brickboy

A bit more on the bike vs. car debate. If memory serves from the mid-70s, a bloke rode a Laverda 750 from JO'G to LE (about 990 miles) non-stop apart from fuel, food etc in 16 hours 45 minutes -- using NO motorways.

Anyone know if something similar has been done in a car? I can't imagine it would be possible these days with traffic ...

Robertio

iTrader: (1)

If you start on a Saturday evening I would have though you could avoid most of the traffic. If someone can give a time from Lands End to Glasgow, I can give a time from here north, should be able to beat that fairly easily

Can't afford the petrol at the moment, but sounds like a trip to try in the future

Dr Nick

I managed Newcastle upon Tyne to St Ives (Cornwall) in 7 hours once while going on holiday. On another Holiday trip Newcastle to Wick (Near Thurso - Scotland) in 9 hours. Both trips were in an ageing Nova GTE 120000+ miles. I wasn't going mad but was using the Motorways whenever I could.

If you wanted to go end to end I would recommend starting in Cornwall (by the way Lands End is now privately owned so you will have to start from outside the gate) Set off early evening and drive overnight. Many of the newer motorways run parallel to older roads. By the next day as the country wakes up you should already be north of Edinburgh where the roads are relatively quiet.

Without a map, a guess at the route would be A30 then A34 (or is it 38) to near Birmingham and continue on towards Derby and where said road meets the M1 (is that J28) cross motorway and head for A1. Up A1 (provided A1M does not count as motorway to you) then whatever road it is (A7?) when you get north of Edinburgh. Beware, if you are not from Scotland - it is bigger than it looks

Could be a laugh, but I like my sleep too much. Send us a post card from both ends on consecutive days and we may believe you

Dr Nick

brickboy

Someone (maybe me) will have to do it at some point -- I reckon it'd be hard to average 60mph these days tho', no matter what time you do it ...

Robertio

iTrader: (1)

Depends if you know the roads

For my part 4 1/4 hrs is easily possible, 310 miles (approx). Just an estimation of course

brickboy

Robertio, where's the 310 miles from and to? That's an average of 70-ish mph so it must be all motorways

[This message has been edited by brickboy (edited 23 May 2001).]

Robertio

iTrader: (1)

John O' Groats - Glasgow, A9+A82, as I said, just an estimation, it does normally take in the region of 6 hours

Stick to A9 + M8, and you could take another 30 mins off that, but you are then using a motorway, I will have to look out the road atlas tonight & see if it is possible to plot the complete journey, but avoiding the A1 (not a nice road)

TimD

Just some useful figures.... I am the treasurer of a national cycling organisation that ratifies place to place cycling records (and has done since 1888)
The current route favoured by cyclists is 840 miles. The current record is 1 day 21 hrs 2 mins 18 secs. Typically around half an hour of this time would have been wasted on that silly thing called sleep :-)
Obviously this avoids motorways :rolleyes and if anyone would like a copy of the route I can provide it.