Anyone care to throw any suggestions in the bag?
I'm doing John O' Groats to Lands End this summer with a friend, but [i]not[/i] by the traditional route. We'll be zig zagging around a fair bit to crash on friends floors through most of England to save some cash, and going via the Outer Hebrides (third time out there this summer, and can't recommend it enough :D).
What maps are normally used for long-distance touring? I'm not willing to rely on a phone or GPS for navigation, got to be on paper. Anything that covers national cycle network paths into cities would also be a bonus.
On the road? I've used pages from a road atlas (tear them out to use, bin when used); OS touring maps are ok but the scales are all over the place.
OS used to do a range of maps at 1:250,000 that were pretty ideal. The Scottish ones have been reprinted by Nicolsons. Remember that you can always post ahead to your mate's to save carrying them all with you.
When I did LeJog I plotted the route out on Anquet then just printed it out n A4 sheets, double sided.
Excellent, thanks guys. I might look at printing detailed stuff for the areas where we're approaching big cities, and just use a road map the rest of the time.
On the road?
Yep, on the road. Hoping to get some off road stuff in as well, but 1:25,000 OS maps will be fine for that stuff 😀
OS used to do a range of maps at 1:250,000
I thought I was going mad, was looking for those everywhere thinking they used to make them.
I have a box with about 50 os maps in. £4 each delivered if you need any.
Ton - What scale? What you got for Dartmoor, Cumbria or the Highlands? I might have some off your hands, touring aside…
all of Cumbria, most of the highlands, or indeed Scotland.
no dart moor though...got Exmoor... 😆
got 1.25000 and some 1.5000 which are ideal for road touring.
You need Bartholomew's 1/2" to a mile.
Perfect for cycling, but some may be outdated by now. 🙂
For big tours in the past i have gone to the local library and photocopied the chunks from 1:50k before chaining them together to make a linear map. I have one from a Harwich - Yarmouth - Aberystwyth trip in my bike room at the moment and it's amazingly compact given that it covers coast-2-coast across the widest bit.
Ton–
I could use quite a few, let me know how much postage would be down to Plymouth,, or if the price was inc. postage. Will have to look at money in the morning (student at Plymouth uni, so not got masses of spare cash).
Will see what I can afford tomorrow, and let you know which I will go for if I can afford it.
For Scotland: 378, 392, 385, 393, 377, 399, 400, 393, 403, 404, 402, 417, 405
For the Lakes: OL5, OL6, OL7, OL4
Cheers all, will look into all the options in the morning. Need to stick my head back into polishing off this code for Uni now so I actually get some weekend bike time.
Daniel, postage will be free. and if any are tatty I will give you them f.o.c
I will check the list in the morning.
250k for me. I've got the Nicholsons maps, but I tend to do this -
https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/opendatadownload/products.html
You want the '1:250 000 Scale Colour Raster'. Stitch em all together using Photoshop or Paint or something, chop off the bits you don't need, print them out.
Or get a 250k Road Atlas from Lidl about 3 months ago for 99p.
