SOUTHWEST
Land’s End – Penzance – St Ives – Land’s End
Land’s End has always been a destination for bikers, especially those choosing the long riding task of either starting or ending there, via a visit to John o’ Groats in Scotland! But down in the furthest western reaches of our country there’s lots of biking roads to enjoy, and a loop twixt Land’s End, Penzance and St Ives is more than worth your time plus, like many of these routes we’re covering, the scenery is often stunning – if you can take your eyes off thrashing duties!
Turning right away from Land’s End onto the B3315, you follow this all the way, looping up to Penzance. A quick biking stroll on the eastbound A30 around Penzance (unless you want to stop for whatever reason of course), before hooking left on the B3311 to St Ives. Once there, another left sees you on the B3306, a proper wibblywobbly road that leads you all the way down back to Land’s End.
Being such a rural area there are things to watch out for, mostly to do with the odd poor road surfaces here and there, and whatever tractors have been up to that day – point being, some caution on blind corners is advised (although, that should be the case for any blind corner anywhere!). Local biker Barrie Blazeby has this to say about the route – “Lived in Penzance for 30 years, rode that route and those roads many times. The coastal section between St Ives and Pendeen is the best bit – quite technical with a poor road surface in general, not particularly fast, very tight and undulating in places, some stretches with good view of the road ahead but also some totally blind corners due to the Cornish hedges!”, sage words, Barry!
There are other places in and around too, as Jason Newall points out: “If you are doing that route then you owe it to yourselves to ride from Penzance to Sennen/ Land’s End on the A30 – it’s like a section of TT course! I lived in that area for years and that was always a favourite. If you’re down in the summer be sure to ride it early in the morning or around tea time, otherwise it gets busy with folk clogging up the road at 30mph. Another fun road is Penzance to St Just, hang a left as you get in to St Just and head towards Sennen. And have fun too!” Peter Von Savageri also told us his best route in the area to consider, and if you’re down there, why not? “Try the B3301 from Portreath to St Ives – it’s the best road ever! Or the A3306 from St Ives to the A30 and Sennen, the B3315 to Treen, the B3283 to St Buryan (then back to Penzance), the A394 to Helston and the B3297 to Redruth, but always watch out for the Emmets!” We’re guessing ‘Emmets’ is a local term for something slow on the roads!