Anyone done a LEJOG using cycletravel

[ossie]

https://cycle.travel/

I know Richard posts on the Touring forum but am wondering if anyone on here has used his site to plan a LEJOG / JOGLE. I'm not time dependent and have previously used the site to get from Dorset to Harwich ferry ,then down to Switzerland and back up the Loire..also for quite a few French tours but sticking to Eurovelo routes which tend to be quite well established . The UK part was quite enlightening but more importantly consisted of some hidden gems. That part took 4 days and covered 256 miles, was mainly off road, cycle paths, canal paths,quiet roads....my hope is that the theme continues countrywide.

Doing a simplistic route I'm seeing 986 miles, so 20 days or so fully loaded at 50 miles per day ? Of course I need to return back to the south of England so giving it welly in parts I could do a return in just over a month or so.

Early ramblings but might forego my European tours to see whats on the doorstep, July/ Aug.

I guess I'm asking if anyone has done it 'slow and easy' and any recommendations (massive subject I know)

[Richard Fairhurst]

I just did a quick search of people's saved cycle.travel journeys with "LEJOG" in the title and there were 500 of them - obviously lots of these are multiple stages, but even so there's easily a couple of dozen LEJOGs in there!

Its default route looks fine: as with any LEJOG there's the challenge of getting through the Warrington/Manchester area, but interestingly the recent towpath upgrade on the Bridgewater Canal means cycle.travel now chooses to go that way. Watch out near Tewkesbury because it does like to take the lovely little ferry across the Severn which isn't always running. It's only a three-mile detour via Mythe Bridge if not, or alternatively you could always just wait at the Lower Lode Inn, which is one of my favourite pubs anywhere.

As you say, it will choose quiet roads in preference to faster ones - so no A30 etc. Cornwall/Devon will be inevitably bumpy but nothing too horrendous - the default route has a haul into Tiverton but you can of course drag it to follow the fabled Rob's Passage.

There's an account of someone who rode (part 2 of) a LEJOG using cycle.travel on CGOAB: https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?o= ... 17693&v=CV

If you do it I'd be delighted to know how you get on!

[PH]

as with any LEJOG there's the challenge of getting through the Warrington/Manchester area, but interestingly the recent towpath upgrade on the Bridgewater Canal means cycle.travel now chooses to go that way. Watch out near Tewkesbury because it does like to take the lovely little ferry across the Severn which isn't always running. It's only a three-mile detour via Mythe Bridge if not, or alternatively you could always just wait at the Lower Lode Inn, which is one of my favourite pubs anywhere.

Not any LEJOG
People think you have to follow the Western route without realising how little extra distance doing something different adds. More so over 20 days where giving yourself an extra 5 or so miles a day allows you to take just about any route you want as long as you're still heading North and not zig zagging. You may even find that by missing so much of the urban riding and maybe some hills, a longer route is quicker for the touring cyclist. The likes of cycletravel make it so easy to experiment, for example - take the standard route and add the Humber Bridge as a via point, that'll certainly miss the Manchester area and adds about 100 miles, or 5 a day over 20.
Here's an approximation of the route I took, ridden before I had access to online mapping and GPX. I don't offer it as recommendation, the criteria was my own, but it is an example of how much freedom you have to ignore the conventions.
https://cycle.travel/map/journey/109861

[Richard Fairhurst]

Good point! I experimented a while back with finding a route that minimised climbing while still staying off busy roads, and that turned out to be an east coast one: https://cycle.travel/map/journey/33522

[charliepolecat]

Thanks Richard. Finally a cue sheet route map for those of us who are GPS averse.

[ossie]

I just did a quick search of people's saved cycle.travel journeys with "LEJOG" in the title and there were 500 of them - obviously lots of these are multiple stages, but even so there's easily a couple of dozen LEJOGs in there!

Cheers Richard, I was unaware of the search function, will delve deeper into the site. Many thanks.

[LittleGreyCat]

Good point! I experimented a while back with finding a route that minimised climbing while still staying off busy roads, and that turned out to be an east coast one: https://cycle.travel/map/journey/33522

Extremely dumb question, but can you take a planned route and click something to "just do it backwards"?
That looks an interesting JOGLE route.

[LittleGreyCat]

Good point! I experimented a while back with finding a route that minimised climbing while still staying off busy roads, and that turned out to be an east coast one: https://cycle.travel/map/journey/33522

Extremely dumb question, but can you take a planned route and click something to "just do it backwards"?
That looks an interesting JOGLE route.

Sorry - as I said, extremely dumb!
Just found the "Reverse" button.

[LittleGreyCat]

Good point! I experimented a while back with finding a route that minimised climbing while still staying off busy roads, and that turned out to be an east coast one: https://cycle.travel/map/journey/33522

Another possibly dumb question.

For long distance planning would it be feasible to input some values to define a day's travel?

For example, if you were comfortable riding 60 miles on the flat a day, you would be less likely to be comfortable to ride 60 miles and climb 1.000 feet (especially with a steep gradient). Equally if 30 miles or more were downhill you could probably manage more.

So I had the concept of the mythical cycling day; input flat cycling distance (say 50 miles), average speed, and hill climbing ability (although that could possibly be deduced from the first two values), and the map could spit out daily segments for outline planning. So for JOGLE there would be long flat and downhill days and much shorter days when climbing over mountain ranges.

All this can be achieved by a lot of hard work and detailed planning, but software is there to make it easy, isn't it?

To take another tack, how about having a "number of days" option, combined with the mythical man day value?
Define the start point (J O'G) and the end point (LE) and request a 20 day route.
That should average out at about 50 miles per day and would make first cut route planning enormously easier.

[charliepolecat]

Cornwall/Devon will be inevitably bumpy but nothing too horrendous

Day One of our Peake Tour LeJog - still going on - Lands End to Plymouth, was 108 miles with just under 9,000 feet of climbing. Horrendous enough for me.

[Jamesh]

Well done good work!

Which route did you take?

How's the weather been? Wasn't too good here (Yorkshire) but you may have tomorrow's weather today which looks not too bad.

Cheers James

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
I used cycle travel to do my devon cornwall coast and borders tour.
I know nowt about how it calculates the route
I did modify it some what.
Mostly used NCR's, some of them routes are totally unsuitable.
On route I sometimes thought why do i want to turn off a perfectly nice road to use farm tracks with fords and hills too.
100' / mile (IIRC) every day for a week, ok 6.5 days.
That's horrendous with a 42 " gear camping

[charliepolecat]

A mixture of weather so far, still, it's Britain, isn't it?
If I ever do this again - I might if I'm on the right stuff I will not rent a bike as I have this time with the biggest gear at the back being a 26, but bring my own which has a 34 on the back.

[Richard Fairhurst]

Another possibly dumb question.

For long distance planning would it be feasible to input some values to define a day's travel?

Yes and no. It wouldn't be able to adapt the route itself. The algorithm used by cycle.travel's routing engine returns routes very quickly, which is how you can drag them in real time, but at the cost of flexibility - there's essentially one set of preferences "baked in". So it can't produce different routes based on (say) your hill-climbing ability.

But what might be possible - and something I've thought about a lot - is, given a long route, for the site to suggest stopping points on that route. So it wouldn't affect the route that's chosen, but would potentially suggest stops at 50-mile intervals (or whatever you prefer), maybe with shorter days for hilly sections.

[LittleGreyCat]

Another possibly dumb question.

For long distance planning would it be feasible to input some values to define a day's travel?

Yes and no. It wouldn't be able to adapt the route itself. The algorithm used by cycle.travel's routing engine returns routes very quickly, which is how you can drag them in real time, but at the cost of flexibility - there's essentially one set of preferences "baked in". So it can't produce different routes based on (say) your hill-climbing ability.

But what might be possible - and something I've thought about a lot - is, given a long route, for the site to suggest stopping points on that route. So it wouldn't affect the route that's chosen, but would potentially suggest stops at 50-mile intervals (or whatever you prefer), maybe with shorter days for hilly sections.

Thanks.
That is more or less exactly what I had in mind.
Shorter for hilly days and possibly a bit longer for flat/downhill.
For example your East Coast route posted upstream looks interesting and would be a very good basis for a planned ride.
A great help would be to have suggested "day end" stops which could be dragged to nearby accommodation.
Then after much dragging, the whole route could be spat out in daily segments which could in turn be loaded as routes into a suitable SatNav.
That would make life/planning a lot easier for the first time rider of moderate abilities.

[Noting that some of the trip reports I have read include phrases like "at last, a real hill" followed by "rode back down again to join the tail enders" and some "people keep complaining about the hills; I didn't pick them for steepness" and the like, which is strongly encouraging me to take control of my own destiny.]