External Websites Relating To Orienteering Training
- betterorienteering.org
A recent website by Duncan Bayliss of Wrekin Orienteers in the UK.
"The aim of Better Orienteering is to provide an easily accessible resource that will help orienteers think about how they navigate and how to improve their orienteering technique. It offers a structured way to think about orienteering skills and how you can progress through them. It also acts as a guide to many excellent resources available to help you learn more about orienteering skills and training."
There's a really useful summary PDF available for download which acts as a guide to the Better Orienteering website: https://betterorienteering.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/better-orienteering-summary-v3-3.pdf
- o-training.net
Loads of exercises and tips.
- http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/page/games
Online games aimed at children but also useful to adults. Match photos and descriptions to symbols.
- http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/page/challenges
Downloadable PDFs of training exercises aimed at children but useful to adult beginners as well.
- http://www.catchingfeatures.com/
An orienteering simulator game. Free demo version available. Paid version has regular online competitions - loads of different maps every week including some of real areas. - http://www.suunnistussimulaattori.net/portal_en/index.php
- https://virtualo.org/ Newest game for PC (Early Access - still in development).
- http://www.matstroeng.se/quickroute/en/
QuickRoute is a free computer program for Windows that allows you to display a route from a GPS on an orienteering map saved as an image file (e.g. a scan of a paper map). It has some really advanced route analysis functions and is great for working out how you are losing time.
- http://www.zonefivesoftware.com/SportTracks/
SportTracks is a computer program for Windows (free trial and paid versions) which downloads tracks from a GPS and shows them on Google Maps aerial photos. It's much quicker to set up than QuickRoute but doesn't have as much orienteering specific functionality. It's a quick way to create a .gpx file of your GPS track to upload onto RouteGadget.
- http://oobrien.com/oom/uk.php
Open Orienteering Map. A world map in a style suitable for orienteers, using OpenStreetMap data.
Online tool to print your own basic street-O maps as PDF for free. Allows you to train on your local streets.
- https://orienteering.sport/iof/resources/mapping/
International Specification for Control Descriptions and Orienteering Maps. Learn what all those cryptic symbols mean.
- http://www.maprunner.co.uk/ A free, printable summary of control descriptions and map symbols
- http://www.leioc.org.uk/permanent-courses-2/
Leicestershire Permanent Courses (some with downloadable maps up to Blue level). Handy for local training when there isn't an event on.
- http://www.harlequins.org.uk/poc.html
Harlequins Permanent Courses. Handy for local training when there isn't an event on.