Planning a long distance cycle route

porlyworly

Been toying with the idea for a while now of a solo ride from where I live now (Leicester) to my hometown of Hartlepool. It's about 175 miles by car (straight up the M1) so probably a little more avoiding major roads on my bike. I had previously thought about doing it over two days with an overnight stop somewhere as prior to the weekend gone I had never ridden any further than around 75 miles but after completing the wiggle long one sportive in a decent time (125 miles) am thinking with a bit more training maybe I could achieve it in one go.

Thinking along the lines of setting off at around 5am with the aim of getting there late in the evening before it gets dark.

Has anyone done something similar and if so how did you plan the route? I won't have any prior knowledge of the vast majority of the roads on the way so won't know which are not safe to cycle on etc. and obviously the flatter the route the better! Would happily go a little further to avoid any lumpy sections...

daviesee

bikeroutetoaster.com and a Garmin 705 for me.

There are other sites and satnavs but that works for me.

tgotb

I always plan routes through unknown areas using the 1:50,000 OS maps (online via OS or Bing). Nothing else seems to show the contours clearly. Use something like BikeRouteToaster to put the route in your Garmin, but nothing beats OS for planning...

pollys_bott

I planned my ride to Norwich ('only' 125 miles) on Map My Ride - luckily it was only the middle third of the route that I wasn't sure on so checked junctions/notable features etc on Google Streetview. From that I scribbled a few notes on a printout of the route which I took with me, and all was fine.

If you're planning on following a route on a GPS computer / phone app check the battery life - I knew my phone would die before the end of my ride (which was OK cos I knew the back end of the route) but didn't realise until after the event that I could have swopped a spare battery straight in and the GPS tracking would have picked up again. I wrongly assumed that what had been tracked would automatically be lost when the battery died, won't make that mistake again... :roll:

CiB

Stepwise refinement - on BikeHike.co.uk do the start and finish points and let it fill in the obvious route, then work your way through chopping out climbs, major roads & dual c/ways that you might want to avoid - use the elevation view to help. In not much time you'll have a route that's a good compromise of detours against those other factors.

Having done similar I'd suggest avoiding complex routes that send you on convoluted detours to avoid 3 miles of what appears to a busy road. Once you're on your way and outside of where you know it's much easier to get on with by pressing on without constantly checking, and weekend traffic is usually fine IME. If you're navigating by electronic means no problem but old fashioned route cards & photocopied maps are a bit of a bind when you roll into the middle of Stafford on a busy Saturday morning and need to get to Whitchurch.

porlyworly

I'm thinking it will also give me the excuse I need to get a Garmin with navigation features! Currently have a Bryton rider 35 with hrm and cadence and whilst it's a fantastic device for recording the data and interfacing into Strava it sadly doesn't have a navigation feature!

Thanks for the suggestions chaps will check the websites out tonight when I get home

Kieran_Burns

CiB wrote:

Stepwise refinement - on BikeHike.co.uk do the start and finish points and let it fill in the obvious route, then work your way through chopping out climbs, major roads & dual c/ways that you might want to avoid - use the elevation view to help. In not much time you'll have a route that's a good compromise of detours against those other factors.

Having done similar I'd suggest avoiding complex routes that send you on convoluted detours to avoid 3 miles of what appears to a busy road. Once you're on your way and outside of where you know it's much easier to get on with by pressing on without constantly checking, and weekend traffic is usually fine IME. If you're navigating by electronic means no problem but old fashioned route cards & photocopied maps are a bit of a bind when you roll into the middle of Stafford on a busy Saturday morning and need to get to Whitchurch.

A34 North to the M6 until you get to the Eccleshall road and bear left onto it.

Or if you don't want to chance the dual carriageway bit, follow the signs for the railway station, go past it and again follow the signs for the a34 north....

rolf_f

PorlyWorly wrote:

Currently have a Bryton rider 35 with hrm and cadence and whilst it's a fantastic device for recording the data and interfacing into Strava it sadly doesn't have a navigation feature!

It does have a navigation feature. Not a sophisticated one but good enoughto follow a pre planned route. Read the instructions!

porlyworly

Ah instruction manuals, are those the paper things they put in the box for girls? Stop talking me out of NEEDING a Garmin!

CiB

Kieran_Burns wrote:

A34 North to the M6 until you get to the Eccleshall road and bear left onto it.

Or if you don't want to chance the dual carriageway bit, follow the signs for the railway station, go past it and again follow the signs for the a34 north....

Or... Spot attractive woman in open top Merc at the lights, give her the smile and ask her which way to Eccleshall for Loggerheads then A41. That's a v nice route to take - the one where I wasn't looking forward at all to the long climb up to Loggerheads (iirc) and then 3/4 of the way up realised that that was it.

Navigation by Attractive Women In Sports Cars has its attractions.