Cycling London to Edinburgh

[assadkhan101]

Hi everyone,

I'm cycling from London to Edinburgh for charity. I am planning the route and not sure what to follow. Is google maps reliable? is there a route (preferably going from the east via Cambridge)?

Has another cycled up from London to Edinburgh? Any tips.

Thanks a lot in advance!

 

[Solocle]

Don't trust Google Maps.
There's the London-Edinburgh-London Audax, which will be a nice, reasonably direct route.

 

[DCLane]

The LEL route is probably the best overall. I rode it in 2017 - you could use either the north-bound route or the south-bound reversed: https://www.strava.com/activities/1116993799

The official route goes over the Howardian Hills. I avoided hills south of Thirsk where I could due to starting injured so did some odd bits in north Lincolnshire. My Strava track has a direct route to Pocklington (a control point) and then takes a flat and quiet route through to Thirsk where it re-joined the official LEL route.

The slight eastwards bits in Essex (Great Easton control) and Lincolnshire (Louth control) could be missed.

 

[assadkhan101]

The LEL route is probably the best overall. I rode it in 2017 - you could use either the north-bound route or the south-bound reversed: https://www.strava.com/activities/1116993799

The official route goes over the Howardian Hills. I avoided hills south of Thirsk where I could due to starting injured so did some odd bits in north Lincolnshire. My Strava track has a direct route to Pocklington (a control point) and then takes a flat and quiet route through to Thirsk where it re-joined the official LEL route.

The slight eastwards bits in Essex (Great Easton control) and Lincolnshire (Louth control) could be missed.

Thanks mate for the strava link. How come you didn't go through newcastle and along the sea to Edinburgh?

 

[DCLane]

Thanks mate for the strava link. How come you didn't go through newcastle and along the sea to Edinburgh?

Going the route the event did is probably shorter, although has more climbing. The London-Edinburgh-London audax event has specific control points riders have to pass through. From Thirsk we needed to go through controls at Barnard Castle, Alston (optional control), Carlisle and Moffat going north, with Innerleithen, Eskdalemuir, Carlisle and Alston (again optional) and Barnard Castle going south.

The event is back for 2021/2 with a tweaked longer route: https://londonedinburghlondon.com/