Route planning rules of thumb?

[dimrub]

Asking for a friend. How does one plan for this thing? Suppose one were to go unsupported, but light (no camping, credit card riding). One could:

1. Ask their favorite routing software to build a route, make sure most of it is on NCN routes, and the rest is away from highways and low digit count roads.
2. Take a route that one of the supported groups use
3. Do something else, based on some reasonable guidelines, e.g., "avoid city X", or "definitely visit the cathedral at Y"

What would you do?

 

[Mike Ayling]

Asking for a friend. How does one plan for this thing? Suppose one were to go unsupported, but light (no camping, credit card riding). One could:

1. Ask their favorite routing software to build a route, make sure most of it is on NCN routes, and the rest is away from highways and low digit count roads.
2. Take a route that one of the supported groups use
3. Do something else, based on some reasonable guidelines, e.g., "avoid city X", or "definitely visit the cathedral at Y"

What would you do?

Definitely not #1
Mixture of 2 and 3

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Asking for a friend. How does one plan for this thing? Suppose one were to go unsupported, but light (no camping, credit card riding). One could:

1. Ask their favorite routing software to build a route, make sure most of it is on NCN routes, and the rest is away from highways and low digit count roads.
2. Take a route that one of the supported groups use
3. Do something else, based on some reasonable guidelines, e.g., "avoid city X", or "definitely visit the cathedral at Y"

What would you do?

We might do this next year...

1. Decide how long we want to take
2. Plan stops about 30-60 miles apart, ideally in interesting places (put your own distances in à choix obviously). Visit more places if more time available eg Wales, Arran.
3. Plan route between on cycle.travel, tweaking per preference for shorter/ quieter/hillier dependent.

NCN IMO is pointless to pay any attention to.

Most people seem to do LEJOG fast as a challenge. I'd rather do it slow, over multiple years of necessary. Three weeks about the minimum to really enjoy it. Each to their own though.

 

[classic33]

Don't do what a relative of mine did some years ago. He'd used a route finding program which didn't give them the easiest route, between daily start and finish points. With unrealistic times given for distances. Distances that were a first for the five of them. Three had never done more than a mile locally, in the one trip before.

Made the ride that should have been enjoyable, a nightmare. The timetable was kept to as though it was the only way it could be done. He'd driven the same trip many times, in a few hours. The trip came to an end when the got caught in a downpour, which wasn't allowed for in his timetable.
A simple stop to let it pass would have helped.

 

[oxoman]

Have a look at one of the many bespoke websites that only deal with Lejog.
https://www.cyclelejog.com/routeplan.html
https://mylejog.co.uk/

 

[nogoodnamesleft]

I decide destination around the distance I want to ride. Put start and end into https://cycle.travel which generates a very cycle friendly route. Might manually adjust eg if want to go via eg supermarket (for evening food) or maybe ride further but less ascent. Press "to Garmin" and it's done.

Use every day on tour typically 2 months each tour. Been doing that for quite a few years now and never had a bad route from it.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Never done it myself but did ride from Devon to York with a friend a few years back while he did the whole thing (logistics of getting to LE were beyond me, and I didn't have sufficient spare time to go all the way)

Anyway ... A major influence on his route was the location of people he knew who would put him up. I think there were five (maybe four) such points.

 

[raleighnut]

the tent

• raleighnut
• 12 Feb 2015

 

[Jameshow]

Never done it myself but did ride from Devon to York with a friend a few years back while he did the whole thing (logistics of getting to LE were beyond me, and I didn't have sufficient spare time to go all the way)

Anyway ... A major influence on his route was the location of people he knew who would put him up. I think there were five (maybe four) such points.

Mine was like that extended family were the main influence.

Otherwise I'd pick towns which were approximately the distance I wanted to ride each day.

If I were to do it again I'd do it much slower (did it in one week!)
Probably 4 weeks tbh.

 

[Punkawallah]

‘It is better to trade height for distance’.

 

[Richard Fairhurst]

1. Ask their favorite routing software to build a route, make sure most of it is on NCN routes, and the rest is away from highways and low digit count roads.
2. Take a route that one of the supported groups use
3. Do something else, based on some reasonable guidelines, e.g., "avoid city X", or "definitely visit the cathedral at Y"

I do 1, but to be fair I did build my own routing software to choose the sort of routes I like, which might be going a bit far!

Even then, my 800-mile ride across France last year had about 100 via points to tweak the ride. Lots of map and Street View research. Ultimately I would like to make cycle.travel better at choosing that sort of route without the via points, but it’s a never ending task.

 

[dimrub]

Always a pleasure to see you react to messages, Richard, both here and on fb! I'd have switched to cycle.travel after the Komoot acquisition, but the android app is not available in my country. I believe I've reported on this a while ago, so consider this a ping on that report

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Always a pleasure to see you react to messages, Richard, both here and on fb! I'd have switched to cycle.travel after the Komoot acquisition, but the android app is not available in my country. I believe I've reported on this a while ago, so consider this a ping on that report

Unless you're using the app on your handlebars rather than uploading to a GPS, I'm not sure there's any advantage over the website

 

[Ming the Merciless]

1. Decide upon the general area I would like to explore.
2. Look at where I can get the train to start / end my tour if I am not riding from home.
3. Once my start and end points are determined I will start building up the route. I will look at the mapping to find the kind of roads i like riding. Mountain or coastal or a mix are my favourite.
4. My first draft is just the total route, not split into days yet. But its built with an idea of the number of days and daily distances i would like to cover. This draft is more my idea of the ideal tour I would like to do through an area.
5. I will look closer at possible accommodation options, roughly 50-80 miles apart for touring. The route gets tweaked a little if I find accommodation thin on the ground where i want it.
6. I will split the route down into each day I plan, based on where accommodation options look good.
7. The days get refined a little as my plans firm up.

In terms of accommodation. I book some with free cancellation, so that I can change my plans right up to a day or two before i would have ridden a section.

I plan the routes on my PC but they also sync to my phone in case i want to change them mid tour. The phone also has route planning software on it, that can sync to my GPS.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Another tip is that you may find there are busy roads or motorways that intersect the route you would like. Search for places where minor roads either cross directly or use a bridge or tunnel to get past. Then tweak your route to use those crossing places and minimise time interacting with busy roads. If my route joins a busy road for a bit in a town / 30 zone I am less concerned about it. You need to be pragmatic as well.