I am considering doing a fundraising/awareness raising trip for Young Carers, around the coast of the U.K. I plan to use coastal roads avoiding A and B roads and will try to keep the sea/estuaries in my peripheral vision where possible. I will not be using a map or SatNav, intending to plan the route first and then without any navigational aids follow my nose!
It is VERY early days yet as I am waiting to hear back from my employers regarding policies around sponsorship links/partnerships, media, donating, annual leave, etc etc etc basically loads & loads of stuff (my last e-mail about this was five pages long!).
I've estimated 10 - 12 days allowing for getting lost, dirt tracks/dead ends, me being a numpty/promotional stuff/ blah blah blah.
There are way too many logistical/technical/legal/financial/physical considerations to list here but I wondered if anyone had any advice, ideas or information they could offer? I'm struggling with calculating an accurate distance as road atlas' and routefinder aren't quite up to the job and google maps isn't suitable either, so advice on this would be great!
I hope to camp or stay with kind folk during the trip, so any provisional offers from folk living near the coast would be very much appreciated too!
Though as yet this is only a proposed trip (you wouldn't think so with the amount of work I've already done!) and is almost entirely dependent on my employers as I cannot possible undertake this on my own, it would be great to get other people's perspectives/advice/tips.
have a look in this months (April on the cover) edition of Motorcycle Sport and Leisure as theres a bloke in there with tales of his round the coast trip..
JP; oops, forgot to mention I've contacted OS; the issue is cost but hopefully they'll come up with an option I can afford at this stage. Thanks for your rapid reply, it'd much appreciated!
Neil; Thanks for that I'll check it out. Most of the trips I'm aware of have been using B roads, so this could be very illuminating! Cheers!
Not quite sure how you will avoid A roads and keep close to the sea as a lot of the coastal roads are duel carriageways these days. Also unless you're used to long days in the saddle I'm thinking 10 - 12 days is a little optimistic. That said I wish you luck and good fortune with your trip.
This has been a bit of a project of mine for a while and by my reckoning if you stick as rigidly as you can to the coast then you're in for a seriously long ride. Even if you use the nearest A road to the coast, it starts to look like a 10-day trip unless you're prepare to spend 12 hours a day riding. Work your way round with the back lanes, add in some time for R'n'R and 20 riding days seems more realistic in my opinion.
Hi Squiddy, good luck with getting this venture off the ground, and I hope you raise loads of funds, and awareness, on your travels as well as remaining safe.
It's fascinating to see how other folk have achieved it and what on, 125 scooters to the TDM the guy used that Neil mentioned . And the differing mileages and timescales; from 3,600 to 5,000 miles .....and taking from 6 days to 3 weeks!
I think my biggest hurdle is that I'm an employee fundraising which creates further complications!
Hey, Squiddy. Good luck with the plan. To help with your route plan, try downloading the free version of T.Y.R.E. -"Trace Your Route Everywhere." It's a Dutch designed site linked to Tomtom. It also links to Google maps and Google Earth, so you should be able to avoid most of the dead-ends, etc. Will be a long task doing the whole coast though!
It will allow you to plan a route, get all the distances you need and you can print off a copy of your route to take with you. You don't have to have a sat nav to use it (but its brilliant to use if you have a Tomtom!!)
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