Originally Posted by
jpescatore
The fatal flaw of depending on cue sheets (beyond how to carry them and keep the dry, etc) is when you miss a cue and keeping hoping you will see the next cue soon... I used to copy a map page on the back of the cue sheet but on long rides the resolution was so low you could never read road names to try to get back on track.
My Wahoo, and I'm sure all GPS units these days, gives you map view, cue sheet view etc. On multi-day rides I carry paper backup but could also use my phone as backup.
I do remember downloading a special Windows font for cue sheets back in the pre-GPS days.
Potentially fatal, but not necessarily.
I found myself in Odessa, TX at 1am studying my cue sheet to see what went wrong, when 4 guys got out of a parked car and started walking my way. I sprinted away. Maybe they just wanted to as me the time of day.
Randonneuring has been mentioned, so I'll address that specific niches. RUSA has specific requirements for the RWGPS cue sheet for official routes; requirements that drive the route creator to add custom cues and remove extraneous cues. Even for people who don't use cue sheets on the bike, the kind of information requested can be useful to study beforehand. Keep in mind RUSA rides are long, meaning too many turns for most people to memorize. And people frequently ride RUSA rides outsize their region. Some form of navigational help is typically needed.
I started rando with paper cue sheets, riding in Ohio and Kentucky whereas I lived in Indiana. Missing a turn and riding extra distance was such a common occurrence the sport has a name for it: 'bonus miles'. Cue sheets had their issues. Night time navigation, rain, wind.
The initial GPS units had little or no turn-by-turn and no background map, so you were just keeping your dot on a line on a tiny screen. With those units, indeed you would often ride past a turn before realizing you were off course. Particularly easy in a town where you can't tell which road to turn on, or where there's a shallow Y and you can't tell which one is correct. Bonus miles were reduced, but missed turns still happened. Some units wouldn't beep when you're off route, so you might ride a while before looking at the screen and noticing a dot with no line.
As GPS units have gotten better, as turn by turn has improved, as phone battery life and RWPGS functions have improved, the likelihood of needing a backup paper cue sheet is greatly reduced.
Randonneuring, to the uninitiated, is about probabilities and mitigating those probabilities. On a 30 mile JRA ride, I might go with a CO2. On a 400k, I'm taking a CO2, a pump, a tube (or two), and patches. Maybe a tire. Likewise with navigation, stuff goes wrong and bailing out is highly undesirable and often difficult itself.