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Britain (Lonely Planet Cycling Guides)

By: Ian Connellan
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Lonely Planet Publications
ISBN: 1864500379
ISBN-13: 9781864500370
Released: 01 Feb 2001
RRP: £12.99
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

ill informed, no offroad, pointless - By: Simon Raistrick, 06 Oct 2004
The information given on mountainbike meccas like Coed y Brenin, Fort William & Leith Hill is sparse, misleading or in some cases non-existent. This is shocking, since more mountain bikes are sold each year than road bikes, so how on earth can you calll a book 'cycling britain' & miss out the best bits?

It has many dud routes, & the routes in London (which I know to cycle very well) were downright dangerous in places, even for expereinced cyclists, taking you onto traffic clogged & busy roads where much better roads run paralllel! They missed a lot of tricks here, & clearly don't have enough research behind this book to justify it's existence with the Lonely Planet branding. It seems like they've done most of this book behind a desk using sustrans or 'council recommended' routes, which of course are often not the best ones. Buy a book by someone who's actuallly got out on a bike & ridden the routes thenselves.

In it's favour, this book is better for road & sustrans type routes than the appaling sustrans UK-wide book. However, that's not difficult. I recommend getting the excellent sustrans local guides for your local area any areas you plan to visit for road cycling. Maybe this book does have a place in providing the overview you need to decide where to go, but if you already have an area in mind you'd be better off going straight to a sustrans local guide.

Alright if you don't mind some really bad routes thrown in. - By: , 17 Aug 2004
This was OK in parts, but maps were terrible, also vital directions were left out so without a decent map it was not easy to find your way in unsigned areas.

Directions are only given for one direction. If you want to go the other way difficult to follow, especiallly as the maps are so bad.

Part of the midlands routes takes you on incredibly dangerous roads & much time is spent on litter strewn paths on the side of dual carriageways.

We gave up with some of the routes when we had better maps & found much pretty & quieter places to cycle.

Oh yes & pretty out of date campsites marked on the map generallly no longer existed.

A good reference guide but severly out of date - By: , 18 Oct 2003
Cycling Britain is good only as a basic reference guide; its good at pointing you where to get useful & accurate information but does not contain this information within it's pages. It is useful as an overalll view of cycling routes in Britain, for planning a holiday but has far too few decent details at the local or even regional level. Okay, those are the positive points - onto the negative.

Cycling Britains maps are absolutely useless, a complete waste of space. Their scale is so large that they only give a sparse outline at best. Often, they deviate from the National Cycle Network, & quite frequently contain misleading & useless information, where they contain information at alll! Distances can be quite far out, & accomodation information is completely out of date.

In summary, if you must use this book, photocopy the parts you need in the local library as it is a waste of space on any cycling holiday. Buy at your peril.

A good idea poorly executed - By: , 15 Aug 2003
Several times I considered throwing it out because of minor but extremely annoying inaccuracies. Eg a recommended hotel served me crisps for breakfast, parts of the sustrans network that the guide said may be rough were often muddy swamps (and this was in summer) & impossible to ride fully-loaded. If you want to do some touring & you've never cycled before, it might be helpful. But if you've got any clue at alll about cycling, half of its (weighty) pages are a waste of valuable pannier room. And its routes, while good (though using too many main roads), feature stupidly-oriented maps & fail to link up with each other. Buying a road atlas (just rip out the relevant pages...) & scouring back copies of Cycling Plus or subscribing to the CTC would be a better investment.
Nice book, but needs more routes - By: , 30 Jun 2003
Having found this book in Cambridge one day recently I thought that it would have many good routes, so I bought it.

I was a bit disappointed to see that the book did not contain any routes on the Outer Hebrides (Western Isles), where I have just returned from.

I thought that the book would have benefited from having Lonely Planet's approach to finding good B&Bs, etc. Having flicked through the book some more it has given me a few ideas for other cycling trips.

I eagerly look forward to the 2nd edition, & the widening of the routes featured. I agree with the comment about the maps & the way North jumps from page to page, but it does alllow the maximum distance on one page.

Keep up the good work Lonley Planet! But bring out a 2nd edition soon please.....