Paulus said:
Hi kirstie, i thought I would more or less use the Cornish Way which is Sustrans route 3, and then the west country way route to Bath. From LE it is more or less along the north Cornwall coast to Padstow and then through Bude, Barnstable, over Exmoor, Tiverton, Taunton, Bridgewater, Glastonbury, Wells and then turn left towards Bath. In a nutshell that is the rough route.
You're gonna love hills by then!
Using Sustrans did Ilfracombe to Bude then headed down towards Bodmin skirting the moors as a 1 day ride and gave-up somewhere near Camelford...
We all agreed that the Sustran route was mostly crap, OK many car-free-ish roads but many single track, gravel strewn, high-hedged and roller-coaster like.
Major problem is having climbed a steep bastard you were on the brakes all the way down the next as you could not coast and rest or maintain momentum...at the bottom it was a standing start again to go up. Some of the route near Bude was up and down over 25% cliff hills and a steep pull out of Woolacombe heading south too!. Some of the route from Ilfracombe to Barnstaple was on a dull inland hedged road where the coast road is OK to cycle and has glorious views.
We gave-up due to boredom mostly! Devon and Cornwall has tremendous scenery (I mis-spent my youth there), but I would get an OS map and look at that real hard!
I can say that...
The Newquay to Padstow N. Coast road is a magnificent ride, up and down but fantastic going with great scenery...beware the hairpin at the bottom of Watergate bay.
The Camel trail is great.
The roads over the top of Bodmin moor going past Crowdy reservoir are good too.
The Tarka trail is good on a road-bike as well.