Planning the route was important if only to set an expectation of how many days we were capable of doing it in, taking in to account our level of fitness, time available off work and of course enough time to try and enjoy it, no point in doing this if you have your head down and don't experience anything? We chose 10 days as at that rate you don't really require any 100+ days which would be a step too far for us I think and probably represents the line you cross from a really hard challenge towards an epic effort. 

 

I had cycled London to Edinburgh before, which was 440 miles over 5 days, I did that solo and that was tough for a lot of reasons, but with these challenges after about 6 weeks post completion you've forgotten all the hard bits and your memory only recalls the good bits, probably why the human race keeps advancing! John has cycled for 10 days in Thailand before and also tracked coast to coast (Hadrians Wall) albeit on a bike heavier than a car, so there is plenty of experience of back to back days of cycling.

 

So I set about using 'Route Mapper' which I found as good a tool as any to map out some routes over 10 days. The mapping tool has an elevation function so you can work out two routes to the same point and see which one has the least hills - bonus! Route Mapper can be found in the IOS app shop.

 

Click on the link below to see the full route we have planned to ride.