Roads I've driven in their entirety....

[Owain]

This has come off the A46 thread, where I had cause to mention that I deliberately drove half of the A361 from Kilsby to my home in Frome. Is there anyone out there who has driven Britain's greatest roads - e.g. A1, A6, A38, A40, A46, A82 - in their entirety? Why did you do it? What was it like? How did you get around multiplexes? Which road(s) haven't you driven, but would like to do?

Apart from my deliberate trip down the A361, I don't think I can claim to have deliberately followed any single road for such a long time. Excluding motorways, of course; I guess this is cheating, but I've done all of the M1, the M5, the M6, and all but a tiny piece of the M4.

[PeterA5145]

Do you drive down roads in their entirety?

Driving the full length of roads

As said on one of those threads, I drive the full length of the A558 in one go on a weekly basis, but it is only about 4 miles long

[A3049]

Motorways driven in their entirety: M27, M3, M275, M6 Toll, A74(M), M73
A Roads driven in their entirety: A282, A3040, A351, A348

[FosseWay]

The only decent-length A road I can be sure of having driven in its entirety no longer exists -- the A45 from Birmingham to Felixstowe. All but the section from eastern Ipswich to Felixstowe will have been in one journey, too, with the extra bit as a day trip once I got where I was going.

If you'll allow the A45 from Ipswich to Felixstowe to count as the A14 as well, I've also driven the whole of that road.

The B4455 must be fairly high on many people's list of decent length B-roads driven in their entirety -- it certainly is on mine, numerous times.

[Chris Bertram]

I drove the whole of the A4029 the other day.

It took less than 20 secs.

Maybe we should have a minimum qualifying length of road on this thread?

[skiddaw05]

Often done the whole of the A17 in one go. As I expect have more people than who would care to admit it.

Well it could be argued (though not by me) there's not much to get off it for

[Owain]

Yes, I know! We can all claim 'microroads' like the A3064 in Bath (250 metres long, max) and the A4302 in Gloucester (1km, if it's lucky). In my original post I even suggested that motorways might be cheating, because it would be quite normal to drive the M5 all in one go.

When I started this thread (and before Peter pointed out that it has more or less been done before), my intention was for people to comment on "Britain's greatest roads - e.g. A1, A6, A38, A40, A46, A82".

So perhaps I should reiterate: if we carry on with this (rather than reviving one of the old threads Peter has highlighted), we should focus on long A or B roads that no one is ever likely to drive in their entirety. You don't even have to drive the whole road all at the same time; I once did half of the A361 for fun, and I plan to do the other half at some stage in the future.

[Halstead]

The only classified road I can claim to had driven entirely is the B228 which is slightly longer than a mile. I've only spent over a year on the road learning but I can't recall if I've done the B2212 entirely, mainly because I've turned off from Cameron road numerous times.

[rileyrob]

A few of us who contribute to the Wiki have already started 'boasting' about the roads we have driven on our User pages See mine!
More to the point, for lengthy A/B roads covered in one go, I suspect the longest one for me is the A87, although I wasn't actually driving either time. A couple of weeks ago I did the whole A95, followed by the whole A86 to get home from Banff. I've also done the A84 and A99 all in one go.
I've done each half of the A82 many times over, and the B3139 from the A38 to it's terminus near Radstock, followed by the entire length of the A366. Plus many, many shorter roads!

[Sunil_of_Yoxley]

There's also this thread!

http://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/forum/vie ... k+entirety

[Jonny A46]

Sticking purely to 2 or 3 digit A roads, (from memory) I've done all of the following roads:
A54, A499, A537, A540, A543, A552, A553 and A561.

I've also been along the whole M5, M6 Toll, M20, M40, M50, M53, M55, M56, M58, M73, M602, M621 and A74(M)*.

Not a particularly impressive list in the A roads department I know, but it's a start!

* It's an A road dressed up as a motorway, but it's a motorway nonetheless, and separate from the M74.

[roadtester]

Last week I did almost the entire A9 in one go driving back from a car launch in Wick. I've done most of it before but this was the first time I'd done te bulk of it in one stretch.

Impressions:

1) the overall standard of the route is better than I remember it and seemed to cope quite well with the traffic levels prevailing at the time (Friday afternoon, southbound)

2) scenery spectacular

3) Scotland is big! It takes about five or six hours to get to the central belt even when pressing on (in this case, in the new BMW 5 Series Gran Turismo). Didn't reach the border until about ten in the evening after a 3pm start.

4) something really needs to be done about the almost complete lack of lavatory/refuelling facilities on the A9 mainline. I was absolutely bursting by the time I reached Perth. I know most people don't try to do the A9 in a single sitting - tourists especially are going to be stopping off to look at the towns en route - but surely some facilities could be provided without destroying the local economy.

[multiraider2]

If you did the sum:

Road length x number of users driving full length

I feel the A303 would have a hard to beat score as it is effectively an extended bypass for a longer route. I thought of the M2 next but I forget if the end of motorway chopsticks is after the A2 Brenley Corner diverge.

Of all journeys I have made on thsese roads, my own score for times driven/times driven in full must be over 95%.

Going back to the OP clarification, I once did Bridgwater to Wadebridge on the A39 in one go just for the pleasure of it.

[Owain]

Going back to the OP clarification, I once did Bridgwater to Wadebridge on the A39 in one go just for the pleasure of it.

That is what I had in mind more than anything else when I started this one. People who drive whole roads just for the fun of it! If I actually had the time, there are quite a few I would do...

[DavidBrown]

I've done Bath to Blackmoor Gate on the A39, and Trowbridge to Ilfracombe on the A361.

[Nick O. Teen]

I can claim the entire length of the A303 and the M26, each in both directions, and the M3 too, athough that was back in the days when it ended at Basingstoke West.

[t1(M)]

I did the A303 in its entirety yesterday - twice! - on a day visit to Exeter. Of the 2d roads I've done in one go, I can count the A42 (not unusual) and A83 (rather more so, I suspect)

[Cian]

In one go, I've driven the entire route of the M/N6, M/N8, M/N9, M/N11, M/N18, N14, N30, N31, N32, N33, N66, N73 N82.

Many of them are rather short as national routes go.

In the same day but not the same run I've done the M/N2 (or at least the bits that exist, not the hypothetical route all the way to Derry) and the M/N7.

Over many runs/days I think I've driven 85%+ of the national route network so that'd be cheating to list them off!

[MarkSG]

Motorways that I've driven in their entirety: M6, M5, M4, M3, M45, M50, M10, M25, M6Toll, M2, M20, M40, M180, M55, M53. All but two of those have been in the course of real journeys, the other two were just for the sake of it.

I can't think of many, if any, significant A roads that I've driven the entire length of in one go. The few that spring to mind are the A505 and A428. I've done all but a couple of miles of the A55, joining it at Chester and finishing on the ferry at Holyhead. It's much harder to do the full length of major A roads in the course of a normal journey, because so many of them have been replaced by motorways.

Mark

[M5Lenzar]

I've driven the whole of the A303 (in one go, if you allow a meal stop). Rather less impressively, I've also driven the whole A137, A282 and A373.

Of F99 roads, I've only completed the A14 (the biggest in one go being Catthorpe-J51), whilst I've completed the M5, and a selection of pathetic motorways, which don't really count IMHO.