Wednesday, 30 May 2012

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:

DayStartFinishEstimated MileageHighlights
6-Jun-2012LowestoftLowestoft2Ness Point
7-Jun-2012LowestoftClare75
8-Jun-2012ClareChesham75Nickey Line
9-Jun-2012CheshamMarlborough75Grand Avenue - Savernake Forest
10-Jun-2012MarlboroughBruton55Devizes locks
11-Jun-2012BrutonUffcolme60
12-Jun-2012UffcolmeTavistock55The Granite Way
13-Jun-2012TavistockVeryan55Pentewan Trail
14-Jun-2012VeryanLand End50First & 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.

1 comment:

  1. Hello Alan,
    My name is Stanley and I am planning to cycle this route this summer for charity. Just wondering how the ride went. I know it's been a while, but just interested to hear your view on it, since you completed it in 2012.
    Thanks,
    Stanley

    ReplyDelete