LEJOG - Is there a 'best' way?

[TheFungle]

An idea of 10 of us from work to ride LEJOG next Spring is starting to take shape; subject to the bosses' approval.

Is there a recognised 'best' route to take?

Safe and scenic is the priority and one that can be undertaken on fairly standard road bikes.

[anonymous-user]

Here is the defacto guide

https://www.cyclinguk.org/routes/lands-end-john-o-...

and this was useful

http://www.cycle-endtoend.org.uk/

[GOATever]

There’s a few ‘established’ ways of doing it. Anything that minimises the exposure to the A30, and Liverpool, would be the one I would take notice of.

[Maracus]

Are you doing it unsupported?

I did LEJOG in 2014 with Carl - http://www.great-bear-tours.co.uk/ I've since been to the Alps twice and the Dolomites with him.

No intrusion, but great back up if/when you need him. He would do a private trip for you.

[louiebaby]

Start at sunrise in a summer month, and you can get a good way along the A30 before the traffic picks up. We went as Bodmin, then over to Liskeard, Tavistock and then straight over Dartmoor to Exeter.

It was a relief to get off the A30, but it wasn't that busy really. Long day in the saddle though.

We had booked accommodation along the way, with three riders and a support car. It worked quite well.

[flight147z]

I did the Deloitte ride in September 2018 and thought that was a decent route

[ScotHill]

Cyclechat.net has a great LeJog forum.

[GOATever]

louiebaby said:

.

It was a relief to get off the A30, but it wasn't that busy really. Long day in the saddle though.
.

You can’t realistically avoid the first bit of the A30, right near Land’s end, unless you want a massive Southward dog leg, but it really is a very nasty road to be riding on, there have been fatalities on the A30, during LEJOG rides, that’s because of the heavies that use it, there’s nowhere for them to go, if riders wobble / get blown towards them. If you suffer a mechanical, there’s really nowhere safe to sort it out either.

[louiebaby]

GOATever said:

You can’t realistically avoid the first bit of the A30, right near Land’s end, unless you want a massive Southward dog leg, but it really is a very nasty road to be riding on, there have been fatalities on the A30, during LEJOG rides, that’s because of the heavies that use it, there’s nowhere for them to go, if riders wobble / get blown towards them. If you suffer a mechanical, there’s really nowhere safe to sort it out either.

You're quite right.

Starting at sun-up will help the situation, but never remove the risk entirely.

[Mr Ted]

A30 is deadly, for a safer route buy the book by Royston Wood called: Lands End to John O'Groats End to End Cycle route a Safer Way, includes links to gpx files and was written following the death of 2 riders on the A30 doing a charity E2E. It's available from Amazon as both a paperback or Kindle version.

[Sea Demon]

I did it with 2 mates un-supported in around 2009, carried all our camping gear/food/supplies between us but checked into the odd B&B along the way as and when we fancied it.

We did it in 12 days, the 1st few days were proper hard work with the weight of the bikes carrying everything having deal with some steep hill's - I was on a road bike so with the extra weight of everything over the wheel had to be careful of breaking spokes which I did, a couple of times - 1st time on day 1 but luckily we found a bike shop with a B&B next door.

We did a training ride once/twice a week leading up to the ride which were 60-80 milers & on the ride itself most we did in a day was 114 miles - at the end of that day I was so knackered I couldnt even finish a pint & threw my bike in a bush when we got lost as we had a paper map..(no waze or anything then). We started off each day at around 5am and kept going until the sun started going down before looking for somewhere to pitch up for the night, woods or a campsite etc - had a bit off food, a beer than slept.

This is a basic overview of the route we took, wasn't any decent apps back then for tracking this sort of thing, I think I had an iPhone 3GS at the time

[AlasdairMc]

The A30 on a Sunday morning is relatively quiet at the Penzance end. We rode to Land’s End on the Saturday evening so we didn’t need to bother with it on the Sunday and could get started straight off.

Stops:
Okehampton
A few miles North of Bristol
Staffordshire somewhere
Preston
Lockerbie
Comrie
Nethy Bridge
Rogart
Tongue

Once we crossed into Scotland our route was a lot more relaxed as it felt like the home stretch.

[GOATever]

AlasdairMc said:

Once we crossed into Scotland our route was a lot more relaxed as it felt like the home stretch.

That’s the funniest thing though. You get near Edinburgh, and you hear people start saying “we’re nearly there”. Errrm okay .

[louiebaby]

Our stops were:

Exeter
Bristol
Somewhere near Whitchurch
Kendal
Sanquhar
Bottom of Loch Lomond
Bottom of Loch Ness
Golspie

---

Whitchurch to Kendal - worst day of cycling ever, due mainly to weather.

Loch Lomond to Loch Ness - best day of cycling ever, weather and scenery.

[cjrob]

I did this a few years back unsupported and staying in B&B's, 8 days (wanted a century every day) stops were

LE to Okehampton
Chepstow
Malpas
Kendal
Abington
Crianlarich
Beauly
JOG

I didn't have a Garmin nor a battery pack in those days, navigated by iPhone 3GS, had to keep on turning it off and on each time as was paranoid about running out of battery (amazing the amount of time you loose doing this)

I still have the route saved I can email you if that helps

[ChocolateFrog]

It's quite difficult to avoid some fairly busy roads unless you plan on taking a reasonable amount of time.

I did it in 7 days, mostly just using a paper map. I also decided to head up the East coast as I knew more people that way so could minimise accommodation costs. My stops were.

LE
Glastonbury
Birmingham
Doncaster
Newcastle
Edinburgh
Inverness
JOG

Although Day 1 and 6 were cheeky.