TB races in general -any fun?

[+BlueDeuce]

I've never participated in a race, mainly because I'm hesitant to add rules to moving my bug when the bug world is hard enough as it is.

 

Are these races giving you a good return? Have you joined more than one?

 

Any advice for joining or being an organizer?

 

 

[Please note, this is not an opportunity to bash a race organizer for something that happened to your bug or coin. If you have a complaint you should have brought it up before. Don't do it here. Complaining about the people who picked up your bug is fine. No names please.]

[+steben6]

We love TB races and have participated in a couple of them. It was fun to watch them travel. Don't think it adds any more "rules" for the trackables than any other mission except perhaps that you want them to move farther and faster (who doesn't?) The two we did (and one is still going on) were fun because the organizer held an event to start off the race, and then one at the end of the race to give out prizes for all the categories (most miles, farthest north, south, east, west, closest to the equator, etc.) She collected all the TBs at the first event and then dropped them all in the same cache at the same time to start the race equally for all the bugs.

 

So...we enjoy them!

Edited October 10, 2011 by steben6

[+BlueDeuce]

Don't think it adds any more "rules" for the trackables than any other mission except perhaps that you want them to move farther and faster (who doesn't?)

 

Do you find people are willing to give a little more to assist your traveler if it is in a race?

[+ngrrfan]

I've got two butterflys in a race. One id MIA and the other is still being moved around. The way this race is set up you track the TBs by mileage as one stat and number of different cachers that move the TB as another.

 

The part I like about this particular race is that I never saw either Butterfly coin, thus I have no emotional connection to it other than I bought it. Sorta like sending out just a TB tag with nothing attached to it.

 

I find that people seem to be willing to move the coin as it has a tag on it stating the mission.

[123andrewr]

I am currently organising a race and details can be found here http://gctrackablerace2012.weebly.com/forum.html#/

It is really easy to create and participate in a race especially if there aren't many rules!

Also I don't think that people mind if there are a couple of rules. If you wish to join a race anyone can join mine!^^^

[+BlueDeuce]

I am currently organising a race and details can be found here http://gctrackablerace2012.weebly.com/forum.html#/

It is really easy to create and participate in a race especially if there aren't many rules!

Also I don't think that people mind if there are a couple of rules. If you wish to join a race anyone can join mine!^^^

 

Any accomplishments would be great to hear. That's kind of my point.

[+The Blorenges]

I've joined in several TB races: A couple of the "Great South African" ones, one across from east to west coast USA (that was a few years back), Nottingham UK to Nottingham New Hampshire USA, two currently running in UK which involve cross-stitched chickens and snails, and a few smaller ones between 2 or 3 friends.

 

My experience is that if the missions are too complicated then the whole thing fizzles out. Simple ideas with a specific time limit seem to work well (e.g. Greatest mileage achieved by (a date) or First to reach Australia).

 

I think it's practically impossible to set extra rules above and beyond what's generally accepted as "correct trackable etiquette" because once those bugs are off the starting line they're at the mercy of other cachers who may, but more likely don't, read all that mass of small print on the racing TB's home page.

 

In a couple of the races I'm involved in the organiser has tried adding the rule that "Mileage from 'visits' to caches won't be counted." I feel that it's an unnecessary addition which just means that the organiser has to keep monitoring all the moves and keeps doing little subtractions every week/month to delete small mileage hops. A pain in the patoutie, IMO.

 

In another recent race 30+ racers were placed into a specially created cache at the start. The first 2 or 3 were picked up and moved on to other UK caches... then a visiting cacher came along and took all the rest of them and took them across to US in one big hop towards their destination. Nothing wrong with that but it caused some great angst among some people who didn't like that the large group of racers all got moved together, at once...

 

To sum up: TB Races = Nice idea, a bit of fun, but don't take them too seriously!

 

MrsB

[+fuzziebear3]

I like TB races and geocoin races. It gets more trackables out there. I think people do try to help a racer a little more than an average trackable. In most races, every little bit counts, except some do penalize dipping. Some also give extra credit to photos, difficult caches, events, etc. Some have multiple winners, such as greatest distance and greatest number of caches/cachers.

[+prodrive]

We've created a nice race with 266 competitors, and we're having lots of fun

 

http://www.geopt.org/classificacoes.html

[+Fianccetto]

We've set a few of our own (Fianccetto) TBs and geocoins off to race against each other and while some seem to have had a bit more success at getting moved around, others have gone missing or not been logged.

 

For the first time we put 4 TBs into a bigger/organised race (in UK) with other cachers (it's the snails one that Mrs B refers to, above) and these do seem to have been moved more often than some of our other TBs. It does help to have an 'official' race organised and it's more fun to see how they are all getting on. Currently my forum avatar is my snail in the race, I'll be swapping it for one of the others soon.

[+redwoodkestrel]

Don't think it adds any more "rules" for the trackables than any other mission except perhaps that you want them to move farther and faster (who doesn't?)

 

Do you find people are willing to give a little more to assist your traveler if it is in a race?

 

I'll definitely try my best to help a TB if it's in a race. This is one that I enjoyed going out of my way to get the TB to a certain cache, since the owner is really good about updating the TB page plus the the page of the TB it's in a race with. It all adds to the fun!

[+TripCyclone]

I am currently organising a race and details can be found here http://gctrackablerace2012.weebly.com/forum.html#/

It is really easy to create and participate in a race especially if there aren't many rules!

Also I don't think that people mind if there are a couple of rules. If you wish to join a race anyone can join mine!^^^

 

Sounds very similar to the Great TB Race I've been organizing for a few years. A much more simplified way to handle it too. Have fun with it and if you have any questions, let me know. Be happy to help It's always interesting to see the different ways people organize races. There are some creative ideas out there.

 

In response to the OP, it is all up to the person entering the race. Some really enjoy them and others just don't really care. Being an organizer of one, I found several families enjoyed entering each person in the family so they kind of had their own mini-competition going. The Great TB Race is finishing up it's third year and besides TB's going MIA, we haven't had too many complaints. Each year I find minor things to change. We award points for different goals so it doesn't require any extra rules be put on the TB. The goals are things like having a picture posted, crossing borders, attending events, etc. The only extra rule that might be seen as a movement rule is that we don't count dipping in tallying scores. That was something we long ago had voted against allowing. However, it is almost inavoidable. We even have a standard race tag that we physically attach to every item to explain to cachers that the item is in a race, alongside a point chart to show what helps it earn points. We've added a message that says that points earned from dipping will be voided, which cut down on the dips, but not completely. So I'm considering how to modify the rule to allow for visits as it usually means our scoring volunteers have to take a few extra steps to account for it. But in the end, the race is designed so that we aren't placing rules on the TB...just on how we keep score.

 

I'd like to think our race is rather well organized. We have a standardized race tag. We get everyone to start from the same spot. We have had a minimum of $200 in prizes each year, a turnout ranging from 60 - 90 TB's, and various people working behind the scenes to pull it off. Last year, after allowing people to vote on the idea, we started an entry fee to help cover the costs of shipping prizes, and to allow us to purchase additional prizes to award (the entry fee may be what dropped us from 94 entries in 2010 to only 64 this year). In fact, I got on here to post an announcement to gauge interest for holding the race in 2012 when I saw this post. You're welcome to check out our webpage at The Great TB Race to get more information.

 

I've also been involved in softball29's HooHaa TB race, which is mostly a race for mileage. He made it fun and there were even some cartoons from HeadHardHat...before he even started doing the GeoSnippets videos...poking fun at various movements.

 

I've been happy with the races I've joined and organized.