LE to Bristol - Stick to Coast?

[tbessie]

I get it – you like hills.

Well... I like them, but I'm not a fanatic about it either. Nice, long, flattish, meandering routes are nice too.

Thanks again for all the detail - very helpful! And I get what you mean about the up/down into little fishing villages, etc. I can well imagine that that could get tiresome relatively quickly. I'll probably start with that, and if I start getting annoyed, move more inland to flatter routes, as you mention.

Thanks for the photo. I was actually thinking of things like Lombard Street or some of the hills near Coit Tower in SF – they are ridiculously steep!

The route I posted (from Google Maps/Earth) is actually steeper than Lombard Street, though it's hard to tell from the image. I could get up Lombard Street fully loaded, but it would be a "stand up and walk the pedals" kind of climb. Not something I'd want to happen 10 times per day.

- Tim

[Lilyf]

Thanks to everyone for all the hints and tips re the A39 in Cornwall.
I think we will use it for the stretch from St Columb Major to Wadebridge (as Mick has suggested).
Lily

[Richard Fairhurst]

One other thing - the cycle.travel website seems to favor routing me more inland for travel between towns in Cornwall, as opposed to along the coast. Do you know why it does this? I would guess due to all the steep grades you were talking about; I hope not because it favors business owned by their sponsors, say. ;-

Yep - it's mostly because of the hills, though a couple of other factors come into play (e.g. motor traffic levels). But if you'd like to point it towards the coast, you can drag the route to wherever you'd like, just as you can with Google.

Sponsors would be a fine thing, he says wistfully...

[tbessie]

One other thing - the cycle.travel website seems to favor routing me more inland for travel between towns in Cornwall, as opposed to along the coast. Do you know why it does this? I would guess due to all the steep grades you were talking about; I hope not because it favors business owned by their sponsors, say. ;-

Yep - it's mostly because of the hills, though a couple of other factors come into play (e.g. motor traffic levels). But if you'd like to point it towards the coast, you can drag the route to wherever you'd like, just as you can with Google.

Sponsors would be a fine thing, he says wistfully...

I'd donate!

- Tim

[hilloverthehill]

Hi I completed a JOGLE in November, mostly camping and on back roads or off road wherever possible (I was taken out by a tractor a couple of years ago on an A road and have had an allergy to them ever since!) I managed quite a lot of off-road through Cornwall/Devon/Dorset by following the Cornish Coast-to-Coast, the Granite Way, part of the Camel Trail, Great Western Canal, Bridgewater-Taunton Canal. The back roads were hard going, much up and down.
It's easy to avoid the worst of the traffic in Scotland. As someone has suggested avoiding the central belt by heading through Arran is great. I went along the west shore of Loch awe then joined a largely traffic-free cycle path from near Oban to Ballachulish which was lovely. Some of the Scottish A roads are single lane with passing places, and not busy at all. If you want to check out my route you can look at http://hilloverthehill.blogspot.co.uk . I haven't put detailed maps on there yet, but if you want more info come back to me. It wasn't the easiest route, with almost 2 Everests of climbing, but it got rid of half a stone that was hanging around!