Bang down the middle

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mattw

Über Member
So I've done LEJOG, done St D to L, done Ardnamurchan to L, Marshall Meadows, Lady Park Wood etc etc and done lots of C2C. The next challenge is in planning and I am thinking to do bang down the middle of the UK....equidistant route for Bettyhill to Southampton via Lindley Hall Farm... has anyone done it ? Got a route / fancy a challenge ? Thoughts ?
 
I’ve done it the other way round ( starting in Southampton ) and several sections starting as far North as Huddersfield, down to Southampton. It’s a lovely route, with loads of really historic places en route ( if you like that sort of thing ). But whichever way you cut it, it’s a challenging ride, and you pretty much have to use some ball busting hills, if you don’t want to take massive dog legs.
 
Location
London
I have gpxs (ridden) from london to birmingham and wolverhampton to ribble valley lancs if you are interested. Using quiet roads and a fair bit of canal near stoke.
 

Ajax Bay

Guru
Location
East Devon
Another option is the '2 degree' longitude line (which is also the grid north = true north line).
I am thinking to go bang down the middle of the UK....equidistant route from Bettyhill to Southampton
How are you defining that line, before you select a cycling route in detail? Is this a line traced by the mid point on mainland GB of each northing (at 10km intervals say)? Have you got a link?
That starts at Armadale as I see it but its southern end is unclear. Comes down through Andover but then heads WSW. Mid-point on the Bude-Hastings northing is Hinton Martell, N of Wimborne.
 
OP
OP
M

mattw

Über Member
Not sure how exactly Ajax, but the planning is half the fun - one tab with campsites, one with pubs and a third with ridewithgps normally does it !
 

Ajax Bay

Guru
Location
East Devon
bang down the middle of the UK....equidistant route . . . Thoughts ?

I was more enquiring from a mathmatical PoV what the mechanism is for defining an "equidistant route(line)" line down mainland GB, before even planning.
Armadale, (SE of) Ullapool, Nairn, Kingussie, Aberfeldy, Stirling, Peebles, Moffat, Alston, Ripon, Barnsley, Matlock, Leicester, Cheltenham, Swindon, Andover, Blandford, ?Portland Bill?
 

DaveReading

Don't suffer fools gladly (must try harder!)
Location
Reading, obvs
I was more enquiring from a mathmatical PoV what the mechanism is for defining an "equidistant route(line)" line down mainland GB, before even planning.
Armadale, (SE of) Ullapool, Nairn, Kingussie, Aberfeldy, Stirling, Peebles, Moffat, Alston, Ripon, Barnsley, Matlock, Leicester, Cheltenham, Swindon, Andover, Blandford, ?Portland Bill?

Apologies if I've misunderstood, but a quick-and-dirty approach would be a cardboard cutout of GB balanced on a knife-edge. Obviously there would be a range of lines, just choose the one with your preferred start/end points.
 

Ajax Bay

Guru
Location
East Devon
"Bang down the middle of UK" (? starting from the north) implies (to me, apologies if I've misunderstood) a line which joins the mid-point of lines, the ends of which are defined by the two extreme coastlines that line cuts (eg west coast and east coast). A sensible use of fractile geometry would be required, perhaps employing a rolling average mechanism. I had suggested the use of northing grid lines, at 10km intervals, but any angle of line could be chosen and any interval. Indeed one could envisage using successive lines defined by being at right-angles to the trace of the 'mid-point' line, but the maths let alone the data are beyond me (but surely there's some aficianado who's done this 'for half the fun').
I'd point out that, using the 'cardboard cut-out' approach, a rider/planner would be able to specify a start point OR a finish point, but not both.
 
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DaveReading

Don't suffer fools gladly (must try harder!)
Location
Reading, obvs
I'd point out that, using the 'cardboard cut-out' approach, a rider/planner would be able to specify a start point OR a finish point, but not both.

Yes, I should have made that clear. Any chosen start point will have one, and only one, corresponding end point. You can still choose any of those pairs, which is what I meant.
 

figbat

Slippery scientist
I just did a quick and dirty thing in PowerPoint. I put a line drawing of GB in the middle, then overlaid two copies with transparent backgrounds. I then inched the overlaid copies left and right respectively until the eastern coastline of one met the western coastline of the other - at these intersections I dropped a marker, then kept inching the two overlays away from each other at the same rate, dropping markers as coasts met. Using this method and with a little allowance for outlying peninsulas etc I got this:

1595264723909.png

I have no idea how it matches with any known routes or towns but I guess you could overlay it on a route map to get a best fit route.

There's probably a better way of doing it by averaging the longitudes of the coasts at a given latitude, but this took me 5 minutes.
 

Ajax Bay

Guru
Location
East Devon
I just did a quick and dirty thing
Satisfying as well, I trust.
All looks good, with the exception of the most southerly red dot which must push SW not SE ie towards Salisbury (say). I guess there might be a brief move SE on the Sandwich-Weston-super-Mare line but soon the N Devon peninsula comes into play big time (and the Kent coast heads SW) where the transverse is Croyde-Dover (mid-point ~ Andover).
 
Location
London
apologies folks but can't help thinking you folks should just ride.
This all rather drags me back to northern gloomy afternoons in physics/maths classes.
 

figbat

Slippery scientist
Satisfying as well, I trust.
All looks good, with the exception of the most southerly red dot which must push SW not SE ie towards Salisbury (say). I guess there might be a brief move SE on the Sandwich-Weston-super-Mare line but soon the N Devon peninsula comes into play big time (and the Kent coast heads SW) where the transverse is Croyde-Dover (mid-point ~ Andover).
Yeah, it all got a bit tricky in the nether regions but you could probably eyeball it and, as you say, it would track west significantly.
 

Ming the Merciless

There is no mercy
Location
Inside my skull
You could do worse than base something loosely on the watershed and stick as close as possible. Though you will find in many places there is a road east west but not north south to where you want to go.

This challenge is better suited as a walking one.
 
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