During lock down my idle mind started thinking if I could ride off road from Southampton to Prestwick. I’ve figured out sustrans and bridleway routes to Matlock but would like to use one of the penine routes for ease of navigation to help get to Carlisle.

Bearing in mind the length of journey and i’ll be on a rigid 29er, which Penine route would be better?

Its still a pipe dream but will hopefully be done in summer and unsupported. Would the bridleway just sap all my strength and turn it into a slog fest or would the cycleway be too sanitised and boring?

As for Carlisle to Prestwick, I’ll be looking at a mix of sustrans and OS for planning. I also know the area has lots more access tracks into the hills because of wind farms and logging so will try and utilise them where I can.

The Great North Trail (UK)

Have a look at that maybe.

Doesn’t the Pennine Bridleway go from basically Matlock-ish to Carlisle? You might have to do a bit of High Peak trail first I think…?

@fatmountain that looks spot on. I was thinking of bailing at Appleby and heading to Carlisle from there. There’s a good printable guide as well so I’ll have a nosey at that too.

Another option would be to head up the coast. After the Way of The Roses was so successful, the coastal bits got linked up to form the Bay Cycle route, round Morecambe Bay, taking you up to Barrow in Furness. Not that much further you get to the coastal end of the Hadrian’s Wall Cycleway which takes you the rest of the way to Carlisle. Navigation would be fairly easy, keep the sea on the left and stay out of the mud.

@midlifecrashes I think that would be a good shout. I’ll look into it but I’ll only have 2 weeks to do it so might have to stay on a more direct route.

Doesn’t the Pennine Bridleway go from basically Matlock-ish to Carlisle? You might have to do a bit of High Peak trail first I think…?

More or less but there’s a few chunks of road in there and various spurs off the main PBW route (like the Mary Towneley Loop).

Pennine Bridleway Information

You can speed it up a bit by diverting onto lanes for some of it if required.

Could you use a chunk of the ‘Great North Trail’ or GB divide routes?

Great north trail complete guide available on Cycling UK website goes from peak district to Cape Wrath.

I think cycling UK are trying to create a complete off road Lejog so there are probably bits of the Southern half of the route already worked through. Sounds like a great trip.

Edit: Apologies as I think the Great North Trail is the same as bike packing.com one above but hopefully gpx and route guide are useful.

https://www.cyclinguk.org/route/great-north-trail-full-route-cape-wrath

So far I’ve used the cycle routes website to work out a route to Matlock. I’ve tweaked it to suit my needs then created a gpx. Downloaded it then reopened it in the OS App and saved the route.

I now have flight safe mode navigation on my handle bar mounted phone.

Now to figure out the best way to Carlisle……