Route Planning

[alexread11]

Hi all,

First post on here so hopefully this is the right place...

I've somehow ended up being asked to plan a route for a charity cycle ride that me and a few work colleagues are doing. We're starting at Cardiff, staying over at Bristol, heading to Thatcham (near Reading) and then heading back to Portsmouth.

Does anyone have any advice as to where to start for planning the route, I believe national cycle route 4 does cover a decent chunk of the Cardiff to Bristol section and in the process of acquiring a Garmin now too.

Also, any other advice that anyone has would be more than welcome. I've done a long distance charity ride a couple of years back but planning this route is a new one to me

[Psamathe]

http://cycle.travel ?

People here rate it highly

Ian

[Heltor Chasca]

+1 for cycle.travel but reconsider Garmin. Have a look at the Wahoo Elemnt [emoji6]

Welcome [emoji120]

[PRL]

NCR4 will take you all the way from Newport to Thatcham and is probably the best option as far as Bath.
https://www.sustrans.org.uk/ncn/map/route/route-4
After Bath it is a canal tow path for most of the way so certainly quiet but not fast. Reasonable surface ( the Bath - Bradford section gets very busy with walkers at weekends ).
Also consider looking at CycleStreets: https://www.cyclestreets.net
They give you a choice of fast, quiet and balanced. (and don't go through Bath at all).

[robing]

I use RidewithGPS, but that cycle.travel website looks pretty cool..

[Heltor Chasca]

I use RidewithGPS, but that cycle.travel website looks pretty cool..

+1

I plan my routes on cycle.travel and save them to Ride with GPS so that I get Turn By Turn routes on my Wahoo Elemnt.

[ebor62]

I travelled from Oxford to Littlehampton on Saturday and included in the route was Thatcham Station, Bishop Green, Echinswell, Watership Down. Laverstoke, Michelover Station, Arlresford, West and East Meon, Buriton, Rowlands Castle, from where it is any easy run to Portsmouth. I use a garmin which I am very happy with but it took me a couple of months to get used to it and to tweak the settings to give me all day battery life. I plan my routes on garmin connect but also have ordnance survey paper maps as I get a better feel of the terrain. (you can borrow them from most libraries.) I also have Sustrans area maps, such as Thames Valley (10) and try and incorporate them in the route, but as mentioned the green off road sections can vary from good cycle tracks to impossible ruts. You can check the Sustrans web site. Good luck