Pathfinder 26 March 2023 starts from the free car park just uphill from the toilets in Lanivet. OS grid SX038640, what3words flop.cats.harvest
Start time is 10:00 BST – clocks change (spring forward) from GMT at 01:00 on 26th. Total ride distance is 27.75 miles.
We are riding east to Bodmin to join the lesser-ridden upper section of the Camel Trail at the Borough Arms to pass north of the town. Café stop is at the very end of the trail beyond Wenford Dries, at the Snail’s Pace Café. Then we climb onto the Moor to visit Bradford Bridge before returning to Lanivet via Blisland.
At the rides meeting it was agreed that we should ride in a new Groups and Gophers format. This means small groups with spaces between each group maintained at 200yds or so, as we often do on main roads, but now the groups are to be organised at the start and held for the road sections. Each group will have a stronger rider assigned to manage pace and to wait at turns off the road priority if the next group behind is not in view at the turn. It was agreed that these happy souls should be known as Gophers.
The route I have come up with allows us to trial the new format for main road and open moorland lanes with less high hedges and hidden lanes than we normally enjoy which should make the new format easier to manage. Nearly half the ride will be free format on the trail.
I have loaded navigation files (.gpx format) onto cloud storage at gpxplanner so you can easily look at the route on mapping and download with a single click. The .gpx file will appear in your downloads folder and you will need to do whatever is required to use it from there. If you are puzzled about this, do contact me directly on email, message or whatever but I don’t know all the methods by any means.
The pathfinder route is in two parts because a single figure of eight route can muddle up some Garmins (or other electronic navigation things). You will need to tell your device you want to follow the second part at our scenic stop at Bradford Bridge.
| Link to See on OS map | Link to Download | |
| Lanivet to Bradford Bridge (via Snail’s Pace café) | https://gpxplanner.app/u/LAtoBBpfMa23 | https://api.gpxplanner.app/api/download/LAtoBBpfMa23 |
| Bradford Bridge to Lanivet | https://gpxplanner.app/u/BBtoLApfMa23 | https://api.gpxplanner.app/api/download/BBtoLApfMa23 |
If you want to extend the ride by riding from Falmouth, Norway Inn, Tresillian, or Indian Queens/Toldish note that the old A30 is destroyed between the top of the climb off Goss Moor and Victoria. Suggested route around to avoid is longer but quite good:
| Link to See on map | Link to Download | |
| Divert off old A30 | https://gpxplanner.app/u/GWtoLApfMa23 | https://api.gpxplanner.app/api/download/GWtoLApfMa23 |
Last time I rode this diversion there was repair work on a cattle grid but the gate on the fencing was not bolted and the work was well on. From the Council website it looks like work is now complete.