 “Turns” have  ref erences starting with two digits for the number of the next Time  Station ahead followed by a letter which allows you to put all the turns in a section in  proper sequential order. After this is a hyphen (dash) followed by a one or two letter  abbreviation indicating what the Route Book directs you to do at this location. There  aren’t many choices: an L or an R suggests a left or right turn of about 90 degrees or  more whilst BL and BR refer to turns which are less than 90 degrees (bear left and  bear right). An S means to go straight and is seldom used except when the road you  are on turns but the intent is for you to continue in a more or less straight direction  onto the connecting road, or some other unusual situation.  These  ref  designations are useful cross  ref erences between the Route Book and  points displayed by a GPS receiver on a bike or in a vehicle or shown on the screen of  a computer running mapping software. In addition, the  ref  designation is also handy  in communications, both with your Crew and with Race Headquarters. “We are three  miles before 36F”, immediately conveys a complete Route Book  ref erence without  worrying about page numbers or location names. Similarly should a racer be  proceeding alone and carrying a handheld GPS receiver to count down the distance to  the next turn, the name ( ref ) of the turn, if the gadget can display it, tells him in  simplest terms what to do when he gets there. You will probably find other uses for  the convenient  ref erence label in coordinating racer support. mile  Every instruction in the Route Book refers to a location along the route. The mile  number is the odometer or terrain distance since the previous Time Station.  For this number to be most useful the driver must remember to re-set the trip  odometer to zero at each Time Station and then realize that if the vehicle has to depart  from the specified route (stop for gas or whatever) the odometer will no longer  correspond to the miles indicated in the Route Book.   For convenience those miles which correspond to  ref erenced turns or other action are  in  boldface (dark) print . It is recommended that crews also use colored highlighter  pens to further emphasize these points.  If two lines of instruction refer to points less than 1 mile apart the second will  normally have “Imm” for “immediate” in the mile column or perhaps “1 blk” for one  city block (next intersection). turn   This column contains the spelled out  LEFT ,  RIGHT ,  br LEFT ,  br RIGHT , and  straight  instructions abbreviated in the  ref  key and they are also in  dark print .  The first entry in each section uses a compass heading to indicate in which direction  you should go when leaving a Time Station and will most often, though not always,  be “ East ” or “ Northeast ”. Time Stations which are set at intersections can be  confusing so this indication is designed to help in addition to the comments in the  next column.  All other entries in the turn column are in faded (light) printing and are the miles  remaining until the next turn. To emphasize that no action is to be taken the word  GEAR 2020  Page 52 