I received an email from Andy telling me that, unfortunately, he cannot ‘validate’ my epic 315Km ride as it was ’29Km short’. At first I was quite stunned. What on earth is going on? I did 5% more than required and now I am told that it was, actually, 10% less?? I then remembered the rules – ‘one should take the SHORTEST distance between the controls as the correct measurement for a DIY route. Now check the following routes on a Google map:
compared to:
The routes are quite similar – aren’t they? Well, they certainly do not MEASURE the same length. The first is 279Km while the second comes up as 305Km. In reality, as I said, I covered a full 315Km!
So now I know. I have to use the point-to-point measuring first and THEN making any changes or tweaks to it. It will obviously imply an even further ‘detour’, having to bypass and ignore main roads as much as possible, but as the title says ‘Rules are Rules’.
Perhaps sometime in the future the rider will simply upload their GPS ‘trail’ as validation, rather than receipts from stores and bank statements from holes in the walls – but I am not holding my breath 🙂