please empty your brain below
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The A30 has been declassified in the vicinity of Popham, but as the original route passes through the intriguingly named Egypt we'll have to turn a blind eye to a short run over the A303. (Other road songs are available).
Lorenzo | 10.12.20 - 8:19 a.m. | #
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How marvellous. And you'll be hypothetically passing within a mile or so of my house, and within yards of my office, so I shall offer you a hypothetical cup of tea.
Sarah | Homepage | 10.12.20 - 8:28 a.m. | #
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Mornington Crescent :)
Mark | 10.12.20 - 8:29 a.m. | #
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"It'd never be worth trying in real life"
Disagree. It looks like a pleasingly off-the-beaten track driving holiday to me.
Perhaps returning via *different* decreasing number roads, but I'll allow a ceremonial finish at St Paul's to make it a little easier.
Quizzical Eyebrow | Homepage | 10.12.20 - 9:20 a.m. | #
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Of course, if you could find a way to channel-hop (A11-A20?) you could take the E40 from Calais which is just under 5,000 miles long and ends in Kazakhstan. The train trip back would be interesting too...
Chris M | 10.12.20 - 9:37 a.m. | #
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I'd consider staying on the A30 to Bodmin and coming back to Exeter on the A38.
kev | 10.12.20 - 9:38 a.m. | #
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Pedant's Corner: the entrance to RAF Wittering is on the A1; the A43/47 junction is OK but is located near Duddington village.
Ian | 10.12.20 - 9:50 a.m. | #
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Doesn't work very well from here. Can only start on the A329 or A322. A329 could take me onto the M4 but M25 and M3 are out as that would be going down. Maybe something using M5 then M6 would then be a possibility. Those who can start with the A1 or M1 have a huge advantage.
davews | 10.12.20 - 10:16 a.m. | #
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I don't live on a numbered road, but the first numbered road I come across in my hypothetical car would be the A4 - unfortunately it is passing 8 metres overhead of me on the Hammersmith Flyover, meaning the first automobile accessible numbered road is the A219, which isn't a great start. If I used by less-than-hypothetical bicycle, I could get on the A4 (well, the pavement beside it).
Greg | 10.12.20 - 10:26 a.m. | #
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You are using numerical ordering of the number part of the road designation. A different rule would be lexical order. The A1 would still be ruled out but you could start A11, A2, A20, A21, A27 and so on.
Malcolm of Kent | 10.12.20 - 10:33 a.m. | #
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You should have caught the train.
Andrew | Homepage | 10.12.20 - 10:35 a.m. | #
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I live on a four-figure B road. The only road connected with a higher number is another B road, which is exactly plus one. These run out a half-mile or so from home...
Man of Kent | 10.12.20 - 10:36 a.m. | #
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My nearest A road is the A502, so I wouldn't get very far going up. I might try going down instead!
Mikey C | 10.12.20 - 10:43 a.m. | #
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The first numbered road I get to is the A410 so like Mikey I will have to try going down as well
Mike Roberts | 10.12.20 - 10:50 a.m. | #
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I was hoping to cheat a little and reuse your work as the 2nd stage as I'm 40 miles north on the A10. However, it doesn't appear to be possible to go from the A10 to the A11 without breaking the rules.
Terry | 10.12.20 - 10:53 a.m. | #
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Where I live, the nearest numbered road is State Highway 1: take it one way and goes all the way to the far north of the country; take it the other, and (via a ferry) it goes all the way to the deep south.
Sadly that barely passes a minute indoors, let alone a day.
Betterbee | 10.12.20 - 10:53 a.m. | #
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As I live just off the A61 in Sheffield you've basically done the job for me on your own hypothetical journey. I'll wave as you pass.
Anders | 10.12.20 - 10:54 a.m. | #
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If the challenge is distance on the odometer rather than displacement from home, I wonder how many options exist for true ring roads with single numbers to make the answer infinite. The M60 around Manchester is one - I assume there are others.
Henry | 10.12.20 - 11:03 a.m. | #
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This is the sort of post that keeps me coming back!
Brilliant idea - which has sparked a spin-off idea - how far could I get if I walked the local streets alphabetically?
Or how far could I get using sequential buses - which has probably been done before - probably by you!
Cornish Cockney | 10.12.20 - 11:03 a.m. | #
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I live on the B285, so I think I'm stuck...
Eric | 10.12.20 - 11:03 a.m. | #
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It would only be Mornington Crescent if using Montague's Second Stationary Rule, I think.
Jo W | 10.12.20 - 11:04 a.m. | #
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That's Numberwang! Seriously though, an excellent post.
Stuart R | 10.12.20 - 11:21 a.m. | #
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I live just off the A4. To head north I would go A4, M5, M6, A7, A8, M9, A9, A99, John O'Groats. To head south I would go A4, M5, A30, B3315, Land's End.
JonathanC | 10.12.20 - 12:06 p.m. | #
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Excellent!
Perhaps you could repeat the exercise going via roads which are no longer "continuous", as in the A41 which once ran all the way from London to Birkenhead.
strawbrick | 10.12.20 - 12:18 p.m. | #
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Terry, perhaps you can take the A10 south to junction 25 of the M25 and follow DG from there
I'm just off the A10 but north of Cambridge. It becomes the A1309 south of the A14, so I'd need a different plan.
miker | 10.12.20 - 12:24 p.m. | #
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My nearest numbered road is in the 300s, which puts me at a disadvantage, but I have managed to reach Scunthorpe.
I can get to the A3 on foot without crossing a numbered road though, and thus the M25 and then follow your route
timbo | 10.12.20 - 12:25 p.m. | #
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Nope. That's not one of the things I do to occupy myself.
B | 10.12.20 - 1:09 p.m. | #
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You could make this more interesting by clicking through the route on Google Street View. I am actually doing this - In August I decided to have a virtual road trip - turned left at Calais and went up the coast via Belgium and the Netherlands, and am now "in" Denmark (very little Street View available in Germany). You can click on restaurants etc as you pass and look at the menu on their websites, you can look at Google photos and play videos of various places on YouTube, you can look at signs and translate them on Google translate. (You can of course only do this where the Google Street View car has been). I expect to complete Denmark by the end of the year, then on to Poland and around the Baltic to Sweden and Norway. (Unless the covid crisis is over first) . If it isn't over by the time I reach the North Cape I'll go back to Calais and turn right...
Tony (Somerset) | 10.12.20 - 1:37 p.m. | #
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I live on a 4 number A road. this goes onto a 2 number A road, and a 3 number A road.
I can walk the distance comfortably in 40 minutes or so.
Not quite like the epic journey you can do one day.
R | 10.12.20 - 1:53 p.m. | #
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This idea looks suspiciously like this post here :-)
Mark Woolley | 10.12.20 - 4:27 p.m. | #
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As one of the contributors to the thread Mark linked to, I should point out you've made the same error I did: the A37 and A38 don't meet in Bristol. There's an annoying quarter of a mile of the A4 you need to use to get between them.
Colin Bell | 10.12.20 - 4:36 p.m. | #
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I'm unable to read that SABRE forum thread without logging in.
diamond geezer | Homepage | 10.12.20 - 4:39 p.m. | #
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I shall not try this exercise, there is limited potential for a long journey starting from Douglas.
MO | 10.12.20 - 5:23 p.m. | #
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Curious what the longest consecutive chain is. For example, starting in Edinburgh Haymarket you have A70 briefly to Dalry, A71 to the river Clyde near Larkhall, A72 to Lanark, A73 to Abington (with a few hundred metres of borrowed A702...), A74(M) to Gretna, A75 to Dumfries, A76 to Kilmarnock, A77 to Monkton, A78 for all of 500m and finally A79 to Prestwich Airport. Can this be beaten?
Dan | 10.12.20 - 6:09 p.m. | #
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I’m looking forward to playing the DG Enterprises board game version Christmas 2021
RogerB | 10.12.20 - 6:36 p.m. | #
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I live on an unnumbered road about 4 blocks from Highway 1 in North Vancouver. If I head east on Highway 1, I can cross BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba before it becomes Highway 17 at the Ontario border. At a few points on the 17 it's also provincial highway 11 but is always still the national highway 17. Just before Ottawa it becomes Highway 417 (a road I have actually driven on) until it meets the Quebec border just past Voyageur Provincial Park. There, the only road numbers are 40 and 342 so my journey must end.
So that's 1 -> 17 -> 417. Total driving distance 4681km, although "only" 3623km as the crow flies.
Wayne | 10.12.20 - 8:19 p.m. | #
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I'm not hugely convinced by your last example because to get from the A37 to the A38 in Bristol you need to change to the A4, and then the A4044.
That said I can't do much better. In terms of getting as far as possible from East London - the best I could do without similarly 'cheating' was A11, A12, M25, A30, A303, A358, B3224 to Raleigh's cross - about 150 miles from Bow.
Chris | 10.12.20 - 9:06 p.m. | #
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Australia's Highway 1 loops the continent and travels a total of 14,280 km to return back where it started.
My wife and I managed 2,600km of it from Cairns to Sydney plus a short hop from Melbourne to Geelong in a two month road trip last year.
Start in Brisbane and you could do the whole A1, then move on to the A2 inland to Mount Isa for 1800km, then turn South on the B83 to Port Augusta for another 1,600km. That's nearly 18,000km or over 10,000 miles.
There is then an infernal 8km gap where you'd need to go back onto the A1, without it you could actually turn back North on the A87 for the 2,100km journey back to the Northern Territory! If we allow that 8km fudge you could manage half the circumference of the planet in one ever-increasing trip.
TomH | 10.12.20 - 9:37 p.m. | #
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Seems that, at one time, there would have been a station at Elvanfoot. So, if you can access a time machine shortly after parking your imaginary car up, then you should be able to get home again.
Nick Marsh | 11.12.20 - 3:41 a.m. | #
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DG - is your driving licence hypothetical? I can't remember you having posted about driving previously.
Dan - I didn't know Prestwich had an airport :)
martin | 11.12.20 - 7:19 a.m. | #
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A very interesting post, which put me in mind of John Shuttleworth's immortal song "A1111". I wonder how far anyone could travel using only roads in whose designation only one numeral is used, though it may be repeated (e.g. A44, B3333 etc)
cau1khead | 11.12.20 - 9:54 a.m. | #
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About 2.1 miles for me - live off the B272, in an area about 3.5 square miles bounded by the A214, A216, A217, A236 and A23
PsychoS | 11.12.20 - 10:19 a.m. | #
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SABRE forums. DG do you mean you can't access that site? Just checked and working fine at www.sabre-roads.org.uk/forum
GB | Homepage | 11.12.20 - 11:39 a.m. | #
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Tony in Somerset - that is amazing. Remarkable. Good luck.
Lux | 12.12.20 - 2:09 p.m. | #
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