Unpaved Roads

[Rasher]

Whilst planning my next Alps trip I noticed sh** loads of unpaved roads, all over the place, amazing how well your brain filters out irrelecant rubbish, never noticed all that many when planning for the ZZR last year.

Anyway, to see them you need to be zoomed right in with detail up high, I was wondering if there is a way of searching for, or only displaying these roads?

If not I reckon it is a feature Garmin should add.

Unfortuantely there appear to be none near me, but if you could get these to show up when zoomed out I could probably look for ones not so far away instead of scrolling over a map almost at life-scale on the PC screen.

Be great if you could select to only display these roads.

 

[Sgt Bilco]

You could always buy a detailed map

Damn handy things you know and will have all that detail on them right in front of you

 

[Womble]

Try Bikehike (www.bikehike.co.uk), a website where you can pan around on an OS map and see it shown via google maps on the other window, in either map or satellite view. A lot of local councils are also bringing out interactive maps for the Rights of Way in their areas, so that's another option to explore.

You are probably best looking for UUCRs (Unsurfaced Unclassified Country Roads) rather than Byways as you're new to trail riding and I'm sure that you'll be on road biased tyres. UUCRs are marked on 50k:1 OS maps as roads with red dots on them, although they are called ORPAs (Other Roads with Public Access). Byways are marked as rows of red '+' signs. Once you have found some good lanes, it would be a good idea to buy a map and mark them up, and you should take the map with you when you go exploring - you'll be surprised how much you end up referring to it.

As a novice, always go trail riding with a mate and have access to some form of recovery - I know that you aren't intending on any heroics, but the lanes are often used as dumping grounds by unscrupulous scrotes and you don't want a flat tyre or other problem to ruin your day.

Edit: You should have a look in the Mud Slinging & Water Sports section - there's even a sticky thread with links to online council maps.

 

[Rasher]

Thanks Will poke around websites / buy a couple of maps.

You are probably best looking for UUCRs (Unsurfaced Unclassified Country Roads)

That is exactly what I would like to start with and then see if I fancy advancing to more difficult terrain.

 

[TheJoker]

Hi Rasher, Womble pointed me to this thread! Thanks Womble!
It looks like we're out to do the same sort of thing. I'm a bit up the road from you and would really like to do some off roading. I used to live on my DT125LC in the forrests when I was a young'un, but since "growing up" (used loosely!) it's been pretty much all tarmac for me.
I hope we can share our experiences.