Northumberland 250
If you use MyRoute’s very good ‘Street view’ function, you can see that the tourist office’s route takes some pretty good or at least interesting roads:
That being said, it is not advertised as a ‘Great bikers’ route or as a bible of the best roads to hoon along. I know from personal experience that some bods moan about some roads in the Ardennes that are bumpy, have a broken surface or (shock horror) sometimes have leaves and other debris on them, washed down in the autumn…… not at all suitable for a GS, apparently.
Of course, anything of around 250 miles will have some compromises in it. Of course (as it’s designed to show off the sites of Northumberland to visitors) it has to compromise at points along its way. Of course it is set out to cater for visitors (or even some locals) who don’t know the area too well and might be driving anything from a Ferrari to a Land Rover to a VW Up, to a FireBlade or a full on, fully pannier’d GSA with lights blazing and the rider standing on the pegs, to a bod sweating on a bicycle.
Use it or don’t, would be my advice. If, on the day you want to miss out the stretch of ‘dull’ highway (how long a stretch is it, really) then look at a map and do your own thing to miss it out. It really is that easy.
PS I drove my motorhome along miles of what is a very popular ‘bikers’ road in Scotland last week. Significant stretches were reduced to 50 mph but I guess you could just regard that signage as advisory. What I did see was lots of examples of bikers (often on fully loaded GS motorbikes, panniers, peaked helmets, noisy Akra, all the full usual kit) put in blatantly dangerous overtakes in a desperate effort to keep up with their mates in front. Some of them no doubt will be be the same ones that post: “They have banned bikes on some days, the cnuts …. It’s now heavily policed, as wankers have ruined it….. biker down, sad day, looks bad”.
