Best way to plan a tour in the UK

hisoka

Hi,
I was wondering what the best way to plan a road based (hybrid but not really suitable for off road as I am very "sturdy" and I think my bike would collapse with too much off roading) tour in the UK is? Hard copy maps, OS maps, online mapping, searching for routes already done and if so where?
I will be camping, so I do need to plan ahead for sites etc but otherwise looking for some sage advice by the wise people, or at least more experienced people, of these boards.
Thanks for anything at all

KeithG

Planning a tour is a lot of fun and the "trick" is to link up points of interest and scenic roads while bearing in mind the sort of daily mileage you are comfortable with.
A starting point would be to multiply your daily mileage by the number of days you have and subtract the rest days you need, this would get you a rough idea of what sort of distances you'd like to do.
If you are camping, you really don't need too much planning or booking ahead as most sites in the UK will find you an empty spot at short notice and if you are travelling in "tourist" areas there will be no shortage of sites.
What floats your boat? Scenery or history or culture or beaches or steep climbs?
Culture like castles and museums and historic cities are good for visits to foreign countries (are you a Brit?) but are not so interesting for me on a tour in the UK.
My own preference is for scenery and I quite like Sustrans routes as a basis for quieter cycling avoiding motorised traffic. Their website is good for planning and buying maps http://www.sustrans.co.uk/
Because I'm a Scot I like to visit Ireland and England. I like visiting places I haven't been to before, pubs and cafes outside Scotland have a novelty value which is nice and I like going somewhere new.
I use a road atlas as a base for a nice circular route and then use the Sustrans website for help getting through busier areas. My last tour was a circle of the Irish Sea from the SW of Scotland through the Lake District, Liverpool, Chester, N Wales and then Ireland from Dublin to Belfast and ferry back to Stranraer. It was about 600miles and I figured out my daily mileage and how many days it would take and then asked the wife accordingly!
I used Youth Hostels for the good washingdrying facilities from time to time and camped when I was knackered and never had to book.

hisoka

That sounds good, thanks for the information. I'm british and only ever been camping twice, I thought it would be good to do it again. That and I really think the touring will help me loose some of the many extra pounds I have around the midrif.

vernonlevy

hisoka wrote:

Hi,
I was wondering what the best way to plan a road based (hybrid but not really suitable for off road as I am very "sturdy" and I think my bike would collapse with too much off roading) tour in the UK is? Hard copy maps, OS maps, online mapping, searching for routes already done and if so where?
I will be camping, so I do need to plan ahead for sites etc but otherwise looking for some sage advice by the wise people, or at least more experienced people, of these boards.
Thanks for anything at all

Don'eunderestimate the sturdiness of your biek. I am 20+ stone and cycle camp on a Dawes Galaxy but have used a hybrid and an old road bike in the past for touring.

I have never found followoing in someone's cycle tracks satisfactory as I'm not riding 'my toute' but someone else's.

For your first forays you could use some of the Sustrans routes but you will probably need to supplement the information on the maps i.e. camp site locations.

For straightforward route planning www.viamichelin.com has a cycle option that will select in most instances shorter and quieter routes between places. It has two known blind spots - the Old Severn and Humber Bridges are treated as motorways and their cycle paths are ignored leading to large detours.

For long tours i.e. Land's End to John O'Groats. I bought a large scale Philips road atlas which showed the locations of campsites. It was generally accurate but one or two sites turned out to be caravan only.

If you want other folks' routes you could join the CTC at www.ctc.org.uk and browse through a whole range of routes.

You might also consider some of the Golden Eye maps which have suggested cycling routes on them and the location of camp sites. www.goldeneyemaps.com

If you want a large list of camp sites you could join the camping and caravan club.

Hope that helps.

andrew_s

For on-line mapping try http://www.maptasm.com/ for full OS map coverage.
I wouldn't expect it to last, but whilst it is working it's very handy if you haven't paid for MemoryMap or whatever.

In addition to the old Severn and Humber bridges mentioned above, the Forth road bridge and the Avonmouth bridge also have cycle tracks.

Tourist Tony

And the standard advice: before setting off on a tour, try a weekend break as a shake down ride.

hisoka

Thank you all for the information there, I've taken some notes and checking out the links now.
Was hoping to do a shake down ride when the weather gets a bit better, looking sometime after feb.