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A word of caution with the mileage wheel - if the ground is uneven, or
has lots of roots, rocks, etc - the wheel can be pretty inacurate unless
you really go slow. If you're in a hurry and the wheel is hopping off the
trail, you'll get small errors - which can *really* add up over a long trail.
The wheel we used was pretty light, and tended to skip off the rough
areas, and we ended up underestimating the length of the trail - all those
seconds when the wheel was in the air instead of on the ground.
I almost think you're better off pacing the trail - if you're accurate and
consistent with the length of your pace - which takes a fair amount
of practice.
I do believe that actual course mileage is one of the biggest variables
that we have in this sport. And one of the most difficult things to obtain,
unless you have a road course. The USFS maps are *very* unpredictable
in their accuracy. (and having spend 2 seasons during college, working on a
USFS survey crew - with several other 'kids', it's easy to imagine that numbers
could be a little skewed...)
Steph
1) Most obvious is a vehicle (4x4 if possible)
2) Motor bike or ATV with an odometer
3) Bicycle with an odometer
4) Now number four might be a little obscure, but might help for areas that
are single file trails or if you don't have access to number two or three. My
husband and I are insurance agents and part of the job is measuring the houses
that we insure. To measure the outside of a house we use a "Rolatape". It's
a big wheel on a stick that measures distances in feet. You just push the
wheel over the ground and the counter tells you the number of feet that the
wheel has covered. You could use this type of devise and convert the feet to
miles. The one we have is model: MM34 ENDURO. It's made by the Rolatape
Corporation out of Spokane, WA 99206.
Good Luck
Happy (accurately measured) Trails :-)
~Nora
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