Thanks, Jim. Thanks, Jay.
With some course I have measured, One, two or more "reconnaissance rides" or "course design" rides have been necessary before even beginning measurement rides. I find this happens most often in rapidly-developing areas like nearby Loudoun County, VA where the available aerial imagery is insufficient for on-line estimates. By the time I get all that riding done, I am usually not in a mood to use a Sum of Shortest Segments technique. And, after all that much work, I usually have sufficient confidence in the route to ride all the tangents as tight as possible.
Apparently my mentor, Bob Thurston, uses SOSS as a matter of "course" (haha). He also routinely travels back to the course being measured after performing post-cal to make the final adjustments. I had been in the habit, if the temperature had increased consistently over the course of the measurement, and when the post-cal seemed right in line with expectations, to simply adjust the final few feet on the timing points description on the map. Of course, the problem with this is that timing points paint marks might then be inaccurate.
How do you experts handle this?