Nike are running an event next Friday/Saturday in inner London called Nike Grid. It’s a great idea – basically players run between any two specially marked phoneboxes in a postcode area (e.g. E9). Typically there are 3 or 4 such phoneboxes in each area, each temporarily branded with the event logo. At the beginning and end of the leg, the player phones a special number from the phonebox, entering their player code. As the call comes from the phonebox, it’s proof that the player is there then. Players then earn badges by doing the most number of runs in a postcode, doing all the possible combinations, the fastest run, the hilliest run, etc.

Like I say, a great idea. It’s a technologically advanced version of street orienteering, similar to what my club has been running in similar locations in central London over the winter and it’s a shame that Nike doesn’t mention the “o” world anywhere in their publicity for the event – but maybe orienteering is a bit anoraky for their brand experts? (Nike don’t make orienteering shoes anyway, but their big rivals, Adidas, do – my current o-shoes are Swoop 2s.) It’s a missed opportunity to promote the (sub)-sport to a market that likes running, is happy to be holding a map as a different challenge, but has never heard of orienteering.

On the left is part of the map my club used for a street-o in Bow, below it is Nike’s version.

To pick your way between phoneboxes, you get a map – downloadable from the website, or collectable in paper form from the phoneboxes themselves or the Nike stores in London. There’s four maps, representing south, west, north and east London – the coverage generally extends out to the edge of zone 2. I visited a few of the phoneboxes this evening and picked up the north and the west maps (the south and east ones haven’t been put out yet, or have all been swiped already). On the maps, the phoneboxes are shown as green hexagons and the rest of the map is a rather pleasingly mimimalistic white-on-black design, rather like some of the other great cartography you can create out of the OpenStreetMap data for inner London that I and other project volunteers have collected.

In fact, wait a minute. Some of the detail on the maps around my home area looks rather familiar. Yes, they have actually used OpenStreetMap data for the map. I can see the characteristic kinks in the paths in my local park that I surveyed and that don’t appear on OS/Google/Teleatlas/Navteq et al map data. Nothing wrong with that – using OpenStreetMap data commercially such as promoting a brand of shoes is just fine. Except they haven’t attributed the project or stated the licence the maps fall under – both requirements of using OpenStreetMap data to create a derived work, especially in printed form. Oops.

Why am I bothered? Contributors of open data don’t do it for the money (mostly) but for the “kudos”. In the case of OSM, the project itself typically gets attributed rather than specific contributors, for practical and logistical reasons. The contributors are still acknowledged in the data itself. The project benefits from acknowledgement because publicity will help increase the number of contributors to the project and so increase the quality and completeness of the map data, making it in turn more viable for future uses. Everyone wins.

All they need to do is (a) add a line to attribute the project, such as “Map data (c) OpenStreetMap and contributors, CC-BY-SA”, to the maps concerned on their website and future printed copies, and (b) not be surprised if people make derivative works from the maps, which is allowed by the licence the data has been used under. I’m tempted to create an interactive map for the whole of London or indeed the world, in the same style – the cartography is very nice.

Incidentally the map is created using quite an old copy of the data, from before last September – some of the more recent roads I and others have added to the project don’t appear. The designers have also enhanced the widths of some of the major roads, and added in road names and numbers. Roundabouts have also been added in as proper circles. There are some mistakes in the process they’ve used – the main track (highway=bridleway if I recall correctly) around Victoria Park doesn’t appear, but the paths (highway=path) that lead to it do, resulting in a rather odd “gappy” looking bit of cartography around there, ironically a similar quirk of the Google maps of the same area.

Also, I’m not sure where the postcode boundary lines come from, but they mis-align somewhat with the OpenStreetMap data – in some places the lines wander near, but not exactly along, the centreline of a boundary road. You can see a particularly bad mismatch between the green line (postal boundary) and the white line (here a canal) on the left of the first map above. Just a cosmetic quirk.

It is a really great idea, and a really nice bit of marketing. I will, hopefully, have a go at getting a few of the badges during the 24 hours the game runs. Let’s hope they get the attribution sorted out.

(I notice it’s happening the same weekend as the London Marathon, who have Nike’s rivals Adidas as a key sponsor. The timing is not a coincidence, I’m sure!)

By the way, Nike have made it very hard to be contacted about this – there are no contact details on the game’s website and it is not possible to send private messages to the owner of the game’s page on Facebook, thanks to the way the social network sets up fan pages. Sigh. Of course, people in glass houses and all that, I should attribute the screenshots in this blog post – all the screenshots are of maps created using map data (c) OpenStreetMap and contributors, CC-BY-SA.

[Update - I have made minor edits to improve the clarity of the article and add the note about Google.]

One interesting question though – where exactly is the East End? How big is it, how far east (and west, north and south) does it extend? Wikipedia has an article on it but simply says it’s east of the City of London and north of the River Thames.

Here’s where I think it is:

What about Eastenders?

The Hitchhiker’s Guide the Galaxy has a suprisingly succinct definition:

Here’s an old map showing from where you can hear the Bow Bells (from St Mary-Le-Bow in the City, not in Bow) ringing, presumably assuming a prevailing south-westerly wind carrying the sound north-eastwards from the City. Why is this interesting? Well, the traditional definition of a Cockney (i.e a Eastender) is someone who was born within earshot of the bells.

Modern traffic noise, even at night, means that the bells would no longer be audible at such a range.

Agenda item 07/24: Use of GPS systems at orienteering competitions – Competitors are currently not permitted to use a GPS device as an aid to navigation at any competition registered with British Orienteering. However at this time Rules Group was unwilling to ban the carrying of a GPS device by an individual who wished to use it as an aid to personal post-event analysis. An item covering this should be placed in the next publication of Focus.

This is encouraging as it matches my own thinking. I carry a GPS at some events – but it remains concealed, such that it not easily useable during the event, but useful for post-race analysis. As long as it remains in my pocket, I don’t consider myself to be “using” it during the race. Still, I probably would leave it at home at a British Championships…

On an unrelated note – am waiting with anticipation for the new BOF website going live, especially the “My Orienteering” information, integrated results service athlete stats. Also sounds like they’ll be doing an events map, like my Google maps mashup of the fixtures list. I talked to the BOF CEO before the SCOA AGM a couple of weeks ago, and he was promising a fairly spectacular revamp of the site. Looking forward to it!

Why? Because there’s a few things about it which beat any orienteering event:

• It’s completely free.
• You get your race photograph taken for free!
• Results on the website normally within 3 hours of each race.
• Photos on the website often within 6 hours of each race.
• Stats galore on the website, including announcing personal of bests.
• Personalised email sent automatically containing your result, performance statistics and motivational message.
• No need to register before the event (unless it’s your first time) – just state your name at the finish.
• No compulsory entry in advance.
• Everyone runs the same course – men, women, children…
• Free Lucozade sports drink at the finish, not generic Tesco Value orange squash.
• Same price (free!) to run, whether you are affiliated to a club/a national govening body or not.
• Sometimes get to run alongside (actually, a long way behind…) superstars of the sport at the same race.
• Most race kits people run in aren’t overly garish.
• No revisiting of areas you’ve already been to earlier in the race.
• Proper, scenic spectator finish.
• Start, finish and car park are all very close together.
• Plenty of room to lock up bikes at the start.
• Organised social at local coffee shop after each race.
• Apparently occasional prizes and freebies, not that I’ve had any yet!
• It has its own Facebook group.
• The whole thing just feels friendly, relaxed and fun.

Nice Try: I fail to make a 14 year old’s day by beating him in a sprint to the finish line. Still, we both got personal bests so he can’t be that unhappy. Photo by Paul SH.

Here’s my Top 10 Areas I ran on in 2006:

10. Hindleap Warren (enjoyable, felt good.)
9. South Ashdown Forest (satisfying battle against the weather.)
8. Hatfield Forest (a breakthrough race for me.)
7. Ilkley Moor – JK Day 1 (moorland but intricate.)
6. Druskininkai – JWOC Spectator Races Day 5 (so fast but so hot!)
5. Leith Hill – Varsity Match (always an interesting area.)
4. Temple Newsam – JK Sprint (fast, scenic.)
3. Trockener Steg – Swiss O Week Day 3 (unique glaciated terrain.)
2. Oxford City Centre – Street Race (home advantage.)
1. Epping Forest North (and not just because I won it!)

Merry Christmas!

[Update - Sero mentions in the comments that Orienteering Orange has been podcasting for a few months now. Most of the episodes are in English, some are in Italian.]

Out of the 91 men completing the MicroO course, 24 (26%) made no mistakes. But out of the 28 women competing, only 2 (7%) had a clean sheet.

The statistics speak for themselves…

One of my fellow orienteers in JOK advanced the theory that the stress of work affects my results adversely. Case in point – after a week’s holiday, I got my best results of the season during the Scottish 6 Day. On the other hand, I generally perform badly in races in southern England, i.e. racing at the weekend when working at the week.

I think the truth is more that I’m better suited to the Scottish terrain (or my fellow southern England competitors are worse suited, when travelling up to Scotland.) I started orienteering in Scotland, and orienteered there for five years before moving to England. I’m not very fit and so am generally better on “technical” courses than physical ones. By physical here, I mean long distance and flatness allowing fast running, not physical as in the normal orienteering sense (hills, vegetation.) My best results of the season have been when I went to Scotland (Trossachs and Royal Deeside, running typically 6km races.) My worst results have been the longer, flatter, south England ones (World Cup areas in Surrey, 13km on the classic, pretty flat.)

[Update: It's back, at nopesport.co.uk]

Monday to Thursday – work hard, maybe or maybe not go out for a quiet drink or two with colleagues.
Friday evening – so exhausted from the week’s work (and not enough sleep) that I don’t normally go out, which means…
Saturday morning – Up at a decent time, head is clear – but normally no orienteering event.
Saturday evening – Still lots of energy, so go out to houseparty or whatever. It’s the one night a week I am always up for going out on.
Sunday morning – Exhausted from previous night’s party, so normally end up skipping the event and valuing my sleep!
Monday – Back to work…

This cycle is the principal reason why I’m averaging less than one event every two weeks this season so far. If big events were on Saturdays, I would be much more inclined to go. There’s generally a better, faster and more frequent rail service on Saturdays too.

There are small events on some Saturdays. I’m going to start focusing more on these, as there’s a more realistic chance I’ll actually make it to them!

In other news, I’ve missed the boat for BOC entries, probably WCup spectator races, and possibly camping with JOK for the Scottish 6-day… Must. Get. Organised.