Route Plannning

I’ve alluded to the challenge I have been having concerning planning my route. The following is an example of the problem I am facing the following two images will give you some idea. If I look on Google Earth the route highlighted in yellow, it appears as if it is a single track country lane.

Now if you look at Google maps, it doesn’t actually exist, according to them or so it would seem.

However if you look at an Ordnance Survey, Landranger map of the selected area, it is identified as a Byway Open to all Vehicles, which means it is legal for me to ride and like a lot of things, ‘The truth is somewhere in between’.

This has meant the ‘inspired discovery’ of last week is not as useful as I first thought.

Now here goes, I spent a wet weekend working two computers, on with the OS website up. Then my laptop in dual screen mode, one which showing G Earth and the other showing G Maps. It seems like it is a bit over the top but it has stopped me from going down a couple of dead ends. One in particular looks fine on G Maps but it would have meant having to having to back track some 5 miles even on the Ordnance Survey site it appeared as if it is okay, only on G Earth can you really see the detail that the road involved tapers out as it runs by the Sea and it is obvious that the road has been washed away and never fully restored.

I’ve now mapped the route from Calshot to half way up the Dart estuary, in Devon not that far really, however it has taken 80 A5 pages to achieve. Okay that sounds excessive, my alternative is to use OS Landranger Maps, that small section alone would have required 7 separate maps, at an average cost of £6 each. If I were to add up all the Maps required for the complete route it comes to a total of 125 without taking into account those needed for Northern Ireland. So if I was to buy all those I didn’t have in my existing collection I am still short approx 115 or nearly £700. The other problem being the waste, have you ever opened a Landranger Map, on some of the sections I would have a huge map opened and folded just for just a few miles, its just not practical.

So I now have an A5 ringbinder with plastic inserts with each one with a couple of sections of the route.

For all those that think I might be a Luddite I tried again to program my GPS to the level of detail I wanted and! Yep! it would take me absolute hours to program it to the detail I need and, in fact it actually missed the Byway I first started talking about on this copy of my Blog, okay it is old, but it is and has been a faithful servant but it would have sent me miles out of my way.

So unless I can blag the latest and greatest software update for it, which still doesn’t guarantee me success, my trusty printer is going to be working overtime.

Take care and as Dangerous Brother One says ‘Keep the shiney side up!’