Shropshire Drivers Help Required

[Loafing Wafu]

Right guys, for all of us living around Shropshire the challenge has been laid down to come up with a suitable run around this fabulous county.

 

I'm sure there are enough of us with experiance of the local roads to come up with something suitably fun and challenging. I've only been living round here for a few months but will be trying to get out and about to establish a route.

 

All those others out there with greater knowledge of the local area please help. If not lets get out there and start researching

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Keith.

[steve-n]

ok...

 

Start. Shrewsbury > Pontesbury > Hope Valley (good road)> Bishops Castle (fast Road) cut across to Ludlow, back up to Church Stretton (up the Long Mynd or Lunch) > Much Wenlock > Bridgnorth > Ironbridge > Albrighton > Shrewsbury.

 

How's that??

[Loafing Wafu]

Blimey.. that's a quick reply.

 

Righto, quickly bashed the run into autoroute and it comes up at a good distance.

 

Haven't driven any of those roads, but this is a great start. I take it you've done this route before. If not i'll try and give it a go in the near future and report back on the pros and cons.

 

Thanks for this.

 

Keith.

[GreyKnight]

Off topic, but Keith, this may have been asked before - how do you come to own a helicopter?

 

Back on topic, sounds like a good run

[Loafing Wafu]

Alas the helicopter is not mine, it belongs to the good folks of the defence helicopter flying school.

 

The navy are currently paying me to learn how to fly these beasts.

 

Still a way to go until i get my wings though.

[GreyKnight]

Alas the helicopter is not mine, it belongs to the good folks of the defence helicopter flying school.

 

The navy are currently paying me to learn how to fly these beasts.

 

Still a way to go until i get my wings though.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Ahh I see, you're a military man. Thought you looked a bit young to be a multi-millionaire

[Loafing Wafu]

No chance of being a multi-millionaire i'm afraid, quite happy with my lot right now. Got my car, get to fly and the girl friend's dumped me (i get more time with the car now). So well happy.

 

Anyhow back on topic.

 

Anymore route suggestions for shropshire out there?

[Scottuk04]

No chance of being a multi-millionaire i'm afraid, quite happy with my lot right  now.  Got my car, get to fly and the girl friend's dumped me (i get more time with the car now).  So well happy.

 

Anyhow back on topic.

 

Anymore route suggestions for shropshire out there?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

lol had to laugh at your comment there! always look on the bright side of life hey!

 

back to topic again that route sounds ok.. I went up that way with the girlfriend the other day! no pun intended Loafing Wafu..

 

ive heard theres a really nice pub up by the Long Mynd the white horse or sumthing like that.. Im hopeing to try it out soon so will let you know..

 

I'll also rack my brain and think of sum add ons to that route..

[Loafing Wafu]

Well i took myself out for a mini run this afternoon using some of the suggestions thrown at me.

 

This is how far i got:

 

Shrewsbury - Minsterley on A488: Good road but too many solid white lines and a big 30mph area.

 

Minsterley - Bishop's Castle on A488: Excellent twisty fast road pretty much all derestricted and a number of easy overtaking areas. (11.5 miles)

 

Bishop's Castle - Ludlow on B4385, A4113, A49: B4385 is another good twisty road with a hump in the road for those would like to get some air. A4113 is a fast road and the A49 is crap but gets you to Ludlow.

 

Ludlow - Bridgenorth on B4364: I really enjoyed this 16.4 mile road. It has quite a lot of very tight corners and some very fast straights along with a lot of undualtion over the length of the road. A lot of overtaking oportunites and mostly derestricted.

 

Bridgenorth - Ironbridge on B4373: Nothing really special on this road and it goes to a 40mph when there's no need, but ironbridge is a nice area to have lunch, but will get very touristy over the summer months, so might not be ideal... good for posing though.

 

Steve-n suggested going from Ludlow to Church Stretton and then onto Bridgenorth. Didn't have the time to do it today, but i'll give it a go soon.

 

The route i did today was 65miles, so it has the makings of a good first half of a run. I'll start to look at areas for the second half.

 

Any feedback or more suggestions would be very much appreciated.

 

Keith.

[Big Rides]

What would be really good to do one day when the weather's good- is a trip from Shrewsbury to Barmouth!

 

Anyone's who knows this route (yes- there is only really one route) knows it's a blast, from Welshpool onwards- amazing scenery, very twisty roads, no fixed cameras. It's a very popular route with the bikers. We could all park up on the promenade and have lunch and a pint- loads of good pubs in the town.

 

Just an idea!

 

Regards,

Ian

[GCCK]

Great work Keith - well done!

 

Couple of suggestions:

1) Don't go too mad on the A-roads - these are the ones that can get busiest at weekends. We've been surprised before that roads that were lovely during the week or evenings are clogged up come a Sunday. See if there are some unclassified roads of reasonable width which you can peel off the main roads, blast down, to link up with the next bigger road. I aim for 1/3 A, 1/3 B, 1/3 unclassified. Some of the local yokels on your Shropshire team might be able to point out some hidden gems.

 

2) Biker roads are the most popular speed cam roads. Bikes need fast roads without too many bumps. The perfect Elise road is actually too twisty for a bike as we yearn for the bends rather than the straights in between, especially if there are a few bumps thrown in as well.

 

Do you have a copy of MS Autoroute? If so, download a copy of the speed camera positions from Pocket GPS World and import the csv format files into Autoroute - that'll tell you which roads can fall prey to the scamera vans.

[Loafing Wafu]

Cheers Graeme,

 

All the above taken onboard and i'll get my head back into the road atlas.

 

Downloading the GPS thingys for Autoroute now.

[MattyB]

Must-do-road:

 

B4355

 

Its great, and was Autocars secret test road...

[PeterField]

What would be really good to do one day when the weather's good- is a trip from Shrewsbury to Barmouth!

 

Top idea Ian!

 

Be a real site seeing all those Lotuses lined up along the prom too.

 

Possibly a bit long for the 'end-of-month' runs but may be a good idea for the next installment of Ladders' Welsh Adventures, eh Dave?

[Loafing Wafu]

B4355 pokes off into Wales, but having consulted the chart i'm sure we could include it. Will give it a thorough thrashing over the next week or so to make sure it is up to our standards.