The A1 — Britain’s longest Road
The A1 Britain’s longest road connecting London, the capital of England to Scotland’s capital city… Edinburgh at just over 400 miles (643.74 km). Passing through 17 counties, this road was the first numbered road and is also known as the great northern road. As I have already bikepacked around the busiest road, the M25 and along the longest motorway. This is another instalment in the bikepacking road series with the A1 being the longest names road it made sense that this one had to be next and OOO was it a muddy one. Starting in London and heading north to Scotland capital Edinburgh, it is probably better to go in the other direction. But honestly this side of the country is pretty much all flat with the highest point on this ride being about 750ft (228.6 m). There is a really nice decent going this direction though from that high point. It has to be the easiest descent I have ever earned to be honest. Overall, this isn’t the most off-road route and nor is it the most picturesque ride. There are 100% better ways to ride this route and better trails if you try to not follow the A1 as close as possible. So I wouldn’t really recommend doing this particular route but if you so wish you can download the GPX below.
Although this route is flat and there really isn’t much in the way of hills along this route, nothing long or steep enough for me to register it as a hill anyway. This ride was of course for the purpose of creating a bikepacking video of bikepacking. The A1, meaning it does stay close to the A1 for a lot of the ride, finding of road trails where I could along the way. This means if you decide to ride this route, expect lots of noise and times when you are riding along the A1 with fast moving and loud traffic noise over your shoulder. Most of the time when actually riding along the A1, there is some form of path, even if sometimes it is narrow and very uneven. Other times the cycles lanes are a bit wider but still it’s loud, and you get the big gusts of wind from the passing traffic. Also, there is a lot of road slogs some on what I presume is the old A1 along the motorway sections these are wide mostly empty road as most of the traffic is on the motorway. But you still get the odd car going past, and it’s normally 60mph (96.56 kilometres per hour) roads. So if you are going to ride this route you need to be comfortable riding with traffic, this is certainly not a traffic free route. And therefore is why this route is in the challenging section, mostly it’s because it is so close to the busy traffic.
The trails along this route get very muddy, I’m sure they are pretty good when they dry out, but doing this route in March meant all the fields and trails that you pass through are waterlogged. Doesn’t matter how much mud clearance you will have on your bike, these trails will clog your bike up, and it can get pretty tiring, and boring. This route is also around 500 miles (804.67 kilometres), nearly 100 miles (160.93 kilometres) longer than the A1, is added when you snake your way around the A1 trying to find them off-road trails.
Fun Adventure with lots of punctures, not one I would recommend, maybe one day I will ride between these two capital cities a bit on the more fun trails. Let me know if you think I should do that below.
