4 results out of 5' however this year clubs will drop their lowest score whichever race it is (in previous years clubs could not drop the last race score).

When

Who

Where

Postcode/GR
Sun 26 June SLOW Ham Estate TW10 7RX (TQ 164723)  Website Link
SAT 2 July HH Whippendell Woods WD1 3BD (PDF flyer)
Sun 10 July MV Nonsuch Park, Cheam TQ 233640 Website Link

Sun 17 July

LOK

Hampstead Heath

NW3 1TH (TQ 271859) (PDF Flyer)

Sun 24 July

DFOK

 Happy Valley, Croydon CR3 5QS

2011 Results - SLOW CHAMPIONS - retaining their title!

South London's SLOW have taken the trophy for the second year in a row - congratulations to them. Mole Valley fought hard and won the last race to try and snatch the crown, but a single point difference secured the honours for SLOW.

Some Series Statistics for 2011:

  • There were 379 total runs over the 5 races (down from 390 last year). These were run by 220 different people from 24 clubs (and 23 independents).
  • Clubs fielding the most (individual) runners: SLOW (43), HH (30), LOK (24), MV (20), HAVOC (13), CHIG (11), DFOK (11)
  • 134 different people scored for their club during the series. Of them, 2 (Peter Riches & Yvonne Hodson both of TVOC) scored in all 5 races.
  • A list of all runners and scores with handicaps is here

 

Club SLOW-Ham HH-Whippendell MV-Nonsuch LOK-Hampstead DFOK-HappyValley Cumulative Best 4
SLOW 566 20 500 19 555 20 432 17 474 19 95 78
MV 523 19 484 18 431 16 534 20 528 20 93 77
LOK 511 18 317 14 486 19 531 19 288 13 83 70
TVOC 301 16 379 15 344 14 445 18 422 18 81 67
HAVOC 351 17 434 16 450 17 399 16 349 15 81 66
HH 195 13 569 20 453 18 298 14 344 14 79 66
DFOK 241 14 0 0 415 15 282 13 408 17 59 59
CHIG 93 10 450 17 231 13 354 15 222 11 66 56
SN 249 15 0 0 186 12 98 11 133 9 47 47
SAX 167 12 87 13 0 0 67 10 257 12 47 47
SO 62 8 0 0 109 11 55 9 373 16 44 44
BKO 127 11 0 0 0 0 124 12 203 10 33 33
GO 68 9 0 0 65 10 0 0 60 8 27 27

That's it for another year - watch out for the 2012 series.

Previous Series Results

2010 series winners were SLOW who wrested the much coveted title from Mole Valley. A full blow by blow account of the 2010 series is available here.

The Handicapping System

The handicap applied is based on the 3 criteria below. For each of these you are granted a number of Minutes. The sum of Minutes you are given is your handicap level – which is deducted from the time you actually took to complete the course to arrive at your ‘Frolics-adjusted’ time. [Detailed rules PDF]

Experience

Split into 4 levels – Experienced (0), Above Average (4), Recreational (7), Beginner (10)

Gender

Male (0), Female (7)

Age

 Up to age 10 – (12 minutes)

12 – (10)

14 – (8)

16 – (6)

18 – (3)

20 – (1)

Aged and above 35 – (1 minute)

40 – (2)

45 – (3)

50 – (4)

55 – (6)

60 – (8)

65 – (10)

70 – (12)

75 – (14)

The Club Scoring System

After all runners have been listed in order of their ‘Frolics-Adjusted’ time, the winner is given 100 points, the next runner 99 and so on down the list – but only the first 6 runners from each club score. The club score for the event is the sum of those of its best 6 runners (tough luck if there are fewer than 6 entrants). The clubs are placed in order of their scores for the event and the winning club receives 20 trophy points, the next 19 trophy points and so on down the list. The club trophy is determined as ‘Best 4 out of 5’ – ie as a club you ‘drop’ your worst score – and the club with the highest number of trophy points wins the series – and the magnificent Frolics Bus trophy. In previous years we have insisted that the last event coudl not be dropped - this year in a change to the rules, that restriction has been removed - in other words each club drops its worst score from whichever race.

 
Last Update on 12 August 2011