Course with 2 surface types

To get the "most accurate results" use a steel tape to measure the trail.

If it is simple certification you are after, if I was your certifier I would advise using your usual road calibration course. But I am not your certifier.

Ask your certifier. He's the one who holds sway over whether your measurements please him or not.

Okay I am going to play devil's advocate if you will. Pete you say to ask your certifier which I agree on but the thing is one certifier might say to use your road calibration and another certifier may say you need to lay out a calibration course on the trail. So now you have 2 different calibration courses and 2 different course measurement which isn't that big of an issue but it is much easier with only one set of paper work to use. I guess what I am saying is that we should have some kind of policy or something in the manual so we are all on the same page on this. To me it seems this is becoming an issue and I just think we should do something now before it becomes a bigger problem than what it is right now. From everything I have read so far it seems like riding on the trail using a road calibration will make it longer. I also have this dilemma facing me as I will be measuring a half marathon in the next couple of weeks. So I would like to know how everyone else would go about measuring a course that is on a trail.
Thanks for any input.

Could be a good topic for us to discuss at our Annual meeting. Maybe I'm wrong on this, but I feel the change in surface will produce a longer course if you use a standard cal course.

I would allow the standard cal course as it will not produce a short course. However for better accuracy, it might be best to have laid out a shorter cal course on the softer surface. Again, talking it over with the Regional Certifier is the best way to handle this.

The discussion of calibration variation of dirt vs pavement has gone on long enough.

At present there is no requirement that a calibration course be on anything but a straight, paved road. Where certain certifiers got the idea that a non-paved path is a special case I don’t know.

If we decide that a course containing a non-paved segment requires a separate calibration course, we have opened a door best left closed.
Mike Sandford has demonstrated that calibration will vary on paved surfaces too. Should we require a new calibration course on, say, concrete vs asphalt, or rougher asphalt vs smoother asphalt? I don’t believe this would be a popular option.

I hope Gene will decree that until it has been discussed further, things remain the same. A straight, paved road will do the job. The SCPF will provide any safety that is needed, in almost every case. Dumping the decision onto the individual certifiers only fragments the desirable single standard.

If we want perfect measurement we are likely to be disappointed. We must work with what we have, which has been found to be “good enough.” It has served us well for many years. Further complication adds an unwelcome burden to the measurer.

Coming from the east coast, we had several course on a boardwalk. I never worried about the surface used to calibrate. I'm sure there would be a difference, but the SCPF would handle this situation.

I agree with Pete, let the discussion rest.

I am happy to let it rest. I have recently measured a few off-road courses for certification, using a cal course that is on pavement. These have been 5 and 10Ks. RRTC data seems convincing that measuring off road with a road calibration is unlikely in itself to cause a short course, more likely a slightly long course. My only question now is, how much longer a course might this tend to create, and would that difference tend to be exacerbated for longer courses?

Repeating a prior question I posed that no one answered, "How long is too long?". To this I add "Does using a cal course on pavement tend to produce excessively long measurements on non-paved surfaces? Are these answers already out here somewhere?

Lyman,
Please don't bring up a new topic in the middle of a thread.
Start a new thread that asks "How long is too long?" or resurrect and old thread that asks it.

I agree with Pete 100%. Please, we do not need new rules that only make work or try for perfection. My favorite example, remeasuring an "expired" calibration course where the nails are still in place.

Mark, Lyman probably brought it up here because no one answered him the other time he posted it. I have done that myself when I did not get a response. I agree with Guido on the expired calibration course where everything is still in place and you use it 5 to 10 times a year and than all of a sudden it is expired.

Just trying to keep the forum organized. If people bring up topics within a thread that have nothing to do with the name of the thread, the discussion will be lost to anyone trying to find it later.

Mark yes I agree with you. It does get frustrating though when you start a thread and no one says anything. I have ask in another thread about the same thing and didn't get an answer. Maybe not true because I didn't ask the same question but it was close and Jim Gerweck said he does nothing special and Mark Neal said would do some comparisons which I will do also because I have a half marathon to measure on the trails with close to 10 miles will be one the trails. I would hate for it to be over 100 longer than it should be.

I started a new thread.