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I love maps, too, and these days usually study the route intently before I go on a new one, but I think if I ever did this (which I won't), I'd stick to main roads wherever possible, to absolutely minimise the risk of any unintentional off-roading.
Oliver Schick-
I specifically routed away from major roads and then, when I found the alternatives I'd picked were gravel shit, went straight back onto the shoulder-free truck-dodging 70kph craziness. That's me doing 70kph btw, the trucks were doing 110 or something..
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The phrase 'stick to the main road' was something which I repeated to myself many times!
I did some sections where using a few back roads saved me like 5 m of climbing or 200m of distance but it would have been loads faster to stay on the main road, given traffic counts and lack of junctions, and better surfaces.
hippy
frank9755
The annoying thing is that I do actually enjoy staring at maps for hours on end, and thought I'd route-checked really thoroughly, but I still didn't spot half a dozen off-road sections that crept in.