Orienteering Headlamps featured on Swedish Television

[cedarcreek]

This weekend (April 28-29, 2007) is a big orienteering relay in Sweden. It's called "Tiomila" or "10Mila", and the featured event, the Men's relay, starts in the dark with headlamps, and finishes 100km (61 miles) later during the daylight.

In the build-up to television coverage of the event, the TV people did a feature story on a controversy surrounding new technology headlamps. Now, some of what I'm writing is presumption on my part, because I don't speak Swedish, but...

The controversy is based around a rule that says headlamps are limited to 20 Watts. In the past, the state-of-the-art was a 20W Halogen. Today, though, there are Metal Halide HIDs, and LEDs by several different companies, and people are wondering if they should try to limit the output to something resembling a 20W Halogen, or if they should just set loose an arms race where anything goes as long as it doesn't use more than 20 Watts.

My understanding is that they have taken the second road. I guess it's easier to plug in a meter between the lamp and the batteries and measure power than it is to define some maximum light output and try to measure that.

The video is about 3 minutes long and is here:
http://svt.se/svt/play/video.jsp?a=814570
Click on "Pannlampan het inför 10-milanatten"
and then on "sport070425pannlampa.asx" or "...ram"

If you want to see the internet coverage of Tiomila, go here during the event:
http://www.10mila.se/

The headlamps will be visible at the start of the Men's relay, which is:
11pm Saturday in Stockholm
5pm Saturday in New York City
7am Sunday in Sydney, Australia

There are three other events (during the daylight), and coverage starts:
10:30am Saturday in Stockholm
4:30am Saturday in New York City
6:30pm Saturday in Sydney, Australia

The internet coverage will work for over 24 hours. (But again, the best chance to see thousands of runners with headlamps is starting at the first set of times I listed. And again, the internet video links won't be visible until the second set of times I listed.

 

[gregpack]

I wonder if it would level the playing field to limit battery amp-hour capacity that you could take with you?

 

[cedarcreek]

I don't think so. There is some voltage drop from smaller capacity batteries, and less with bigger ones, but there is also a self-limiting desire to carry the right-size batteries (too big is heavier), and some safety concern that you don't run out of power on the course.

I'm watching the video stream right now.

http://uzbe.10mila.se/streaming.shtml

And one thing I notice is a lot of the headlamps are showing up blue on the video. There are still a lot of yellow (halogen?) lamps, though.

 

[cedarcreek]

duplicate post

 

[yellow]

dont have any clue what exactly those strong headlamps have to be used for there, they might be sufficient for night trail biking
(I have seen some of those big reflector Silvas already in use)
think they are overkill.
As I understand they have to move to a certain location, find an info where the next waypoint is, check a map (distance to strong headlamp!), move along, ...

HID in the wattage (10 W) might be worse --> color retention

but really wonder what limitation should give.
If anyone wants to put a car headlamp on his head and move a suitable battery around and wins with this configuration, why not?

Those lights at the short linked vid really look very blue. imho they suffer the same probs as we here: NO shop offers specific bins

 

[cedarcreek]

dont have any clue what exactly those strong headlamps have to be used for there, they might be sufficient for night trail biking
(I have seen some of those big reflector Silvas already in use)
think they are overkill.
As I understand they have to move to a certain location, find an info where the next waypoint is, check a map (distance to strong headlamp!), move along, ...

It's debatable whether they're overkill.

In favor of overkill: I used to have a problem with them because I looked at it from the military view of being too visible because you're using this big honkin' light. There is a certain gearheadedness to big headlamps in that if you've got one, you can do better than someone who doesn't.

Against calling them "overkill":

In places with a lot of night orienteering, everyone has a 20W headlamp. It's an accepted standard. It is an accepted standard because it works really well, it's not too heavy, and (in halogen form) it's reasonably priced---maybe $200, maybe $250, and if this is your hobby, it's in the range you're willing to pay.

Your description, "As I understand they have to move to a certain location, find an info where the next waypoint is, check a map (distance to strong headlamp!), move along, ..." isn't really accurate.

It's more like---Run a 6km-16km course in the woods at night with a map, as fast as you're able. You get the map at the start, and it has the entire course marked on it. You have to visit "control locations" that are marked as circles on the map. The route you use to travel between the controls is your business. At each control, there is a flag marking a feature that is on the map. The courses minimize the use of trails and typically involve navigation that people who do this as their primary hobby (week in and week out) would consider difficult. Most Americans think of orienteering as something boy scouts do on a hike, and that's not what this is. You are correct that reading a map with a big light can blind you, but the headlamps are designed with a tight primary spot and a wide, usable flood, so it's really not that bad.

To me the biggest reason they're not overkill is the safety aspect of running in the woods at night. You want to be able to see trip hazards, and drop-offs as you're running. Orienteering at night is quite difficult because you can't see terrain details beyond your light. It requires a lot of navigation skill to do it quickly.

Here's a video I really like. I've used it on CPF before:
http://www.jukola2006.net/index.php?lang=en&page=videot
Look for any of the four links under the words "Videos of Salon Messut 21.-23.5.2004" For discerning CPFer's, the "beam shots" in this video does not do justice to how bright these lights are---you're just seeing the spot and not the spill. There are a few shots in full darkness near the end. (And by the way, the "J" in "Jukola" sounds like a "Y". Jukola is a big Finnish relay held in the summer. The men's relay starts around dusk and finishes in daylight. The start is a sprint here. The scenes with normal running speeds are more typical.

Finally, the blue in the video probably is just white balance. The cameras almost certainly were set for a tungsten white balance, and you just can't tell how blue they really are from this (the Swedish TV feature).

 

[Lobo]

Thanks for the link, Cedarcreek! Very nice for me as a swede to see something about lights mentioned in the media. Some of those guys in that clip MUST be members here! I actually had a brief stunt in orienteering as a kid, it's a bit weird that it's so popular in Sweden. They even had a yearly competition in school (think it's pretty common).About the translation. According to the clip they decided to have no regulations at all. Some of them thinks it good, the sport has to evolve, some of them thinks it's bad, it becomes more about the equipment than the actual sport, also that it takes away the charm of running at night


About the blue tint, I'm pretty sure it was the camera setting. Same thing was noticed in the news clip about the LAPDs new LED-light. But in the review here, the tint was fine.

Anyone know what kind of lights they are actually using? Crees? Seouls? Looks like they show a HID in the end of the segment?

 

[chris_m]

I'm not in any of those videos, but I am a pretty decent night orienteer - I did 15 or so events last season (through the winter when the nights are long), and won 5 of those. I do much better at night than in the day generally (the techniques are a little different). My main sport is adventure racing, and as you go through the night there and in my experience races are very often won and lost at night, it's also very important for this.

There is definitely no such thing as overkill - more light is definitely better. I've never had a problem with reading the map due to too many lumens! You are really running flat out through pretty difficult terrain taking straight line routes through the woods with often very uneven ground, so want to see as much as possible. Also more light means you can see more of your surroundings so making it easier.

I have a 20W halogen, which is what I started the season with. However in January this got replaced by my homemade triple Cree, which with only 8W power input is noticeably brighter. Not only that, I also halved my battery weight. I'm now building a quad with Q2 bins - don't really want anything with more power draw than the 11W of that, so I can keep the battery small (I use a 100g LiIon pack - I think I was almost unique in the UK at least in previously using a 200g LiIon PWM regulated pack to run my halogen). I use the Cree 8 degree optics, since I find them almost ideal for night-O, with a nice bright central spot to see into the distance, but also plenty of spill to see where you're putting your feet and read your map (often both at the same time!)

In that video I spotted a couple of halogens (Thomas Asp & Mikael Olofsson), an HID (Erik Engstrand) and a Lupine Wilma quad LED (Tobias Noborn). The latter LED light is probably the older Luxeon one, though they now have a new version with I believe SSC P4s. Would be curious what the bit at the end with the bloke with the handheld was all about?

Personally I'd be all for a limitation on the arms race, since less light increases the skill level. Not sure how you could do this though - hardly feasible for organisors to have integrating spheres, so it pretty much has to be on electrical power, in which case an HID or nowadays LED blows away halogens. Whilst the genie is out of the bottle though I'll use the best light I can, and at the moment I reckon I have the best in the UK at least!

 

[Meduza]

A little more andvanced than two of my friends that tried to run a night-o "just for fun" with a 2-led cap light and a 3D regular maglite in the hand...

They came in about last and was cursing that heavy and dead maglite really much

 

[yellow]

Cool to hear how these events are done by someone on this sports level

Just my personal gives, as I am building my 3rd Cree emitter light (2 of them multiemitter for night-biking): for someone doing this on such a high level as You chris, I would suggest to use Sandwich Shoppe's McR-XR reflectors instead of the cree optics.
imho they surely are way more expensive but better.
Beam focus is about similar, but the optic gives almost no spill at all (its around a total 180 degree from the emitter, even going through the holder), while with the reflectors there is a 2nd larger spill "ring" about triple diameter than the hotspot.
Very difficult fo show in a pic, but check the 2 crees at left, middle, here.
Same bin, same batch, same current. Reflector output looks birighter and more white (without optic/refli there is no difference at all). That spill thing is barely noticeable here.

PS: did You somehow change the output direction of the emitters on Your lamp, or are they all directed straight outside?

PPS: cedarcreek, Sorry to highjack the tread

 

[cedarcreek]

PPS: cedarcreek, Sorry to highjack the tread

If it's about orienteering or headlamps, I'm happy. So...No need to apologize.