Distance Race

[Diamond dave]

Hi all you distance fanatics

I have a couple of birds that I would like to send to Pau Tarbes or Barcelona. I have never sent anything further than Tours before. I would like to know if I should still send these birds to Tours before the big one or if I should hold them back until the big one. To date, they have had 5 or 6 inland races up to 130 miles which have all been fairly easy and Falaise and Alencon. With Alencon, they had about 7/8 hours on the wing. Incidently the "big ones" are between 580 and 675 to me.

 

- Be grateful for any advice.

 

D.D.

[REDCHEQHEN]

I can't give you any advice - as I'm a novice myself at the distance - but when was the Alencon race - and when is the 'big one' (as I think that would be important information)

[Diamond dave]

Well, thank you red chequer for your reply, looks like all the experienced distance flyers are "keeping it to themselves". I know that the people on this site are more helpful than that. I know I'm not a novice but I am only a small back garden fancier who is relatively inexperienced. I don't keep enough birds to make mistakes. So would be really grateful for any advice from you experienced distance fanciers.

Red Chequer, Alencon was last week and the "big ones" are in 3/4 weeks.

 

Thanks in anticipation

 

D.D

[thunderboult]

hi  dave, i'm not an experienced distance flyer but your build up sounds ok to me, i would give em a couple of tosses between now and basketing just to keep them on their toes.  i have 2 going to tarbes next week and they've only had 2 races lessay and fourgeres and a few tosses.

[Simeon Turner]

Dave, how long is the Pau / Tarbes race after the Tours race, and what is the distance from Tours to your loft?

 

If it was me (and bear in mind the maximum I have raced is 527 miles), I would look at a race of 350 miles maximum, a couple of weeks before the 'BIG' race, then they would be just exercised around the loft upto basketting with possibly a short training spin on the week of basketting.

 

We have found that to be successful for us upto 527 miles, but whether it would work for bigger distances I am not sure, but if I did race to big distances that is how I would do it.

 

Hope this helps