Planning UK Routes

SamWise72

As a publicity stunt and charity fundraiser, I'm going to ride 130 miles from Southampton to Cambridge on a Friday, compete in a Dragon Boat race on the Saturday, and ride the 130 miles home on a Sunday, all on my Downtube IXFS. I'm not worried about the riding, or the physical preparation, but I am worried about the route. I drive this route all the time, but 70% of it is on Motorways, so what I'm wondering is, how do you all go about planning good routes, and what do you use as a cue sheet. I'll have a handlebar bag with a map pocket, but what map would really help me? Would I be better off with a list of "the next town/village to aim for"?

I'd love some advice from those who've planned long rides before.

upsidedown

To be honest you can't go too far wrong with google maps, tick the 'avoid highways' box and see what comes up. The nice thing is that when you zoom in you can drag the route to a different one and it re-calculates the distance. You can also switch to satellite or terrain to see what it actually looks like. I've done a few this way and never been too far out.

Apologies if this is too obvious, but it's a pretty good place to start (i've used it for my imminent ride from Birmingham to Stranraer !)

vernonlevy

SamWise72 wrote:

As a publicity stunt and charity fundraiser, I'm going to ride 130 miles from Southampton to Cambridge on a Friday, compete in a Dragon Boat race on the Saturday, and ride the 130 miles home on a Sunday, all on my Downtube IXFS. I'm not worried about the riding, or the physical preparation, but I am worried about the route. I drive this route all the time, but 70% of it is on Motorways, so what I'm wondering is, how do you all go about planning good routes, and what do you use as a cue sheet. I'll have a handlebar bag with a map pocket, but what map would really help me? Would I be better off with a list of "the next town/village to aim for"?

I'd love some advice from those who've planned long rides before.[/quote

Try www.viamichelin.com

There's a cycle option which picks the quieter roads and, incidentally, normally the sortest routes.

I use it all the time to plot my 100km and 200km DIY Audax rides.