Actually, I'm glad they don't have a terrain adjustment. I say this because I understand the classical rando route is hilly, and I assume the average speeds above take that into account. The significance is that down here in Flatville, I still get the same time y'all do in the Rocky Mountains. If they adjusted for terrain, they'd be giving me 9 hours when I need 10.
I would say that in general, if you're not making the times, maybe you NEED to stop riding. Either the weather is terrible, and that's a good excuse to call it off, or maybe you're just not in shape for the task at hand. I ran into this on the 2nd 200k I tried on my Worksman cruiser. It was hot, head-windy, a few hills, I had one flat, and that put me to the 2nd control late. But I was about wiped out by then, too, so it wasn't neceesarily a bad thing that the ride got ended.
On the brevets, I wasn't aware that you could make ANY controls late, regardless of whether you made it up on the next one- maybe that varies by area, or maybe I just haven't ridden enough to run into it. Of course, on the brevets I've done, only the first control was manned by rando people, the rest were the regular convenience stores.
Oh, and in answer to the original post- here in this area, the times are always on the brevet card, and the only one that ever needs to calculate a time is the one making up the cards. Times will be absolute, not relative to the start. IE, start at 7:00-8:00 AM, 2nd control at, say, 11:00-13:00 or so, etc.
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"be careful this rando stuff is addictive and dan's the 'pusher'."
Last edited by StephenH; 02-24-10 at 10:02 PM.