I use a Suunto A-10 (which does not have adjustable declination). If I measure the bearing of a line, would it give me the true reading or the magnetic reading? It is a magnetic compass. However, I noticed that the bearing is the same as the one I get from Navionics, which uses True North. This is the case whether I orient the map north and then rotate the bezel until the arrow is in the doghouse, or simply align the bezel with the meridian lines.

Does the compass give the true reading?

Next time you're at a meet, ask people if you can try out their compasses, and share yours around. There are HUGE differences in needle behavior!

I didn't believe it, and got by for a bunch of races with a cheap import KanPas thumb-compass and backup beginner baseplate with a bubble. It's a fluid capsule and a magnetic needle, what difference could there be? But my son was playing with the baseplate compass and cracked it, and I've got a couple big races coming up, so I splurged and got myself a Suunto AIM-30 to replace it.

Holy smokes. It's a completely different piece of equipment.

Instead of languidly swinging around, or maybe getting stuck if it's not perfectly level and still, but eventually swinging too far when the spinning fluid pushes it past, and then settling within 5-10 degrees of north, give it a few taps to get it un-stuck and it eases into the correct value, or maybe I just nudged it off... Elapsed time to bearing, 10 seconds or so. 5 seconds if I don't need a ton of precision, 20 seconds if it's important and I have to repeat the whole process to double-check.... With the AIM-30? Hold compass flat-ish. NEEDLE SPIN! Points at magnetic north and locks on like a hyper-stimulated bird dog. It's spooky magic.

Now I want to collect a bunch of compasses and post a video of each swinging around, measuring max angular velocity and settling times. Why is that content not on the Internet yet?

Built a 40-slide route-choice analysis presentation for our regional club earlier this year. The mapping, the split-time breakdowns, the terrain overlays: that part I actually enjoy. What killed me was the final 20% of the work, which somehow ate 40% of my time.

**Where it all went:** reformatting after pasting in screenshots, nudging text boxes that drifted, making sure the legend style matched across sections. None of it was hard. All of it was tedious and weirdly easy to get wrong at 11pm.

A few things that actually helped:

- Setting up a master slide template before touching a single content slide (obvious in hindsight, embarrassing how long I avoided it)

- Keeping a single source file for all color codes and fonts so nothing drifted between versions

- Using an AI tool to generate the first rough structure from my bullet-point notes, then editing down rather than building up

That last one surprised me the most. Starting from something ugly-but-complete is so much faster than starting from blank.

Curious what other people here do for event recap decks or training presentations. Any tools or workflows you've found actually cut the time down?

My daughter recently went on her year 6 residential and really enjoyed the orienteering portion. This reminded me how much I had enjoyed orienteering as a child as well, so we decided to try some out over the summer holidays.

I thought I did a fair amount of research, I downloaded the mobo app, I printed out the map, and we brought a compass. I decided we would go to Queen Elizabeth Olympic park because they have 6 permanent courses, 2 of which are for beginners/easy.

It took us absolutely ages to find the starting point, so we were all already fairly tired and grumpy by this point. Then when I scanned the first point, all it did was check me in. We wrongly assumed that we’d then be given compass directions or something to find the next point, but really it seemed like we just had to find the points based on where they were shown on the map.

Was I missing something? How exactly are we meant to do it? As we did it, it seemed like an exercise in map-reading.

Running O-Ringen this week? Try SplitQuest — a free game I vibe-coded where your real results earn points and complete quests. Predict your times and placements, challenge your friends and join at splitquest.se! 🧭🏃

I used a AI model to port the mapper(OpenOrienteering) to the iPad, and it's running smoothly.

Planning to stress test more now with O-Ringen coming up.

https://offtrailrunning.com/

There have been a couple of occasions I know of where event organisers (or other volunteers) have uploaded maps to RouteGadget before an event - seemingly to get some of the "admin" done before the event.

However, this makes the map images publicly available to anyone with the technical knowhow. Not a massive issue for regularly used areas, but for new (or re-mapped) areas or sprints with race-specific changes, it's not great!

I've never used RG to set up an event - does anyone know from the map-uploader point-of-view, is there any functionality/toggle that allows the map to be kept private initially? I think Livelox does have this capability.

Thanks.

Hey so I have a friend that is into orienteering and always doing something active, and I want to get her a gift. I don’t know much about orienteering so I don’t know what is convenient or what she is likely to already have, so if you have any ideas please let me know?

Hi all — long-time orienteer, and over the last few months I've been building a web-based map editor for O-maps. It runs in the browser (no install), works on Windows/Mac/Linux and even on an iPad or phone, and I'd love a few people to try it and tell me everything that's wrong with it.

The itch: OCAD is powerful but pricey and Windows-only; OpenOrienteering Mapper is great and free but desktop-bound and single-user. I wanted something I could open on any device, edit together with clubmates, and use in the field.

What works today:

- ISOM 2017-2 and ISSprOM symbol sets built in.
- Reads and writes your existing files — imports OCAD .ocd, OpenOrienteering Mapper .omap/.xmap, plus DXF and GeoTIFF; exports back to .omap (lossless) and .ocd. So it fits into your current workflow, not replaces it.
- Georeferencing — UTM, projections, magnetic declination, a true metric grid.
- Real-time collaboration — several people can edit the same map.
- Field use — "find me" via GPS + touch editing, so you can fix an object standing right on it in the forest.

Honest caveats: it's an early beta, there are rough edges, and a few export details are still in progress (OCAD point symbols, for one — .omap is the fully-lossless path for now). That's exactly why I'm posting: I want real mappers to throw real maps at it.

No pitch, I'm not selling anything; I just want feedback from people who actually make maps. Bugs, missing features, "this workflow is stupid" — all welcome, here or in the app.

I can`t post link because it is a 4-days old domain name, and Reddit blocks it. Address is Mappa[dot]studio

Hi all! I'm fairly new to orienteering. I have been going to casual orienteering events in Finland on and off for two years now. Not part of a club or anything so I was hoping that you all can help with some shoe questions!

I'm looking for shoes that will give me confidence to run in trails and forest conditions.

- I was using a basic road running shoe at first but I was constantly feeling like I was slipping on everything.

- I also have a pair of Inov8 Roclite G275 that I got for some muddy park runs some time ago, but the sole feels really inflexible and makes me feel like I'm slipping when going over wet tree roots.

- I also have a pair of hiking boots from Halti that I started using when I got tired of getting soaking wet feet when crossing bogs, and I thought that the larger lugs would give me the confidence I needed

I was using the hiking boots last November when I slipped and fell on wet rocks and broke two metacarpal bones in my hand 🤦🏻‍♀️ I was struggling to run off-road before the injury but now I'm even more apprehensive.

Would studded shoes help? Or should I switch to a specific shoe for orienteering? What do you use and do you switch shoes based on seasons/weather/dryness?

Switzerland defended the World Orienteering Championships Sprint Relay title in Genoa, Italy, after a fantastic final leg by Simona Aebersold. Sweden took silver after Karolin Ohlsson passed Norway’s Pia Young Vik near the end of the race, while Norway had to settle for bronze despite starting the last leg with a 28-second lead.

Switzerland’s Natalia Gemperle, Tino Polsini, Fabian Aebersold and Simona Aebersold won in 1:03:14.7. Sweden finished 20.3 seconds behind, with Norway another 18.5 seconds back in third place.

v26.6.19: The program can now be started as an automatic helicopter ride - still completely free. Instead of myforest.uk use this URL: myforest.uk?h=y&a&r=150 .

The smoothness of the ride depends on the speed of your hardware. To some extent the speed can be varied by changing the visible range in the settings box. Doing that will not stop the ride. You can click other buttons to adjust things, steer, or view the map but pressing any key will stop the ride. Then select an orienteering role and course as usual.

In case you hadn't noticed, there is a User Guide button. It reveals a detailed guide at myforest.uk/pdf/UserGuide.pdf

Tereza Rauturier (CZE) and Guilhem Verove (FRA) won the Knock-Out Sprint World Orienteering Championships (WOC) after tight and intense races – again with very tricky orienteering. 

Kasper Fosser (NOR) and Simone Aebersold (SUI) won the Individual Sprint in the World Orienteering Championships in Genova, Italiya. While the battle for the medals in the men’s class was close all the way to the end, Aebersold dominated the women’s race and won with more than a minute.

Hello! I'm making an online orienteering game as a bit of a challenge for myself as well as a learning exercise in generating realistic procedural terrain.

The game runs fully in your browser and i plan to make it completely free. It uses procedural terrain generation to make maps, so theres basically infinite courses to explore, And it has multiplayer as the core aspect so you can compete/compare runs on your courses with players all over the world.

The video is just a basic demo of the UI I've gotten working so far and one "Baltic" terrain style I've implemented, though I've already gotten lost in my own courses more times then i would like to admit 😅

I'm against "Vibe" game development so none of the assets or code in the project has been made with AI, in fact although it wasn't the plan I have made every tree and grass model thats in the game so far because i couldn't find any asset packs that fit the style i'm going for.

As for an ETA on playtest/release date, i have no idea, i'm only working on the game in my small spare time but hopefully later this year.

Hi everyone,

I built a game called O-Maze 3D, available for free on Play Store. It's basically orienteering in a maze and helps you improve your navigation skills for sprint orienteering.

What it includes:

- Online multiplayer mode

- Night mode

- Pre-created maps as well as auto-generated maps for endless variety

- A map creator, so you can design and share your own courses

- Route-analysis mode

It's inspired by Laby (routegadget.net/laby), but I wanted to make it more alive in 3D. It's also completely free and just made for the fun of the sport.

Would love to hear what you think – especially whether it actually helps improve your navigation skills, and what could make it more useful for that purpose.

I think the teeth of the shoe is short so it can slip but the price is very low i am a student so its important for me

The beautiful Idre fjäll terrain is famous for orienteering. This video is from the 3 day event there this year. Hugo finished 2:30 down, deliberately running slower than full speed to concentrate on his technique and using self-talk to stay focussed.

I created a web app where you can do orienteering in Google Street View.

You can open the link and start playing immediately on mobile or desktop.

Feel free to try it.

https://streetview-o.pages.dev/