Lines on maps and your completionist tendencies

[Charlie Boy]

Have just posted this elsewhere but seems more appropriate here:

I have often thought of trying to ride every road in Dorset in a year. We don't have any motorways and precious few dual carriageways, so it could be done.

There would be a large map on the wall which I would colour in.

Still trying to decide whether missing out all the conurbations would be cheating or not; not sure I want to spend a fortnight going round all the residential streets of Bournemouth and Poole.

I suppose I could specify 'any road without a 30mph limit'.

[Basil]

I really like that idea, Charlie.
I'm wondering if that's a possible for me too.
I would think evey road that is not A or M in either Warwickshire or Worcestershire might be a project. I don't think I'd manage it in a year though.  I'd just do it until it's done.
Also at the same time I'd have to be doing either Carmarthenshire or Ceredigion.  I live right on the border, so I'm not sure which.  Whichever one of those it is, its going to hurt a bit.
Yes, great idea. 

[Dibdib]

Is this because you've already cycled every road in a ten mile radius of the Country Girl?

[Basil]

Actually, I'm probably not far off that.  This year, I never went anywhere via a direct route in an effort to do my 5000 km solely by utility riding.

[nikki]

Thinking about where I've been on the trike in the last 5 years ..........

Your tracks would go from side-to-side on a continental scale, wouldn't they? Now that's a map I'd like to see!

There would be a large map on the wall which I would colour in.

 

Do eet!

I'm reminded of this post Deano made on The Bridges Thread:

I think this demonstrates a level of obsession which merits wider attention, and I don't think there's a better thread for it

https://www.flickr.com/photos/suspensionstayed/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/suspensionstayed/sets/

Basil, could you be tempted to join me for an every-tow-path-in-Worcs-and-Warcs challenge? 

[Charlie Boy]

There would be a large map on the wall which I would colour in.

 

Do eet!

Oh dear, I might just have to. Just looked and seem to have all the maps already.

[Wowbagger]

A few years ago I started a thread called "The Yellow Roads of Essex" in which I was attempting to ride along every one of the county's roads marked in yellow on the OS 1:50000. There's a lot more I haven't done than I have, and I've ridden an awful lot of miles in Essex.

I suspect Delthebike is closer to completing them than I am.

[Basil]

Basil, could you be tempted to join me for an every-tow-path-in-Worcs-and-Warcs challenge? 

Ooh nikki, what a fabulous idea.  Let's start planning now.

Oh hang on..

(click to show/hide)

No!  Fuck off!   

 

[Kim]

Hmm, how much towpath would that actually be?  You might be able to cover it all in the token three weeks of ridable towpath season...

[nikki]

<whisper>I don't think he's that keen, Kim</whisper>


I think I'd want to annexe Brum to Warwickshire for the purposes of getting the canal count up.

[loadsabikes]

Mrs Miggins and I can supply the support boat with added catering.
It's a whole lot better way to travel the canals and you don't get your bike dirty!

[drossall]

Dunno about these new-fangled GPX thingies. A life-long friend of mine had, as early as 1980, one of the old YHA wall charts of the UK on which he filled in his rides. The whole UK looked more complete than most screen-shots above, even then.

[Kim]

Dunno about these new-fangled GPX thingies. A life-long friend of mine had, as early as 1980, one of the old YHA wall charts of the UK on which he filled in his rides. The whole UK looked more complete than most screen-shots above, even then.

I suspect that's more about the sample period and our respective cycling habits than the mapping technology, thobut.  I only uploaded rides from the start of 2014, which hasn't been a great year for me cycling-wise.

I should have raw GPS logs of all my non-utility rides dating back to 2007, I may get bored enough to combine them into a map at some point...

[Deano]

I'm a recent adopter of GPS - only within the last couple of years - so there are loads of gaps, but I think they all would join up in my cycling history.

Not even a tiny gap that's bugging you?

Actually, thinking about it, there will be a few bits that won't join up. I've ridden around Edinburgh city centre a couple of times, but my rides through won't join up with that (luckily for Manchester, there was once a train cancellation, so MSeries and I had to ride from Victoria to Hazel Grove). Same is true of Glasgow. I'm still working on a ride from Darlo to our head office in Glasgow.

The annoying one will be around Dorset and Salisbury - I've ridden from Salisbury out to Cranborne Chase and down to the coast, and separately I rode back north from the camping do at Andover, so there'll be just a few miles of road to bridge that gap.

I should also ride KX to home one time, as that would link up some odd rides around central London and out to darkest Kent (I was staying with a mate in Bromley in the nineties, and I took my bike down, but they wouldn't let me take my bike on the tube from KX to London Bridge, and by the time I'd ridden out to London Bridge I thought I may as well ride the rest of the way).

[Cudzoziemiec]

I'd never thought about filling in gaps like this before, so I blame this thread, ie Niki, for anything to follow. But who knows, it might be good? Anyway, if I were to think about filling in gaps, the most tempting would have to be between Worcester and Tewkesbury, tough Didcot to... where? Newbury, I guess... is also looking at me.

I also like the "every yellow road in X county" idea. But which county?

[Wowbagger]

Worcester to Tewkesbury? Done that. It involved a good deal of the River Severn, some COR alongside the Avon, camping at Great Malvern and a delightful tea room in Ledbury. Can't remember the precise order though. We did get the train back from Great Malvern as the ride from Worcester to Great Malvern wasn't as inspiring as one might have thought.

[nikki]

I'd never thought about filling in gaps like this before, so I blame this thread, ie Niki, for anything to follow.

Sor-ry~! 

I also like the "every yellow road in X county" idea. But which county?

All of them, of course!
Forum team effort? A different team per county, with, dare I say it, social boundary crossings every now and again?

[Cudzoziemiec]

What about those of us who don't live in a county? This is the dilemma! 

[Wowbagger]

I think you should enrol with the Caithness team, Cudzo.

[nikki]

Special Post Town residents have to do all the posties' routes.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I think you should enrol with the Caithness team, Cudzo.

Good idea! I've noticed this year that although I enjoy riding familiar roads, riding somewhere unfamilar is an extra pleasure - as much for the different architecture, landscape, etc, as for the different riding - and having a purpose makes it more so. And I've never been anywhere near Caithness.

Special Post Town residents have to do all the posties' routes.

All the pasty routes? My pleasure!

(I know three posties. All of them ride bikes, but I don't know any of them through cycling.)

[Charlie Boy]

What about those of us who don't live in a county? This is the dilemma! 

According to your profile you live in India. That should keep you busy for a few months.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Oh, I've moved country twice since then! I'd forgotten that profile was even there.

I've remembered, since posting about Tewkesbury to Worcester, that it wouldn't be Tewkesbury - I've actually been as far up as Upton-on-Severn. So an idea is hatching in my branez to take a train to Malvern, visit Elgar's house, buy the Elgar cycling book, look at the Malverns, etc, then ride via Worcester to Upton and hopefully on to Bristol. But not all the way to India.  Trouble is, the first train on a Saturday doesn't get there till 10:32, so I'd have to take a weekday off, really. Guess I could always cut it short by training home from eg Gloucester, but I'd rather not. It'll wait till spring, anyway.

[matthew]

my childhood touring covered most of the southern UK,

Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Dorset, Somerset, South Wales, Pembrookshire, Devon and Cornwall, East Anglia the Peak District ...


the gaps are therefore north wales, Yorkshire, Northumberland most of Scotland with the exception of the western isles that I visited in 2012 and the forest of Galloway that I visited in 2011 and the boarders from 2000.

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

A few years ago I started a thread called "The Yellow Roads of Essex" in which I was attempting to ride along every one of the county's roads marked in yellow on the OS 1:50000. There's a lot more I haven't done than I have, and I've ridden an awful lot of miles in Essex.

I suspect Delthebike is closer to completing them than I am.

I met someone who reckoned he had ridden all the roads in Hampshire, and then I spoke about Lee on Solent and he revised his expression to North Hampshire.  I once thought about achieving this and realised that I hadn't managed it in 20 years of cycling around Hampshire and that to ink in every yellow road was going to take an astronomic mileage, repeating lots of stuff I wasn't that keen on.

On the main topic, although I don't have a GPS log I do have a manual logbook.  LEL in 2009 was great at joining up the gaps, but that left a very annoying gap in Somerset.  I'd done the Kernow and South West and a few of the Tavistock Audaxes, these linked up the whole of the west country and even the first rides I did growing up on the outskirts of Plymouth.  But there was a gap between those and the Denmead addaxes that took in the Wylye valley, and even a mesh permanent that had a Shatesbury to Cheddar leg.   But then came the Brimstone in 2013 and joined up the dots about 4 times over.  So that has linked Penzance (Kernow & South West), A mesh permanent back to my house (Basingstoke), a Dinner Dart to York from home, intersecting with LEL to Dalkeith, that intersects the Mille Alba (all the way up to Deeside) in just 5 events.  There's still an outlier in the Lake District which, since the Pendle is at the wrong time this year won't be fixed