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125mi London to Brighton route - sanity check :)

Hi all,

In September my mate is doing the British Heart Foundation's 75mi London to Brighton off-road thing, and for a bit of fun I'm racing him using a 125mi on-road route (we tried this last year with a 100mi route and I won by a large margin  3 ).

Here's the route that I'm thinking - I'd be most grateful if anyone can take a look and advise if I've done anything too daft? Particularly miles 58-116 (Leith Hill to Ditchling Beacon, very indirectly) is on roads I've not ridden before; I've tried to avoid things with any obvious reason to have much traffic on them, but as I don't know the roads it's hard to be sure.

Route: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/15702126

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Mark

If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.

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17 comments

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Daveyraveygravey | 8 years ago
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Yes, you did do that bit from mile 91-97, great minds!

I see what you mean about the crossing at mile 92, Burnthouse Lane.  I haven't ridden it, but the Google maps car made it so you should be ok.  There are two more small roads just east of there, I may have been thinking of them.

Great challenge by the way!  Don't tell the off road folks, but the way they are going, the Downslink is very, very dull. I've done it for charity a few times, and can't face it again! 

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Mr. Sheep replied to Daveyraveygravey | 8 years ago
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Daveyraveygravey wrote:

Great challenge by the way!  Don't tell the off road folks, but the way they are going, the Downslink is very, very dull. I've done it for charity a few times, and can't face it again! 

I rode the Downs Link on a road bike a couple of years ago... I think my wrists have only just recovered  4

The rest of their route sounds more "fun" if you like that sort of thing, I suppose... But I'm definitely glad to be doing a nice on-road route instead, tarmac is such a wonderful invention!

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Mr. Sheep | 8 years ago
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Thanks for the feedback Daveyraveygravey - much appreciated!

Miles 78-87 were on the version I rode last weekend to test it out and I agree, absolutely lovely riding (and nicely downhill on average in that direction  1 ).

I think what you're suggesting for 91-97 I had in the test version I did last weekend ( https://ridewithgps.com/trips/10877702 - does that look like what you're describing? ) and I'd agree it was very nice indeed, but that far into the ride it was tough to be constantly climbing/descending for those few miles, so I took it out in this version. Think the change knocked out 250-300ft of elevation gain, at the cost of some nice roads being substituted for a small stretch on the A298/B2115... I could put it back in, but hard!  3

I've just checked out the crossing at mile 92 on Streetview and it looks like a normal country lane - is this the bit you were concerned about? 

https://www.google.com/maps/@50.9921834,-0.2910083,3a,73.7y,15.4h,90.14t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1swwv2FzOrXGB2cGeddddgvQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Thanks again, I really appreciate you looking at the route for me!

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Daveyraveygravey | 8 years ago
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I live down this way, Stan's is good.  

You've missed a lovely bit at mile 97; Doomsday Green to Bucks Head goes through the Hammerponds which are lovely and well worth checking out.  At mile 92 when you cross the main road, I don't know if you can ride down there; it might be private or un-made.  I would follow the road round to the left just after mile 91, and go to Maplehurst.  Then either go left to Copsale and Sedgewick and then up to Doomsday Green, or carry on through Nuthurst (nice pub if you need an extra stop) but that will give you a mile or two on an A road, but it isn't that busy.

The bit from mile 78 to 87 is lovely.

 

If it is too easy, you're very close to the toughest hill in the area, Barhatch Lane near Cranleigh...

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Mr. Sheep | 8 years ago
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So I did a 110mi tester ride this Sunday - cutting out Box and Leith hills but largely riding the rest of the route as is. 

My god that was a good salted caramel brownie from Stan's Bike Shack...

The stretch from Partridge Green to Warninglid was very, very up-and-downy, so I've tweaked that a bit in my final version of the route for the day - traded 5 miles of very bumpy lanes for 0.3mi of A-road, and added in a bit of distance elsewhere to make up.

Here's my final version that I'll be using on 24th September https://ridewithgps.com/routes/16364902 - wish me luck against those pesky off-roaders  4

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Mr. Sheep | 8 years ago
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I've made a few tweaks based on the strava heatmap - one of the roads I'd picked appears to have zero strava data for it whatsoever, which suggests to me that I may have picked a private farm track or something equally unpassable - unfortunately the road alternative was 1.3 miles shorter so I had to then add in stuff elsewhere to make up. On the plus side, I've lost 200ft of climbing which I'm totally OK with  1

Here's the latest version: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/15967299

Thanks all for the input, I'll let you know how it goes!

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DomS-tique | 8 years ago
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It looks like you've picked a nice bike-friendly route and I'm sure you've already done it, but I often look at Google Streetview to reccy new routes.  It's great for seeing whether lanes are dark, light, narrow, wide, rutted or well paved (as well as previewing possibly tricky junctions if necessary).

Say hi to the ducks by the pond between miles 59-60, they're not shy in coming to say hello if you stop for a snack...

https://goo.gl/photos/63DLanP7ME9thjaF8

https://goo.gl/photos/4tcWRNVRrbGPH52Y9

I was going to reply last night, but after looking at the route, I had to go and have a lie down.

Enjoy the ride.

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Mr. Sheep replied to DomS-tique | 8 years ago
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DomS-tique wrote:

I was going to reply last night, but after looking at the route, I had to go and have a lie down.

Enjoy the ride.

*gulp*  1 It's definitely the furthest I've ever cycled in a day. Going for a 90-miler to see how I fare this weekend in preparation... 75 last weekend went well, although I'm not sure I would have been capable of another 50 miles and 2500ft at the end of it!

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Tjuice | 8 years ago
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If you have not done so yet, take a look at the bits of the route you are most unsure about on Google Streetview.

Because I don't use GPS navigation on my rides (only GPS logging - Edge 500), I typically recce new routes via Google Streetview before I ride them.  Helps me remember which way to turn at each junction, but also helps avoid potential route clangers [cultural aside - I don't mean the small knitted creatures...!]

I did this when planning a new route to cycle the 40 miles from home to my parents house at the weekend.  There were a number of places where I changed the route because I did not like what I saw on streetview.

Good luck - your idea sounds better than the BHF ride!  I did it in 2007 with a team from work, and starting at ~11am, we spent the majority of the first 10 miles or so walking with our bikes because there were far too many entrants on the road at that time.  Think I would only consider London-Brighton BHF ride in the future if I could be in one of the very earliest start groups with enough clear road to allow me to be in Brighton for breakfast.

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Mr. Sheep replied to Tjuice | 8 years ago
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Tjuice wrote:

If you have not done so yet, take a look at the bits of the route you are most unsure about on Google Streetview.

Good idea, thanks  1

Tjuice wrote:

Good luck - your idea sounds better than the BHF ride!  I did it in 2007 with a team from work, and starting at ~11am, we spent the majority of the first 10 miles or so walking with our bikes because there were far too many entrants on the road at that time.  Think I would only consider London-Brighton BHF ride in the future if I could be in one of the very earliest start groups with enough clear road to allow me to be in Brighton for breakfast.

When my mate did it last year, I think he started about 8:50ish and I don't think he had much trouble with that - maybe they've got better at it over the years, they released them in waves.

Still 75 miles on those silly off-road mountain bikes seems needlessly hard work when there are nice country lanes to ride a sensible bike on!

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pruaga | 8 years ago
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I don't know that area at all, but I find the Strava heat map useful for getting a feel for which roads are popular with riders in a new area: http://labs.strava.com/heatmap

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Mr. Sheep replied to pruaga | 8 years ago
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pruaga wrote:

I don't know that area at all, but I find the Strava heat map useful for getting a feel for which roads are popular with riders in a new area: http://labs.strava.com/heatmap

Ah yes, I'd forgotten about that. I've just had a look and mostly it looks like I've picked roads which are popular; will do a thorough review using that to make sure, might be a few tweaks to make using that data.

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redscouse | 8 years ago
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Can't see anything wrong about route south of Leith apart from twists and turns..and stans bike shack is a great shout for coffee and cake at partridge green

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Mr. Sheep replied to redscouse | 8 years ago
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redscouse wrote:

Can't see anything wrong about route south of Leith apart from twists and turns..and stans bike shack is a great shout for coffee and cake at partridge green

Thanks for looking it over, I very much appreciate it!

Yeah, twists and turns are part and parcel of fitting 125 miles into a 60-mile as-the-crow-flies route avoiding roads with A or B numbers  1

Two recommendations for Stan's - looking at their website it sounds great, so that will definitely be on the list!

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bertisfantastic | 8 years ago
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stop for coffee at stan's just south of partridge green (134.5km). they do a good salted caramel brownee

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Mr. Sheep replied to bertisfantastic | 8 years ago
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bertisfantastic wrote:

stop for coffee at stan's just south of partridge green (134.5km). they do a good salted caramel brownee

Ooh thanks - I'd intended to make Partridge Green one of my brief stop points to have something to eat so it's great to have a recommendation for somewhere around there.

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Mr. Sheep | 8 years ago
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Anyone? Surely someone must do some cycling between the north and south downs and know if I've accidentally included a nasty local 60mph rat run on my route  1

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