The Ten Tors Calculator

When will my Team reach its next Tor? Along with most of life's really interesting questions, this is almost impossible to answer with any degree of certainty - but there is now a little tool to help with the guesswork...

First, download this program from the web site: TTCalc.exe (Vn 4.5: about 44k bytes) and save it to a folder that you can easily find on your PC - say, the 'My Documents' folder. Once downloaded, next find and then 'double-click' on the program.

You'll see a window like the one opposite, initially asking you to enter the Route letter (A to Z) that your Team is walking. As you answer the following prompts, (the latest Tor visited and the time taken to reach it), the program will calculate the time to reach the next Tor, based on the walking speed of the Team so far. It will also hazard a guess at the Team's finishing time, if they continue to walk at that rate.

In the example above, our Team is walking Route T, and reached Tor 5 at 15:51. 'TTCalc' has found that this represents an average speed of 4.090 Km per hour, and at that rate the Team will reach Tor 6, 40.20 Km from the Start, at 16:49. If they maintain the same speed, they should reach the finish at 10:48 on Sunday.

If you create a folder on your PC called 'temp' at the top level on your C: drive, ('C:\temp'), TTCalc will make a web page equivalent ('C:\temp\routet.htm' - in this instance) of the data shown above for you to view with your browser.

But no team walks at a constant rate, and Dartmoor tends to throw the odd problem into the mix, so TTCalc's results will seldom match the reality of a Team coping with blisters, a sudden rain squall, or the need to take a break.

Additionally, TTCalc will try to guess how the Team will handle the overnight camping rules:

a 35-mile Team may not walk beyond a Tor checkpoint if they are judged to be unlikely to reach the next Tor before 20:00 - they must camp at one of their first eight Tors.
while no Team may pass a Tor checkpoint after 20:00, 45- and 55-mile Teams may walk on, into the evening, if they pass before 20:00. They may then camp anywhere (within the rules) on route to their next Tor. Often this means that 45- and 55-mile Teams will scramble to pass a Tor just before 20:00, then head towards their next Tor, camping a little short of it ready to pass through at 06:00 on Sunday morning - but bear in mind that some 45- and 55-mile legs are looong, and sunset is another factor.
finally, no Team may pass their ninth Tor on Day 1 - the earliest they may leave it is at 06:00 on Sunday.

On moderately extensive testing using past data, Teams on the 35-mile routes are the least predictable; their speed alters noticeably from Tor to Tor, possibly depending on the terrain or their navigational skills. 45- and 55-mile Teams are more consistent - sometimes after the first Tor TTCalc will predict a finishing time within a few minutes of the one that they achieved. This says a lot more about the quality of the Teams than that of the program!

Warning and Disclaimer

One final point - while TTCalc was built on a machine running anti-virus software, you should always check every download with your own anti-virus tools before you run it. TTCalc is intended to be a helpful aid, and does nothing other than described above, but if you have any doubts about running unknown software on your PC, leave it alone, don't download it and don't use it! TTCalc does nothing that can't be done with a calculator and a little persistence.

No responsibility is accepted for any loss or damage, however caused.