The Great British Divide

Rugged remote the Great British Divide John O’Groats - Lands end, an off-road end to end adventure. 1200 miles across Scotland, North England, Wales and the south-west of England. A true epic and a sure way to have an epic adventure.

I took this route on in reverse from the normal direction (spoiler alert) I think it’s actually better this way. In March making my way through the Scottish highlands first, a cool breeze and a nice 10 degrees is what I was riding in it was actually perfect. The mountains still with snow on top. Just me alone in nature. Doesn’t get much better than that. It was an adventure with so many memories made, I won’t spoil it too much if you haven’t watched the videos but OOO was it magical, brutal and damn right epic. A ride like this will always have its ups and downs, and I’m not talking about the hills (plenty of them).

If you are looking into doing this ride yourself then be aware this isn’t the normal style of doing an End to end, it is off-road, and you will be taking the path less travelled. You will be finding yourself in very remote places with nothing in sight for miles and miles, so make sure you really are prepared for a bikepacking adventure like this one. A very good amount of fitness is required as you can imagine going from one end of the UK to the other there is plenty of tough riding ahead of you. Not only the riding but with the ever-changing weather you will have to be resilient to keep yourself going, there are loads and loads of magical moments when you ride something like this, but you have to take the good with the bad.

This route is long and is rugged but because of the length it is better to use a gravel bike or a fast rolling XC bike, there will be times when it’s a little tough rough for the gravel bike, but there are long stretches where you will make up any lost time. That being said, do yourself a favour and get 45mm-50mm tyres. 50mm would be best, most of the really rocky sections are in wales and along the Pennines.

Many people will say it’s better to start in the south and head north, prevailing wind and all that, but I actually was grateful that I started in Scotland, it seemed to ride better and flow nicely, of course which ever way you go there will be times you were going the other, but actually this felt good and more often than not I was happy to be going south.

I have split the GPX file into 7 parts, (you will need WinRAR/7zip or similar) to access the GPX files. Each section is around 150–200 miles, to make it a little easier on your GPS unit, don’t worry you don’t have to ride it in 7 days though take as long as you want. I think if you are really experienced you could do this in 7–14 days but if you want a bit more time to take it all in then maybe 14–20 days (I did it in about 14 days with filming for reference)