With a view to giving paddlers who haven't been to a course before an idea of what to expect - and whether it's a good site for their next event - I've asked John Sturgess to come up with a "starter for ten" grading of each course.
He hasn't been able to give a view on every course, and it's only a personal view at present, so I need your contributions - gradings for other courses and whether you agree or disagree with John's grades. The list is at http://www.canoeslalom.co.uk/courses/JS ... adings.htm
Course Gradings - Guidance on what to expect
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John Sturgess
- Posts: 280
- Joined: Thu May 27, 2004 12:01 am
- Location: Gedling, Nottingham/Long Preston, North Yorkshire
Oldschool
The aim of these gradings is not to specify how difficult a slalom course on that water would be, but how difficult the water might be looked at from the point of view of what a paddler might feel looking at it. The point about Bala Mill, or Town Falls is that a young paddler might look at the one feature and say 'I'm not paddling down that': and that response would not be any different if there were one feature like that, or two, or three. It is not intended as a measure of how testing a Prem course it might make.
Nicky
At the level at which you would grade Abbey Rapids as an E, would the race go ahead? I saw it last year when 2nd runs were scrubbed: would you have set a course at that if it had been a steady level? If so, then it should be an E.
Thanks for the comments, all of you: this is an ongoing process.
The aim of these gradings is not to specify how difficult a slalom course on that water would be, but how difficult the water might be looked at from the point of view of what a paddler might feel looking at it. The point about Bala Mill, or Town Falls is that a young paddler might look at the one feature and say 'I'm not paddling down that': and that response would not be any different if there were one feature like that, or two, or three. It is not intended as a measure of how testing a Prem course it might make.
Nicky
At the level at which you would grade Abbey Rapids as an E, would the race go ahead? I saw it last year when 2nd runs were scrubbed: would you have set a course at that if it had been a steady level? If so, then it should be an E.
Thanks for the comments, all of you: this is an ongoing process.