Great Yarmouth to Bicester

[brother nathaneil]

Hi,
Can anyone see any glaringly stupid mistakes with these routes:

Day one
http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1902200

Day two
http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1902202

All on road bikes carrying minimal gear, over a weekend in May.
Any suggestions or alternatives gratefully received.

Regards,
Nathan

[sbesley]

I only really know the area covered in Day 1 of your ride, but it seems to me that you are putting yourself through an awful lot of busy A-road riding.

It will be faster for sure, but probably not too much fun. The A143 has quite good sight lines so is not too dangerous, but be prepared for a constant stream of heavy trucks, following by queues of frustrated car drivers, interspersed with high speed over-takers.

Here's a route from Cambridge to Lowestoft (so ignore the section east of Beccles!) with some nice sections. It is a few miles longer but that's the price you have to pay to avoid the worst of the traffic.

http://www.gpsies.com/map.do?fileId=gfltftjxdmvofcws

Worth having a look...

Stephen

[mcr]

I can suggest a couple of tweaks to Day 2 if you want to lessen the climbing:

1) After Soulbury (c.50-mile mark) and the road through Hollingdon turn LEFT on to Bletchley Road and right again at the next T junction - that way you avoid a downhill and a sharp climb up through Drayton Parslow to roughly the same height you left for no extra distance

2) Another sharp climb at Pounden (c.70-mile mark) can be avoided by taking parallel roads from Steeple Claydon through Marsh Gibbon

[brother nathaneil]

Thanks for the suggestions guys...
Any more?

[mg2012]

The route around Newmarket is on quite busy roads as well. I'd avoid Newmarket, it's not great for cycling through imho. Either follow the NCN from Bury to Cambridge (all on road, but fiddly into Cambridge, but quite nice along the river) which does go through Newmarket. Or follow the route from Septembers Cambridge to Norwich ride:
http://app.strava.com/segments/2483808 Probably a bit faster into Cambridge but not the scenic route... South of Newmarket has many small roads many with good views over Cambridgeshire and a long downhill (I live in the Fens - so long is relative) at the end, e.g. into (the village with the great name of) Six Mile Bottom.

Day2 out of Cambridge to Sandy is a nice quiet(ish) road, easy to follow.

[brother nathaneil]

Thanks mg2012,
I'll have a look at that route and make some tweaks to (or completely redo) day 1.

Regarding day 2, I've made the changes that mcr suggested and I'm pretty happy with it (I'll still listen to advice on it!)... I actually did this route two years ago returning from an Oxford to Cambridge charity ride for The British Heart Foundation. I did Bicester to Oxford and then Oxford to Cambridge (102 miles), stayed over night and returned to Bicester the next day.

Thanks all, any more suggestions?

[drossall]

Minor point, but I'm not sure why you're doing two sides of a triangle to visit Ireland on day two, south west of Sandy. Not much in it, though.

Leaving Sandy, if you have any interest in time trialling at all, you're passing the Bidlake Memorial Garden.

I'd divert from Maulden on the old road into Ampthill (quite picturesque) to avoid the short section of boring, relatively narrow, with high-speed traffic, A507.

[pioneer]

Have you got to leave from Gt. Yarmouth? It's a right ass of a place to cycle in, or out of. I'd avoid it like the plague. Lowestoft is better, but not by much. You'd be better off by either going north up towards Hemsby, or south towards Kessingland. Like a lot of towns, Gt. Yarmouth as it is now, was not built with any thought of convenience, or even safety of cyclists.

And thinking about it, Dunwich is by far the nicest and easiet place on the East Anglian coast to cycle to and from.

[steady eddy]

I am with Pioneer on this one. Cycling in Gt Yarmouth is not a pleasure and the town has little to offer. Lowestoft is easily accessible by rail - if that is how you intend to start ( either from Norwich or Ipswich) and the route out of the town to Beccles is almost exclusively on cycle paths to the edge of the built up area at Carlton Colville and therefater on quite lanes to Beccles. It is a plesant ride ( part of my my regular summer commute). You will find an excellent map of all the Lowestoft cycle routes on the cycling section of the Suffolk County Council web site. If you want a paper version pm me and I will get one from the TIC and post it to you.

[brother nathaneil]

It's a charity ride for a young lad at a local school in Bicester who has Steven Johnson Syndrome. It really is horrible... Don't google it unless you are prepared to see something unpleasant.

Anyway, the school is called "Bure Park", so after a bit of thought and research, I found "Bure Park" in Great Yarmouth (https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Bure+P ... 16&iwloc=A) and thought it would be good to do a "Bure Park to Bure Park for Harvey".

So Great Yarmouth it is...

Thanks for the advice, the ride will be on 4th and 5th May so I'll be tweaking the route for a few months yet!