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Articles.
Barcelona
Barcelona, the second race of the season and to many the most prestigious, presents an entirely different set of problems. First of all it is longer, 708 miles on a direct route to London, but secondly and perhaps more importantly the liberation point lies behind the Pyraneas not in front of them. This means that the pigeons must either go over the top of these mountains or around them.
Barcelona, the second race of the season and to many the most prestigious, presents an entirely different set of problems. First of all it is longer, 708 miles on a direct route to London, but secondly and perhaps more importantly the liberation point lies behind the Pyraneas not in front of them. This means that the pigeons must either go over the top of these mountains or around them.
The panorama, to the right, sets out the real territory. This provides a view from the Castell de Montjuic, very close to the liberation point, and when the Yellow line, on the lower map, is pointing slightly left of vertical the view above shows the direction to London.
You can take a tour of Barcelona by clicking on points on the map, which will give you views from that location, and then move the view around by dragging your mouse over the view.
You can take a tour of Barcelona by clicking on points on the map, which will give you views from that location, and then move the view around by dragging your mouse over the view.
Barcelona tour provided by Panoramic Earth. All rights reserved.
Looking at the panoramic view from the liberation site below you can see a red line which marks the direction of London. This line sits neatly to the edge of the Pyraneas which simply get higher to the West. Only to the East lies more optimistic elevations.
You can see, when you look at the route elevations below, that a direct route to London would involve passing over mountains in excess of 8,000 feet, that is almost 3 times higher than anything in the UK. Pigeons may well fly at these altitudes but probably only if they really have to.
Invitingly an alternative does suggest itself, the Rhone Valley. The route path shown via the Rhone Valley goes from Barcelona out round the coast and across to Arles, then up through the valley to Lyon and Dijon before striking across to London. This of course is merely a possible route, involving elevations up to about 1500 feet, but such a deviation would add considerably to the flying distance, rising from 708 to 885 miles.
The International Barcelona.
It's the International Barcelona this weekend - what more can be said about this race that hasn't been said already? One thing is certain this race is not the result of a breakaway. It would be impossible for a breakaway club, the staple open club of the UK, to go on and grow into a world class International club. Breakaways don't have it in them to do this sort of thing - They restrict rather than grow - they envy rather than praise - they control rather than grant freedom. The International Barcelona is not that sort of thing at all - everyone is welcome regardless of country.
At the time I write this we do not even have a clue which country is going to win never mind where it is likely to be won. It could be Germany - it could be Belgium or the Netherlands - it could be France all have a chance because it is they who are the countries that send the minimum entry to stand a real chance. Other countries, including the UK, take part of course but to be honest they do not have a good chance because apart from the big guys (Netherlands, Belgium Germany and France) they are not in the show for high hopes of the big prize they are in it for a lesser reward that of actually timing in and a few of their members actually getting in the result, for the top quarter of the whole entry (some six thousand pigeons) get published. That is reward enough for most fanciers that is why a lot try to send really experienced pigeons. These experienced pigeons can be as old as eight years of age. The thinking behind this strategy is that experienced pigeons are not about to go off in a direction that is not heading towards home. These experienced pigeons are not followers they are steady pigeons that fly towards home not wasting their energy. Take the Champion of Robert Ben - "Super Ben" this pigeon actually improved as he got older particularly at Barcelona, so experience does pay off in a race of this kind provided the elder pigeon still has enough youthful vigour to complete the course above 800 mpm - below that you are at a disadvantage for another system than kicks in and only allows over fly at that speed. So get experienced pigeons - get over 800 mpm and more to the point get your country to send more pigeons so they too can join the big four and have a real chance of winning.
John Clements
It's the International Barcelona this weekend - what more can be said about this race that hasn't been said already? One thing is certain this race is not the result of a breakaway. It would be impossible for a breakaway club, the staple open club of the UK, to go on and grow into a world class International club. Breakaways don't have it in them to do this sort of thing - They restrict rather than grow - they envy rather than praise - they control rather than grant freedom. The International Barcelona is not that sort of thing at all - everyone is welcome regardless of country.
At the time I write this we do not even have a clue which country is going to win never mind where it is likely to be won. It could be Germany - it could be Belgium or the Netherlands - it could be France all have a chance because it is they who are the countries that send the minimum entry to stand a real chance. Other countries, including the UK, take part of course but to be honest they do not have a good chance because apart from the big guys (Netherlands, Belgium Germany and France) they are not in the show for high hopes of the big prize they are in it for a lesser reward that of actually timing in and a few of their members actually getting in the result, for the top quarter of the whole entry (some six thousand pigeons) get published. That is reward enough for most fanciers that is why a lot try to send really experienced pigeons. These experienced pigeons can be as old as eight years of age. The thinking behind this strategy is that experienced pigeons are not about to go off in a direction that is not heading towards home. These experienced pigeons are not followers they are steady pigeons that fly towards home not wasting their energy. Take the Champion of Robert Ben - "Super Ben" this pigeon actually improved as he got older particularly at Barcelona, so experience does pay off in a race of this kind provided the elder pigeon still has enough youthful vigour to complete the course above 800 mpm - below that you are at a disadvantage for another system than kicks in and only allows over fly at that speed. So get experienced pigeons - get over 800 mpm and more to the point get your country to send more pigeons so they too can join the big four and have a real chance of winning.
John Clements
