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resolvedHi,
I've been toying with the idea of cycling from the Lothians to Dumfries. I've only ever driven before so don't know the smaller roads very well.
The Strava route planner send me down via Innerleithen on the B709 which, while looking fine on the map, I'd worry about unexpectedly ending up on some hellishly busy and fast road.
Has anyone got experience of it and can recommend a route first hand?
Cheers
I've been as far as Lockerbie, but never to Dumfries.
The B709 to Innerleithen is great - very quiet. So is the B723 from Innerleithen to Lockerbie.
cycle.travel suggests heading west a few miles before you reach Lockerbie, and that looks like the way I'd choose too, but hopefully some people know the area better.
Innerleithen/St Mary’s Loch is a good route. The A701 from Moffat to Dumfries is a wee bit busier but I wouldn’t have any problems with the route suggested.
I know @unhurt has done this and may weigh in.
I would strongly advise avoiding the A709 from Lockerbie to Dumfries. As well as being busy, it is narrow and quite winding. I'm told it's okay on a Sunday morning but any other time best avoided. You'd be best taking the route suggested by cycle.travel which is the one I've used when cycling to Lockerbie before.
I've done stretches on the A701 - it's a tiny bit better than the A709 as wider and better surfaced, but if you can find a way down through the back roads you'd have a nicer time ...
Great thanks... so that website for me suggests the B709, then the A708 to Moffat, and then a series of back roads from Johnstonebridge joining up with a cyclepath to Dumfries..
seems do-able. Is the A708 OK?
Thanks for drawing my attention to that website - I'd never come across it before - cheers!
The A708 is a lovely road and the traffic is pretty minimal. It's popular with bikers at the weekend but I've never had any problems with them.
Just wanted to put a quick update on this that I've now, at last, done this and the advice was spot on - cheers!
Loved the A708.
The route gets a little complicated after Moffat so I needed at GPS to keep me right... the only slightly adverse bit was the surface of the B7076 (as it tracked the A74 south to Johnstonebridge) - bit of a bone shaker - was glad to get off that. But a great cycle in all - thanks again.
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