Originally Posted by
kahn
Ah, you've hit on my walk around the local lake. It is about 4 miles with the dog-leg (lolly pop stem) from my house. But if I walk on the outside gravel or the inside asphalt or meander between both, obviously my distance would change. So estimate the diameter of the, of course, non-circular lake, and add or subtract two or three feet.
This discussion has been both fascinating and completely mind-numbing!
You're missing my point, so I probably didn't explain myself clearly.
If your path is built up, say, 20 feet above the lake, it's possible a GPS track is going to give you a 15' drop on the shoulder as you make go around a right turn. That might not happen if you're on the left side of your path (or lane). Multiply that by a few dozen curves on a bike route, and suddenly you've got spurious climbs amounting to several hundred feet.