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Route Planning

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fboab:
More like the Dales than Cornwall. Relentless though, you're either going up or down, there's no respite.
Check it out here:Clicky.
Lots of brown lines. That means scenery :).

madcow:
I'd agree with Deano's route Gifford-Duns-Coldstream/Wooler-out to the coast if you want to see Holy island or Bamburgh/Alnwick.
 Come back inland to Rothbury/Corbridge (avoids Newcastle and central Northumberland is quiet) and down to Barnard Castle or just lower down to Darlington. That would be the hardest stretch.

The problem with the A68 is not traffic (although there is a bit of quarry traffic at certain points) or hills, its just MAMBA country,( Mile and miles of bugger all) .
I use it regularly going up to the Borders and its superb scenery but not interesting per se and very few stopping places.
Tow Law and West Auckland are the only sizeable places it passes through, so places to eat / stay etc could be difficult.
You would need to weave about a bit to find suitable places to stop .
The natives are mostly friendly so dont be afraid to ask for directions/ help etc.

Lady Cavendish:
This is excellent, I might start properly doing this bit over the weekend. I'd probably look to do something about 90 miles a day so I wasn't having to half kill myself, and had plenty stopping time but also get a fair distance done each day. So I'd probably get down somewhere in Northumberland on Day 1. I like the seaside very much :) So want to be near the coast where I can, I'd like to do the Alnwick/Holy Island bit.

I'll draft up a first day route thing over the weekend and then check it with you guys who seem to know it well if thats ok. At least I now now I won't die a traffic death on the A68.

MrToad:
When I do my route planning I use the Garmin Mapsource software on my PC using Open Streetmap data that gives me a nice route profile so I know what hills I'm in for.  Now, that may be not much use to you if you don't have it but there are websites (well, there's at least one plus maybe others I don't know about) that can do this for you.

www.cyclestreets.net will plan routes for you and show you hill profiles.  I'm no expert on this and I have found it to be a bit flaky when I've used it but it may be worth experimenting with for particular sections where you are interested in the relative hilliness of two alternatives (eg long hard drag vs short sharp shock).  There have been a few threads about cyclestreets on here which may give more info.

(As you may have guessed, route planning for me is a chance to fiddle with technology ... which isn't everyone's cup of tea).

frankly frankie:
If you're not interested in downloading a file of GPS data, and you're not too bothered about elevation profiles, but you just want to end up with a highlighted map and/or a sheet of turn-by-turn instructions - then plain old Google Maps is very hard to beat.  It's slick and fast and the aerial view and 'streetview' are both invaluable aids.

Two other very recommendable planning sites are BikeHike and BikeRouteToaster.
These are quite similar but have pros and cons.  BikeHike incorporates OS mapping, as well as Google Maps and OpenCycleMap.  This gives it an edge for use in the UK.  However it doesn't generate a turn-by-turn routesheet, only a goodly selection of downloadable GPS file formats.
Both can generate an elevation profile as you go, but Toaster seems to be smoother in this respect.  It is also capable of generating an excellent turn-by-turn printable route sheet, probably the best I've seen from a planning site.

Finally Bikely has a big publicly searchable collection of route fragments stored by users - a very useful resource if you need some 'local knowledge'.  However the site is slow and flakey and not generally recommendable for planning.

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