The Route

Unlike the End to End trip, there aren't any established routes for the Big Fat One (the widest part of England), so with this we had to try and plot each mile. The good news is that there are lots of tools around to help in particular a site called Map My Ride was very useful for actually plotting the route.

To try and work out which roads to take, we basically drew a line from Lowestoft to Lands End and then used the Sustrans maps to see if there were any streches that are eaither off road cycle paths or low traffic routes. Once this was done I then tried to check it out using street view at points where I thought there may be problems. So it took a while, but now it's done, but I have a feeling that there will be a few tricky parts along the way i.e roads that turn out to only be roads in Google Maps imagination :-)

If anyone would like to see the route in detail, please sign up to a Map My Ride account (they are free) and let me know your ID and I'll add you. In summary here are our planned days:

Day	Start	Finish	Estimated Mileage	Highlights
6-Jun-2012	Lowestoft	Lowestoft	2	Ness Point
7-Jun-2012	Lowestoft	Clare	75
8-Jun-2012	Clare	Chesham	75	Nickey Line
9-Jun-2012	Chesham	Marlborough	75	Grand Avenue - Savernake Forest
10-Jun-2012	Marlborough	Bruton	55	Devizes locks
11-Jun-2012	Bruton	Uffcolme	60
12-Jun-2012	Uffcolme	Tavistock	55	The Granite Way
13-Jun-2012	Tavistock	Veryan	55	Pentewan Trail
14-Jun-2012	Veryan	Land End	50	First & Last Trail

In total this comes to just under 500 miles, but from past experience I'm sure another 10 or 20 will appear from somewhere.

With the trails mentioned above, we are only doing bits, but they should be an opportunity to take a break from roads at least for a few miles.

You may also be wondreing why there is a 2 mile day on the 6th. Well Ness point is on the north sie of the river Lothing which is crossed by the A12. Rather than go there on the Thursday and then cycle back along the A12 in rush hour, we thought we might do that part when we arrive. That said, plans might change.

So that's the plan. If you fancy joining us along the way, please do.

Welcome

Thanks for visiting our blog.
In case you don't already know, this is a blog about our planned cycling trip from Lowestoft to Lands End.
Before I get started, I guess the first question I need to answer is why?
Well, it's been five years since the end to end trip which has just been enough time for us to both recover and forget just how painful it can be to get back on a bike the morning after a long day in the saddle. To answer the question of why we have decided on this route, it's because Ness Point (just behind the gas works ... nice) in Lowestoft is the most easterly point in the UK and Lands End (just behind the giant Tardis .... odd) is the most westerly point in England & Wales.
Actually, probably the best reason for setting out is that we hope to raise some money for Cancer Reaserch UK. So if could spare a few quid that will be great. We've set up a Virgin Money Giving (they give more of the money to the charity than Just Giving) site which can be found here: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/mattandalan
So that's the 'why' out of the way, now we can start with the blog.
Thanks again for visiting. Please feel free to comment.
Alan & Matt