After a few beers with a mate I might have suggested cycling around England. It was mainly a beer brag but since I am stuck in a hotel on my own I thought I would have a quick go at planning it.

Then I realised I didn’t have a clue what was involved. I am sure I could talk to PetesGaff and get the proper info but I thought I would use your knowledge first.

Basics – It is about 1,600 miles according the the AA route planner. I am guessing a road bike would be best which from memory means between 100-150 miles a day if you want to be able to maintain the pace so about 2 weeks cycling.

1) Get a road bike
2) Ride a bit more
3) Plan a route – Done (Southampton,plymouth,penzance,Bideford,bristol,Hereford,chester,Blackpool,cockermouth,Carlisle,Gretna,Berwick upon tweed,Newcastle upon tyne,Grimsby,Kings Lynn,Norwich,Southend on sea,Ramsgate,Eastbourne,Southampton)
4) Accomodation – Any of you lot live near any of those places and willing to put me up
5) Pick a Charity – Everyone does stuff ;like this for charity
6) Pick a date – Late Spring
7) Finish work Friday, pack credit card and change of underwear and ride for 14 days

Anything I have missed?

Using hotels and B+Bs is cheating. Be a real man and get a bivvy. Don’t live near any of the stops but can loan you a bivvy.

Slightly more detailed route. It is easier to read if you cut and paste it into Excel.

I wasn’t planning on hotels and B&Bs. I was planning on doing it solo and unsupported except by the kindness of the STW comunity.

From Via To Distance Total
Southampton A31/A35 Dorchester 52.7 52.7
Dorchester Paignton Plymouth 108 160.7
Plymouth Penzance Newquay 120 280.7
Newquay Ilfracombe 87.8 368.5
Ilfracombe Bristol 92.9 461.4
Bristol Shrewsbury 110 571.4
Shrewsbury Blackpool 99.6 671
Blackpool Gretna 102 773
Gretna Berwick on Tweed Belford 95.3 868.3
Belford Whitby 120 988.3
Whitby Toll road Grimsby 91.3 1079.6
Grimsby Hunstanton 96.2 1175.8
Hunstanton Great Yarmouth Ipswich 122 1297.8
Ipswich Whitstable 113 1410.8
Whitstable Margate/Dover Hastings 85.8 1496.6
Hastings Bognor 66.5 1563.1
Bognor Southampton 41.2 1604.3

Oooh – do you think riding it on a mountain bike would be a good idea?

i recently rode fixed from the middle of Germany to the Hook of Holland… i wouldn’t recommend it.

in summer, i was riding 70-80km per day over the alps and it didn’t do my legs any harm.

after three days and ~280 miles i could barely walk. i was waking up in the morning thinking my legs had been injected with glue which had hardened over night. i couldn’t take full steps when i got off the bike.

really wierd. don’t do it.

oh, and my route was flat!

edited to be mountain bike instead of fixie

You’d go all that way and miss the Welsh coast out?
And Scotland as well, come to think about it……

Northern Ireland’s beautiful too, lovely coast road up past the Giant’s Causeway – might as well make it a proper UK coastal ride…. 🙂

That’s why I called it riding around England, not the UK.

I did the Big Bike Bash as a one off event and was forced to repeat it. This time my beer fuelled idea will allow me to repeat the concept but do WCA rides Wales, WCA rides Scotland, WCA rides NI etc…

Just got to work on the mass appeal aspect. I don’t want to be seen as trying to piggy back the Team Bullheart idea. That guy is so far above me in both reason and motivation. I don’t want to appear a copy cat fraud.

Give me time (and a few beers) and the plan will come together.

Put in a rest day halfway. I did LEJOG with 4 others this year, 8-9 hours a day for 8 days got a bit wearing.

Ride lots and lots to prepare. I was doing 12-15 hours a week. Still, it doesn’t really let you know how you’ll react to that amount of riding.

Take a good GPS with the route on. Far easier than checking maps.

Plan the routes through town centres carefully. Unexpected one way systems are really annoying.

Start slowly and you’ll get stronger.

You’ll cover Gretna, Berwick to Belford easily in a day but the A1 is a horrible and some what dangerous rode to cycle on. Can’t really offer accommodation but will give you support guiding through Northumberland leg.

i can offer yuou accomodation [garden and tarp naturally :wink:] but 30 miles shy of Blackpool but it will be on your route. Can also offer [depending on day] a riding companion for the day. E-mail in profile

why not start off small, IoW to start with and then work up? that way you could build up the publicity machine, website/blog, sponsorship, charities, etc
hell you could even encourage people to join you, in two years you could be cycling around the perimeter of Russia with a following of 10,000 fellow cyclists drafting you?

That seems like a lot of mileage per day to me

I was doing around 75 a day with a trailer and rest days, It was hard work I tell thee

Plum

A rest days seems like a good idea.

Mileage doesn’t seem unrealistic. As a kid me and a mate rode from Reading (Berkshire) to Chorley (Lancashire) and did between 90-110 miles a day.

Agree that big trunk roads are not fun when mixed with traffic but I might find some near parallel little roads.

Start small and build up – Correct. I was thinking of using the IOW as a practise loop. It has a few hills to help build up the legs.

in two years you could be cycling around the perimeter of Russia with a following of 10,000 fellow cyclists drafting you? – Like Forest Gump when running across America?

Now I have kind of broken the idea out into the public, does it mean I have to do it?

How is this for a build up plan:

1) Loop the Isle of Wight
2) Loop Hampshire
3) Loop England
4) Loop UK
5) Loop Western Europe
6) Loop the Euro Asian mainland continent
7) Rest

Cycing round Scotland or Ireland sounds OK, at least there would be some scenery to speak of. But England? Gonna spend a lot of time staring at hedges I’d expect.

This sort of thing would be more appealing If I had the time, plus you get to go abroad and have some decent food.

http://www.northsea-cycle.com/default.asp?id=2&mnu=2&lang=1

If you do it and i’m home, ill ride the Ilfracombe-Bristol leg with you, as ill be living there from the end of this month.
(and provide accommodation obviously).

if you can do 100 miles per day for 14 straight days, or even over 15 days with one rest day, you should be asking if any teams have vacancies for domestiques

after Hampshire, I’d choose somwehere smaller than england – that’s a big jump. Maybe the west country or Wales might be a better bet

Bed (and tools!) in Plymouth right near sustrans network and main road here Nick. I might even be tempted to ride/heckle a bit with you. Plymouth to Penzance is a loooooong and hilly 120 miles to try in one day though!

I can offer accomodation in Bristol and possibly Hunstanton.
Some of the legs look a little long considering the terrain, Newquay to Ilfracombe for instance.

WCA – let me know if you plan to stay near Chester. Rode half a day with Petesgaff on his LEJOG, he chose the Sustrans route through Cheshire and whilst not especially direct, it was a nice route.

Oi! I better be included in this plan! 👿

if you can do 100 miles per day for 14 straight days, or even over 15 days with one rest day, you should be asking if any teams have vacancies for domestiques

Nonsense, unless he’ll be doing it in 5 hours.

On mileage – even on a decent road bike 100 miles a day repeatedly is a lot.

Our recent tour mtb (tandem) on 50/50 1.9 tyres we did 75 tops in a day. 50 is easy tho

100 miles a day is a lot – No Pain, No Gain!

Actually, it is more governed by the amount of time I can get off work. I was really hoping to get it done in 14.

12mph for 10 hours + 120 miles.

I should hope I could average more than 12mph on a road bike. I might alter the distances per day depending on terrain. This hasn’t exactly been fully thought through yet.

Elfinsafety – You can ride the support bike which drags the trailer and beer fridge

12mph is ambitious unless you’re not planning on stopping for food/photos/coffee/views/a breather.

Even if you just stop for a sandwich, lunch and coffee stops, plus water refills is going to take an hour out of your day. And unless you’re super disciplined, it’ll take you a while to get your stuff packed back up and on your way in the morning. Assuming you start at 9am, with an hour for lunch and other stops, that’ll take you to 8pm every day.

Fair point.

I will come up with another hair brained scheme then.

Cheers All

WCA.

Do it in two chunks. Start in the South West corner, and ride along the South Coast, up the East to the North East corner.

Then, on another 2 week holiday, start at the North East corner, and ride down the West to the South West Corner.

Effectively halves the mileage commitment (though doubles the holidays lost to Mrs WCA – she might be grateful).

Still feels like you’tre going to miss loads of interesting stuff in the middle.

Elfinsafety – You can ride the support bike which drags the trailer and beer fridge

Oh well that’s marvellous that isn’t it? 🙄

This hasn’t exactly been fully thought through yet

😆

At this stage, I’d just like to point out that when WCA and I were discussing this hair-brained scheme last weekend, both of us had consumed a not inconsiderable amount of alcohol, and WCA in his own indomitable style, had consumed considerably, considerably more than me. 🙂

I will come up with another hair brained scheme then.

He will. Be warned…..

I’m confused – what are you trying to do?

I once spent four months cycling round Britain and Ireland and it was the best fun I’ve ever had.
http://www.crispinbennett.freedomnames.co.uk/Round%20Britain.htm

Coast roads suck as they tend to be busy with life-threatening HGVs, so choose a route that avoids them.

I’ve always fancied a route taking in all the compass points.
ie northern most point, east, south, west. If you want to get fancy you could also do northeast, or even north-northeast etc. There’s an Audax ride called the Great Triangle – it does something like this:
Dover, Lizard, LE, Ardnamurchan, Cape Wrath, Lowestoft, JoG etc. Can be done in about 3 weeks.

Enjoy!

I once read that Nick Sanders (he held the round the world record before Mark Beaumont) claimed to have ridden the 4000 mile British coast route in 22 days!

I’ve always liked the idea of riding France north to south and getting the ferry back from Bilbao or Santander in northern Spain.

Anyone have a link to that map where various STWers marked their base locations?