Round trip of about 120 to 140 miles in England

[lozfuller]

Hi,

Trying to organise a round trip on hybrid bikes over 3 to 4 days (around 35-40 miles per day), somewhere in England. Would like to see a bit of the coast and nice countryside, but preferably not too hilly, and initial thoughts were Suffolk or Sussex, but open to any suggestions.

Has anyone discovered any nice routes in those or other counties. We'd like to stay in B&Bs/hotels, so would like to have overnight stops at some nice and reasonably sized towns.

Any recommendations gratefully received!

Thanks,

Loz

 

[mjr]

You could add a bit to any of the three hundred-mile loops I've got here:

https://cycle.travel/map/journey/22666 is the Holland Hundred which is definitely not too hilly (the 2m climb onto the riverbank in King's Lynn is the second biggest of the route!) but maybe not that varied in countryside.

https://cycle.travel/map/group/1223 is the Norwich 100 which has more variety of countryside and a cycling city but maybe thin pickings of places to stay on the southern side of the loop.

https://cycle.travel/map/journey/14940 is a planned Breckland 100 which I've not actually ridden in one go (and they've changed the A11 since) but dragging its point 7 from near Massingham up to the North Norfolk coast near Wells seems to produce a 125 mile route that has quite a bit of variety: flat land and two historic towns (Lynn and Downham) to start, then Breckland forest, followed rolling country and heath around Fakenham, the Walsingham pilgrimage site, a coastal port, the Holkham estate, along the chalk ridge, an old seaside resort and the royal estate at Sandringham to finish.

 

[Tigerbiten]

How are you get to/from start/finish ??
How off road are you willing to go ??

I was thinking of a similar area to mjr.
Start Norwich. Follow NCR 1 south to Beccles, turn east on NCR 30 to Lowestoft, turn north and follow coast to Cromer, turn SE-ish until you can pick up NCR 1 back to Norwich.
Depending on how much you stick on the NCR routes or how much you straighten them by cutting corners and where exactly you rejoin NCR 1 then it's around 120-150 miles long and roughly 3,500-4,000 feet climbing. So very rolling with a few climb just over 10% up.
I tend not to go offroad on my bent trike, so I don't know how good/bad the offroad section of the NCR routes are in that area.
But it's a very touristy area so finding hotels/B&B's should be reasonable easy.

Luck ............

 

[lozfuller]

How are you get to/from start/finish ??
How off road are you willing to go ??

I was thinking of a similar area to mjr.
Start Norwich. Follow NCR 1 south to Beccles, turn east on NCR 30 to Lowestoft, turn north and follow coast to Cromer, turn SE-ish until you can pick up NCR 1 back to Norwich.
Depending on how much you stick on the NCR routes or how much you straighten them by cutting corners and where exactly you rejoin NCR 1 then it's around 120-150 miles long and roughly 3,500-4,000 feet climbing. So very rolling with a few climb just over 10% up.
I tend not to go offroad on my bent trike, so I don't know how good/bad the offroad section of the NCR routes are in that area.
But it's a very touristy area so finding hotels/B&B's should be reasonable easy.

Luck ............

Many thanks mjr and Tigerbiten - will take a look at those!

 

[mjr]

I tend not to go offroad on my bent trike, so I don't know how good/bad the offroad section of the NCR routes are in that area.

Route 1 is tarmac within the Norwich city boundary, then heading west, it's rough packed/set stone to Drayton (which is why my route avoids it there - the countryside part is rideable slowly on 28mm tyres but Station Road isn't), then packed stone and sand to somewhere near Lenwade (good enough to be worth using the bridge over the new outer outer ring road), dirt to Whitwell (OK but slow), then back on road. South of Wells is a stone road which is usually OK but prone to puddle potholes - minor roads to avoid that are obvious and not too bad. North of Holkham is sand and rather busy with walkers, but that's an optional loop that I avoid by entering Holkham by Wells Hospital - the ride in Holkham south of the house is worth it for the obelisk IMO. The bits in Holkham park are that shallow gravel on tarmac stuff, not really off-road. Then it's roads or tarmac cycleways to King's Lynn (actually all the way to Boston).

I last rode Route 1 heading east of Norwich more than 20 years ago, so I'm not sure of its current state but the map says it's all tarmac now.

Route 30 is all tarmac AFAIK. There's an optional loop through Felbrigg Hall grounds mislabelled on cycle.travel and all openstreetmap sites as gravel (it's not - I've ridden that) and a couple of short bits of Harling Drove Road which is mostly packed stone/sand forest roads like this:
Hereward Way

© Chris McAuley, cc-by-sa.

 

[MichaelW2]

The Four Ferries route in Suffolk is pretty cool. You get to use lots of little boats and see some of the wilder parts of Suffolk. Start in Felixtowe and work your way via ferries and pubs to Lowestoft or wherever you want to finish.