Originally Posted by unterhausen

I'm pretty good with dead reckoning, but if there is a 10 mile stretch I used to get really anxious. I didn't use a computer, I found that to make me nervous because it never matched up to the cue sheet. I think the worst is a long stretch at night. I recall one long stretch of about 15 miles with a defective cue that was followed by a very long, steep climb. The other problem with cue sheets is you might be riding on a road that changes names ever few miles. Lots of people mess this one up when the do cue sheets. Each road name should be on the cue sheet. A gps totally gets rid of this problem.
It certainly adds to the adventure.

There are some places where making a cue sheet where it engenders confidence in a very tired rider is nearly impossible. In pennsylvania, the farm roads are on a grid, but the grid usually isn't complete. So you might go a short distance, turn 90 degrees, and so on. The road names change with each turn. There was one stretch on my fleche route where there were many such turns in a row. I borrowed this section of the route from Endless mountains 1200k, and I was very confused after all the turns when I rode that. And then when you're really feeling lost, there is a long downhill. Nobody wants to climb back up if it's not the right way. It happens that at the top of the hill there is a road off to the left that you don't go on. No reason to have it on the cue sheet, right? Except the next turn on the route is a left. So on EM, I stopped to make sure I didn't want to go that way, and then a couple of years later on the fleche we had a big argument about not going that way. Apparently having ridden it 3 times wasn't enough to convince some people on the team. So finally I just started riding the right way. Absent a map, you aren't going to be able to cue sheet yourself out of that level of confusion.