St. Albans, Herts - Bournemouth Charity bike ride

Psy43

A few friends and I are planning to ride from st. albans to bournemouth over a few days next month for Alzheimers Research. Does anyone know of any good routes (road/cycle path/light off road) between these two points? I've been on the sustrans website, but to be brutally honest its pants at best. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

One final thing - does anyone know of any campsites in the Reading area and Winchester/Southhampton area that would be good to camp at? Ideally, places with bike storage facilities (if such things exist)?

cheers

Kenjaja1

Hi,
I cannot give you definitive route advice on St Albans to Bournemouth but I have done London to Southampton a few times and various other 100+ mile rides so here are my planning & navigation methods which I hope will help.

Preliminaries
Find out how confident everyone is about cycling on A roads. These will be busy with fast moving traffic but will usually give you your shortest and simplest route. They will be your best option unless your friends really do want to avoid traffic

Planning Your Route
Get a road map and use a transparent ruler to get a view of a straight line from start point to destination. Look at how close your straight line is to any motorways. The significance of motorways is that old A1 roads sometimes run parallel to the newer motorway and can be relatively quiet (all the traffic tends to migrate to the motorway) However if the A road has several intersections with the motorway then that can result in lots of speeding drivers and is best avoided if possible.

A route of ‘A’ roads will give you a route which is easy to navigate as you will be sure of road signs and will not be changing roads too frequently. Even if you want to avoid the main roads the ‘A’ road route gives you a good ‘first draft’ and you can then use a road map to find any ‘B’ roads you want to take.. It is also worth looking for canals and rivers near your route. A canal will have a tow path and the river may well have a quiet road running alongside it for a good distance. There is a good chance these will give you a quiet, scenic stretch to ride on (as long as it is not too long and/or complicated to get back to your ‘A’ or ‘B’ road.route.

Riding Your Route
Use one of the on-line route planners a (eg http://www.rac.co.uk/web/routeplanner/)
to produce a detailed set of maps and instructions which you print (use a large type face) and keep in a transparent map holder thingy attached to your handlebars so you can glance at it when you have to change road.

The Route I would Ride
A405 to Watford
A412 to Rickmansworth, Uxbridge, Slough
A4 through Maidenhead, Reading Turning on to the B3051 a couple of miles before Thatcham Then some back roads through Whitchurch to the A3400 and on through Andover, A343/A30 to Salisbury & finally the A338 all the way to Bournemouth.

I might also choose to veer south through Winchester, skirt around Southampton and ride through the New Forest on the Lyndhurst road

Camping Sites
I have never needed to camp along this route but good campsite info is available from
http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/

One Final thought to give you even more mental indigestion: Have you considered riding the route from Bournemouth to Albans rather than your proposed St Albans-Bournemouth? If do it that way round you will have the prevailing south-west wind on your back for the entire journey - which will make the ride easier.

Good luck & enjoy the ride!

(Let me know when you are doing the ride -if I have a day off when you are starting off I might be available for moral support and, if necessary, to pilot you through the St Albans-Reading Stretch)

Psy43

Awesome reply. Cheers dude!

Ha! I like the Bournemouth - St.A wind-aid idea. There's thinking outside the box for you! We're all from the St.A area tho so the plan was to finish with a party on the beach (we've got people driving down for sat night to help get us and the bikes back - with a few drinks in between!)! Guess we'll hope for one of those rare European breezes! And we'll definitely be riding through the new forest. As a fan of the dirt track (ahem) its the bit I'm looking forward to the most!

I think we're not going to be massively pushed for time so we'll try to avoid the major A roads but I'll check out that route you suggested

We're riding 26-28th June (thurs-sat) and if you wanna come along feel free - the more the merrier, its for charity!! Leave a post on this thread if you want to represent.

Thanks for the advice - I'll start scouring those maps!

P.s. Some of those A roads you mentioned are monster dual carriage ways (eg A405), but as far as I'm aware there's a path alongside so I'll let you off!

Kenjaja1

Psy43 wrote:

... plan was to finish with a party on the beach

I agree that Bournemouth Beach is so much better than St Alban's

Psy43 wrote:

I think we're not going to be massively pushed for time so we'll try to avoid the major A roads but I'll check out that route you suggested

You should have planty of time but you will find it better to start reasonably early in the morning. If the weather is good you can get a good few miles under your belt before the sun gets too hot; If the weather is bad you have more time to dry out before setting off for the next leg the following day. If you have people in the group who are lacking fitness they get a good chunk of time to recover before the next day

Psy43 wrote:

We're riding 26-28th June

I normaly have some free time on a Thursdays so I may well be able to join you for a part of the ride. I won't know for sure until nearer the date but I'll try & make it

As you prefer the 'B' Roads and have the time to take them you are spoilt for choice in Hampshire. If one of your group has a small satelite navigation gizmo then you can navigate the minor roads very easily. If you do not have such a luxury then make sure you have a good OS map and compass for the times when roia signs do not exist or are pointing in the wrong direction.