Lost Lanes West

Lost Lanes West is a lovely thing. If you bought it and did nothing other than leaf through it on the sofa, it'd still be worth the money for the interesting and information-packed descriptions of the riding, and the high-quality photography. You should go out and do the rides too, though. There's some fantastic riding in the West. We should know. Okay, we're biased.

• Pros: Great routes, interesting and informative write-ups, great photography
• Cons: Nothing really

The meat of this book is the 36 routes around the West that it contains: 30 researched, ridden and written up by the author, Jack Thurston of The Bike Show Podcast fame, and six other regular organised rides around the region. The West for the purposes of the book is Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset & Avon, Devon and Cornwall, with the routes spread pretty evenly through the region.

Some of the routes can be linked together into multi-day rides and they range from 'easy' to 'very challenging'. The shortest route is 26 miles and the longest 65 miles. Many of the routes have unsurfaced sections – these are lost lanes, after all – and although the routes can be ridden on pretty much any bike in good mechanical condition, many of them are going to be more fun on something that's a bit more orientated towards mixed surface riding: a touring bike or a gravel bike is ideal.

You probably don't want to be lugging the actual book round with you, so the companion website to the book has downloadable GPX navigation files and printable PDF route notes. You can print the route on the map from the website too.

Jack has clearly put a great deal of time and effort into researching and riding the 30 routes, and each one comes with a map, an elevation profile, a wealth of beautiful photography, a description that includes plenty of interesting facts and local colour, and a comprehensive list of suggestions for places to stop along the way. Specific points of interest are noted in the copy and marked on the map.

This would all be for naught if the routes themselves weren't any good, but there's some fantastic riding in the West, and given how well Jack's routes around Somerset tally with the roads I generally pick out myself when I'm of a mood to bimble in the lanes, I'm confident that every one of the 30 would be a fine day in the saddle. They're rides to savour: mostly small roads and often trails and unsurfaced link sections. It's not the kind of riding that you do quickly, partly because it's just not easy to ride fast, partly because it's a lot more fun at a more sedate pace. There's too much to see to get your head down.

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If you have specific things you want to get out of a day (or days) on the bike then there's a section at the front where the rides are grouped thematically too. There's the best rides for overnighting, weekends away, gourmet eating, climbing, history, arts and culture, wild swimming, family riding, natural wonders and, of course, pubs. At the back is a smaller section of six organised rides, notable for the inclusion of Barry's Bristol Bash which includes, courtesy of the Hill Women's Institute, the best cake stop of any ride, ever.

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Overall, Lost Lanes West is a joy. From cover to cover it's full of good riding, painstakingly researched and well documented. If you live in the West, or you like to visit, it's a great guidebook to have on the shelf. Even if you don't, it's worth having just for the evocative writing and the beautiful photography.

Verdict

Painstakingly researched and beautifully presented guide to riding in the West