Mick F wrote:DAY 1
Seems ok, but not my choice. WAY too hilly.
Also, very poor route through Launceston town centre. Why?
DAY 2
Missed out Rob's Passage and goes over the Cadbury Hills.
Logistics.
The route is designed to move 700 people , of varying ability, across roughly 110 miles per day of interesting, scenic terrain. Each day has got 2 feedstations - and with that amount of people, it needs to be set up somewhere that can accommodate everyone so usually a village hall, leisure centre etc. That means the route needs to factor that in. On your own, you might not choose to go that way but a group of 700, requiring a large car park for the vehicles, gazebos etc will need that. Riders leave bascamp across a roughly 1hr window from about 6.45am to 7.45am so the roads need to be able to cope with that; over the course of the day the group will stretch to cover maybe 4hrs or so of riding time. Some people will be in the next basecamp by 2.30pm, the tailenders normally arrive about 6pm so there's feedstation opening / closing times to consider as well as the transfer of support staff along the route.
Hills are good. Partly because they're challenging and the ride is designed to be at least a reasonable challenge; partly because it breaks the group up nicely so you don't end up with 100 riders in a massive peloton that never splits up. And partly because it's a bit more scenic and interesting and the riders are (mostly) on decent quality road bikes with no luggage so it's a bit more feasible than if you were on a fully laden tourer. There's an element too where they're trying to remove the "smashy-smashy" nature of some of the faster riders who want to go at it like a bull in a china shop and having some hills in there generally quietens things down a bit!
Rob's Passage (last I recall of it anyway) had some bits that really weren't suitable for road bikes. This is a road ride, people are not expecting gravel routes or bits where they have to carry the bike and they certainly woudn't welcome it!
Generally, they've chosen a hilly route, so I wonder why they don't want to go over Dartmoor.
Because the ride ends Day 1 / starts Day 2 in Okehampton because it's the only place anywhere nearby that has a massive flat field for the tents. Okehampton is on the central northern edge of Dartmoor so there's no point at all in going over Dartmoor. Day 1 is already pretty tough, the second feed station is at Doublebois, 71 miles in, so the logical route to Okehampton from there (bearing in mind my previous comments about logistics) is to go up through Launceston. There are of course other options if you want more scenic, quieter, faster, longer, hillier but to get 700 people across that distance within a roughly 12hr window, that's the best option. You could go more east and through Callington but then you end up on the A390 which is awful.
I admit there are parts of that route that I wouldn't ride if I was doing the ride on my own, if I had luggage or if I wanted to visit some of the sights along the way but one of the downsides of doing an organised ride is that you're at the whim of someone else's route planning. That said, it is done very well with great care taken over the type of roads, the composition of the overall group, the numbers, the overall event logistics (like the locations of the feedstations and basecamps) and the general event experience.
The files are there for you to follow to the letter or to use as inspiration to create your own route. It's as good a starting point as any but then each rider or group might want to add in their own specific requirements - staying at a friend's en route, visiting a particular town or landmark, tweaking it to a faster or flatter or more off-road route accordingly.
