Here we archive the updates from our main page for your reference:
Enrolment/Change of class und course details
We have published the final course details which you can find on our website here. We will keep the event open on Orienteering Online until this Wednesday, in case you want to change your course (or still sign up), here is the link. Afterwards, you can only make changes or late entries at the competition.
Start times
Many of you requested specific start times. Priority will be given to families with children who will get start times as far apart as possible. Some of you requested early start times every day. This will not be possible, at least on one day, you will have a late start time. An explanation how we allocate start times and start blocks is on our 2023 Event Details page here.
Start fees
There are still some start fees outstanding. Please check OO and if you are not ticked as paid, please pay within the next few days. Otherwise we need to take you off the start list. You can check here on Orienteering Online if you have been ticked off. In case you think you have paid but this does not show up, please send me a mail and we will sort this out!
Additional busses
The local council is intending to add additional busses on Days 1 – 3 so there will be public busses every 30 minutes from Bodenmais to the event centre at Bretterschachten. With the local “Guti” Ticket you can ride all public transport for free. These cards are included with nearly every accommodation payment. I have published the planned time table on our website, link here! Parking spaces are limited at the event centre Bretterschachten at Days 1 - 3, the bus drops you off right in front of the event centre and leaves in Bodenmais from the train station / town hall. We would like to ask if you could make good use of this service! On the last day, Day 5, there will be a free shuttle bus from a car park in Bodenmais to the event centre.
Orienteering tops
Our iconic orienteering tops are now in production and cannot be ordered anymore. However, we have ordered a few extra items so you can buy them at the event centres. Payments have to be made in cash, this is also valid for an late entry payments.
We have been quite busy over the Easter Holidays and spent considerable time in the forest around Bodennmais. All control locations for Day 3 have been pre-marked and most locations for Day 1 and 2 have been checked. Day 2 in particular has amazing rock formations with quite a few technically challenging control locations. Above are a few pictures of that area. We also visited the event centre for Day 5. The ride we were planning to use as a finish run-in into the event centre is badly overgrown meaning we needed to change plan. This might entail a slightly longer walk to the start but therefore most if not all courses can visit the intricate rock formations, many of them in open, runnable forest, which make this area so interesting.
The sprint map for Bodenmais has also been completed, you can see a small extract above. Start and Finish is located right in the centre of town at the market square, meaning minimal walking distance and maximum spectator action. We have done the rounds of the land owners and many gave permission to run across their property. The town centre is slightly more open and wide than some other small towns, so the sprint will be more about route choices (the market square sits on top of a fairly steep hill) rather than looking for intricate control locations.
Please remember that if you are interested in our quite Bavarian orienteering tops, you need to pre-order them until June1. We will also have a small number of shirts for sale during the event. For more details on our shirts, click here.
And lastly, I want to make you once more aware of the countless activity options in Bodenmais and the wider region, many of them free of charge, if you stay locally. Everybody who pays for accommodation in Bodenmais automatically receives a visitor card with many free offers (click here for details), for example free public transport. In addition many accommodation provider also offer the ActiveCARD with additional free offers, such as swimming pool, mini golf and Silberberg cable car, click here for details.
Ingo, our map maker, has just spent 10 days in the forests around Bodenmais to draw up our maps for 2023. The terrain is similar to 2022. There are lots of rocks and rocky outcrops, and then some more rocks. The course planners will have plenty of features to choose from. We will be running in one of central Germany’s largest mountainous areas, and yes, there will only be a few flat areas – slopes, sometimes quite steep, will all part of the BF5Days experience! The forests are in part quite a wilderness, there is definitely some green, but a large part is open white forests, in which we will concentrate the courses. Here are the first impressions of the running areas and snapshots of the new maps.
As with the BF5Days 2022, there will be a special edition BF5Days 2023 event top. For 2023, we have come up with a slightly different and perhaps unusual design. Wearing your event top will certainly draw attention and hopefully will remind you of the fantastic forests and the Bavarian flair of the BF5Days 2023.
The shirts can now be ordered in our web shop. Payment is via bank transfer in advance. The shirts can then be picked up at the event. We will also order a few extra shirts to give runners the option to decide on a last minute purchase, but its best to pre order to guarantee size and design. The shirts cost 30 Euros if pre-ordered, 38 Euros if purchased at the event. We will also offer again the cotton hoodies and T-shirts with the BF5Days logo printed onto the chest.
All merchandise can be ordered until 1 June 2023.
New Category W75
We have received several inquiries from older runners, if it would be possible to offer a W75. I have to admit that I didn't expect that there would be enough runners for this category. The request was not only for a separate category, but also for a shorter version than the W65 and W70. So, we will now offer a W75! This is already activated on Orienteering Online for registration. The course will be a bit shorter than the W70, but with the same technical difficulties. The minimum requirement of 5 runners in the category must still be met.
First round of course length data
We have already received some inquiries about the course lengths. Understandably, all runners want to know what running times, distances or elevation gain they can expect at the BF5Days 2023. I too am always happy when the course lengths are known before the registration deadline expires. We can now publish the course lengths of 3 running days. Click on the button below for course lengths from day 1 to day 3. Of course, lengths and elevation can still change slightly, but the general lengths will remain the same.
Also remember that the Day to Day Details (link here) already contains a lot of information about the respective running days.
While winter sports enthusiasts might be upset about the lack of snow in the hills, this situation is ideal for the course setting team to head onto the maps and check the first control post locations. Their reactions range from: “well runable open forest” to “fantastic but quite difficult rock formations” and “quite a wilderness for a German forest”. We believe that the course will challenge not only the runner but definitely the orienteer. This enables us to already published same day to day information. We have put this together into a PDF which can find by clicking here. We are planning to publish the first course data soonish.
On Day 3, one of the local orienteering clubs, OLV Landshut will organize a Trail-O as an extra offer to all orienteers. You can find more information on our Trail-O sub page here.
We have received the first batch of samples of our event orienteering tops and already had the opportunity to thoroughly test them. Feed back for our slightly different design was mostly favourable, you can already pre-order the event tops in our webshop here. More information and pictures can be found on our merchandise sub page here. Maybe some of you asking yourself why there are no pictures of our women shirts in action. The simple reason is that we asked for some minor changes with the design and are now waiting for the next badge of sample. Once we have them, we will publish photos here.
If you are asking yourself what we have been up to:
Ronny, our Technical Director, who not only checks all our control locations but also puts many controls out on competition day, has had a fantastic 2022 season himself in M45: German Champion middle distance, silver long distance and overall winner of the German league! Congratulations Ronny!
Auf unserer Unterkunft Seite haben wir Informationen für Wohnmobile hinzugefügt. Klickt hier für die Details!
In unserem letzten Update haben wir viel über unsere Planung für 2023 gesprochen, bitte lest euch das durch wenn ihr 2023 laufen wollt, ihr findet unsere vergangenen Updates hier.
Wir haben Informationen zu den Laufgebieten, den früheren Startzeiten und wie diese vergeben werden, dem öffentlichen Nahverkehr, der Bahnzuteilung und 2 neuen Kategorien Open Middle Easy und Kids 12 Shadow, Ferienaktivitäten in Bodenmais und dem Stadtsprint detailliert. Klickt hier für die Details!
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.
Wooden stake and pyre?
In the build up to the Sprint day of the BF5Days 2022 in Viechtach, we asked for ideas for the control description for Viechtach’s fantastic man-sized icecream cone, with extra cream.
For our 2023 new area and map, known as Oberlohwies, we have a similar request with an unusual wooden stake and pyre which we found. After a little bit of research, we found that it is in fact a manmade prop for an episode of the German-Austrian thriller series, Der Pass. Since the series is all about ritual murders, we have to assume that this is the scene of a ritual murder. It is located in a fantastic rock labyrinth and would make the perfect control site…..so the question is, what is the control description for a wooden stake and pyre and how would that be shown as a pictograph?!?! And is there a special map symbol other that an X?
We look forward to your suggestions!
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