Our plans for 2023:
We are already planning the details for the 2023 edition of the BF5Days. You can already sign up for 2023 at Orienteering Online!
4 new forest maps: For 2023, we are planning to overall use 2 separate running areas: On Saturday we will be running above Bodenmais in a forest area not used before for orienteering. For the 3 days Monday to Wednesday we will again use the winter sport center at Bretterschachten as our event center as we believe that the location is ideal for our needs. However, we will be running in 3 new areas. The forests around Bretterschachten are huge and extend all the way down into the Regen valley. We will us 3 areas further down the hill which haven't been used before. One of the comments of many competitors was to keep the walking distance to the start at a minimum. Therefore on 2 days we will be using shuttle buses to the start which enables us to move a lot further away from the event center. I think the shuttle buses worked very well in 2022 at Harlachberg/Kronberg and with this system we will be able to select the best forest areas for orienteering. One reason why part of the Bavarian Forest is so wild is precisely the absence of roads, parking spaces and large paddocks. This might make for great orienteering, but makes access a lot more challenging than say in the plains of the German north.
The concept to map a challenging slope with many rock features in 1-5000 seems to have received favorable reviews from the more technical minded runners. We will again use this concept in 2023 on one day. After they specifically asked for it, we will also put the "older categories" into these slopes.
City Sprint: On Sunday we will have again the city sprint. This is planned in the town center of Bodenmais itself, putting all running areas within 10km.
The BF5Days with public transport: We put in some considerable effort to make the running areas accessible by public transport in 2022. The additional buses to the Bretterschachten were eventually put on with the huge support from the local council, although unfortunately very last minute. I do realize that there is scope for improvement but the basics have been established and we intend to build on this. Our aim is to have the buses running every 30 minutes (with half of them for our runners only) and offer that also for the way back to Bodenmais in the afternoon. I think we can do better here than in 2022, once the details will become clearer we will publish them on our page Location and Transport.
Start times: The general consensus from the many comments we received was the desire to have earlier start times for the forest stages. The 3 days that we use the Bretterschachten will have the first start at 10 AM, an hour earlier than in 2022. Starting times will be assigned to clubs, meaning members of the same clubs have similar start times. Each clubs will be assigned an early, 2 middle and a late starting block. You can establish your own club on Orienteering Online, for example if you want to start as a family. We will of course also accept start time requests, if for example you want to have an early and a late start to look after kids. Please remember that all open categories including the Kids 12 Shadow have open start times, meaning you can start at any time you want to, but last possible start is 30 minutes before the official last start.
New category Kids 12 Shadow: We were asked if we could also allow kids older than 10 to have a shadowed category. As a result we combined the M/W 10 Shadow and extended it to age 12. REMEMBER: If you want to shadow your kids this HAS TO BE after your own run. Kids 12 Shadow have open start times.
New category Open Middle Easy: Some runners asked for an open category that allows longer running times but easier than the Open Middle. Therefore we introduced the Open Middle Easy. Roughly, this will have the difficulty of the M/W14 and the length of the W16.
Open Categories and Courses: To be able to better judge the requirements of the Open Categories, here is the alignment with the other categories:
Kids 12 Shadow: M/W10
Open Short: M/W12
Open Middle: W16
Open Middle Easy: Difficulty: M/W14, Length: ca. M16
Open Long: W21E
The open categories are not designed to be easy categories. They correspond in length and difficulty to their assigned classes.
Activities in Bodenmais and the Activecard: Please check if your accommodation in and around Bodenmais offers the Aktivcard Bayerischer Wald: most do. You really have to make use of the free activities included in the card, for example the pool in Bodenmais, the Silberberg Mine Visitor Center, summer tobogganing run, minigolf and many more. This is a great offer especially for families with kids and with our earlier start times you should have some more time to make use of it. For more details, please check the website of Bodenmais, we will also add information on this under Activities.
Start fees: We have not increased the fees for next year. However, we lowered the fees for all kids categories (M/W10 - 14). Now the cheapest fee applies, no matter when you make payment.
Entry: We have already published the main details for next year's BF5Days on the 2023 Event Details page. You can already sign up for 2023 on Orienteering Online, the discounted fees apply for payment until the 1 January 2023.
OL Shirts: Soon you can again order our legendary BF5Days orienteering tops via our web shop. As of now, our special 2023 design has not been completed. Once completed, we will publish the details here and enable the link to our web shop.
