Lands End to Severn Road Bridge

I hate asking stupid questions but I've got 12 days to do my LEJOG. I want to go via Arran and want the mileage to be over 1000. Most of the routes I've looked at using Arran seem similar after the Severn crossing but I don't know what route to take from Lands End I want to avoid busy roads with no hard shoulder and I'm also doing it on a 3 speed with the lowest gear being 38.3 inches (using Sheldon Brown's calculator) Is that low enough for the hilliest route? (I also checked the lowest gear on my MTB, 16.7!, I also checked a 'normal' road bike with compact two ring chainset and 23 biggest sprocket and that was 39inches )
The two routes I've looked at are
http://www.lejog2010.moonfruit.com/#/the-route/4537196484
http://www.pewseys.co.uk/route_files/LEJIOG ROUTE1.jpg
Thanks for reading!

I can't reallly see the detail on your second link but it looks like A30 to me which we deliberately avoided due to traffic. We chose the Dartmoor option which involved an absurd amount of climbing.

On your first link days 2 and 3 to get to Bristol aren't as hilly as Dartmoor although on day 3 it looks like it takes the A38 past Bristol Airport. What we did was cut North off the A38 before that and go through Weston Supermare. It cuts out some of the climbing on the A38 and is a bit of a nicer route. We deliberately chose to go over Cifton Suspension Bridge so there was a big climb upto that.

Whichever route you take through Devon and Cornwall however is going to be hard!

i don't know how hard your first gear is but i done the cornwall route much the same as yours but first day was lands end to okehampton and of all the days we took that was by far the hardest . elevation was nearly 8000 feet with some real stinkers around hayle and on the north coast . i also went via arran if you are interested in the route i took i saved the gpx files - as it is very very easy to miss the cycle path over bridges at bristol . our route was really good until around the liverpool area ( warrington ) when it was insanely busy ( there must be a better way ) also we were only 940 miles but i am sure you could make alterations to make it more - be prepared for some amazing scenery though really took my breath away - or was that the hills

12 days via Arran and 1=k miles was my target but I also took in The Lizard & Dunnet Head so I could say I did Top to Bottom as well as End to End. Managed to complete in 11.5 days of very hard work due to head winds. You've made a good call going LE to JOG.

Taking a quick look at your route I notice you intend to use what I considered to be the worst part of my July JOGLE: the road from, (in my case), Newquay to Redruth the A3075 which redefined the word busy!! With that much traffic I was riding close to the verge and probably as a result had my 5th puncture of my trip which made me a very unhappy bunny that day. Ok, it was July 13th but it was a Tuesday and not all the schools were out. I think I would have preferred Mick F's (CTC Forum guru) route which follows the old A30 and on occasion touches on the new A30. That said we left Oakhampton and made it down to the Lizard even after a detour to Padstow for lunch (107m / 7,000ft+) which after 10days of hard cycling we were proud of.

Your day 2 will give you some good views from those hill tops, some of which I have done on my annual St Austell to Bristol charity ride. However it is very important to learn that there is no such thing as a perfect route or a perfect bike and its all about compromise. Training is key if you wish to achieve it in 12days.

Good luck

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Good luck, I hope to do it one day,
Day 2 you are going through my area and boy have you picked some BIG HILLS,
South Street up into Torrington, then Langbridge Ford (known locally as the "double dippers")
the 1st double dipper is the hardest, about 1in4 22/25% for about 600mtrs.
Get them done and the rest will be easy.

I went along the north coast of Cornwall through Boscastle taking mainly country lanes and B roads. Day 1 wasn't too bad. Day 2 was tough though especially cycling into Exmoor! On day 3 I went west past Bristol then over the Severn and up to St Briavels. Day 3 was 100 miles but pretty much the whole day was flat with a steady tailwind. The only difficult part was the last 10 miles.
It is slightly shorter along the north coast though so you will struggle to hit 1000 miles unless you take a few detours!

http://www.daves-lejog.com

The "btf" route above doesn't look so great on day 2

The best place to ask about this stuff is the ctc forum

http://forum.ctc.org.uk/viewforum.php?f=22

the man to ask about cornwall on there is mick f...