Route Plan

Plan, plan and plan.  I have anal retentive tendencies towards planning bike rides.  Not one to wing it and hope for the best, I like to minimise the chance of failure and try to plan for all eventualities.  Other than rain.  Obviously.

So, I've had a frustrating few days trying to work out just where I can ride my bike as I make my way down the country to the Cotswolds for a Saturday evening barbeque.  It turns out that the various websites out there want you to pay money for sharing a bike route.  The world of cyclists suddenly turns out really quite mercenary. 

I am also very specific in what I want.  I want to be off road, or mostly off road.  I want everything to be legal (bridleways not footpaths) and I want a hill.  If possible I'd also like challenging terrain.  A bonus would be a cafe and a toilet.  And I want all this in easy reach of my final destination.  How hard can it be?

A check of my OS map collection at home reveals a good scale walking map ... for the area just north of where I want to be, and a driving type map for the area with old fashioned colour schemes.  I adjust my eyes to look for pink lines instead of green, and do search after search online for possible routes which take me to link after link to books I don't have the lead in time to send off for, and GPS routes I don't have the equipment for.  Finally courtesy of a county council website I think I have found the route.

Now I just have to hope it doesn't rain.