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Anyone got any ideas for a good route? At the moment my plan is to roughly follow the M40, any specifics to aim at or to avoid?
A cycling buddy of mine rode from Blackburn to Cornwall and back for a friends' wedding. He just stuck an earphone into his smart phone, set Maps to find that night's B&B or YHA, turned off the screen and set off, following the voice prompts. Says it took him along some amazing routes that he wouldn't have found with a map.
I've used the Strava route planner to pretty decent effect for long routes into areas that i'm unfamilar with. Best thing to do it to plot a route with that, whack it up here. It's much easier to suggest variations to a route that you've come up with than to part plan it.
It bases it's routing on popularity so you do get the odd section of dual carriageway if it's a regular TT route or something daft like that, but over 130 odd miles you can just deviate from the route and pick it up further down the road.
Best thing to do it to plot a route with that, whack it up here.
Sounds like a good idea.
How's this for a start point?
https://www.strava.com/routes/14780703
Anyone in the evening have any thoughts?
Have a look at the Rapha Manchester to London route:
https://www.rapha.cc/gb/en/stories/m2l
From Birmingham you'd have to go a fair way east to pick it up but it's a nice run into London.
I can give you some details from Banbury to Solihull then on to Brum if you want. I cycle the route a couple of times each week in my commute. Email in my profile.
Read your post the wrong way round. Can offer details from Solihull to Banbury.
We rode a similar route a couple of years back.
https://www.strava.com/activities/693746802
We used cyclestreets.net for planning.
You can plot a route on Google Maps, then drag & drop it to your hearts content.
Or, get a MTB & go along the canal.
At least it would be mud free. 🙂
Which side of Birmingham?
From the East I do something like below with minor variations. It's about 180km. I haven't done it in one go yet (intend to keep putting it off) and have always ridden north. I am quite familiar with the part between MK and B'ham (about 100km) but only ridden this way out of London once.  The cafe at Napton on the Hill is a nice stop (although the route below goes through Southam, which I no longer do). I used the Strava tool.
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I can post the gpx later if you're interested.
It's Kidderminster side of Brum as a start, I know the route to Leamington as it's an old commute, it's the bit beyond that where I'm unsure.
From Leam the middle part is straightforwards- you just need to decide whether to do road entry to London or canal towpath like Rich. I found the road coming in better than expected partly because the sketchiest parts are on declines or downhills so easier to mix it with traffic.
Update, looking at the weather and wind pattern for the day I'm now debating another destination, namely Lincoln as it'll mean I don't have a headwind all day.