Three nights camping.
Four days cycling (two half days and two full days).
Some deviation from the route due to navigational errors and also having to find a bike shop on day 3 to pick up a new tyre !
https://www.cyclinguk.org/routes/long-distance/king-alfreds-way
Night 1 – https://www.pitchup.com/campsites/England/South_East/Hampshire/Petersfield/clarefield_copse_wild_camping/
Night 2 – https://www.campingandcaravanningclub.co.uk/campsites/uk/wiltshire/salisbury/salisbury-camping-and-caravanning-club-site/
Night 3 – https://www.pitchup.com/campsites/England/South_West/Wiltshire/Swindon/daisys-farm/
Okay, so it’s um just gone 9:00. Uh I’m about to head off down to the train station to get the train up to London and then out to Reading to start the King Alfred’s Way. The bike is, should we say, overloaded, but I couldn’t see what else I could leave. Maybe when I’ve finished it, I’ll realize what I never used and didn’t need, but I’ll know that for next time. Anyway, here we go. I really wanted to just use bike packing bags, but I don’t have a bag to go in the middle of the frame. I can’t find my top tube bag. And um I just couldn’t work out how I could do this without putting things in the panas. So there it is. Overloaded, ready to go. Legs are going to get a good workout. Led to the reprobates. About to get the train. Yeah. standing up there. [Music] Uh quick change of trains. We’ve just hopped off the Elizabeth line. We could have stayed on it, get us all the way to Reading, but it’s going to be quicker if we go overland. So, we’re just trying to get up to the National Rail. So, I’ve got my bike here, but uh not quite in the bike space as it’s meant to be, but it’ll do. So, yeah, trains are ready. Here we go. Okay, so we’ve just had a quick pit stop. I mean, we haven’t even started cycling yet, but we’re going to head to the river and hopefully find the start of it. Everybody ready? Ready. Ready. Well, yes, we are cuz my Garmin is pointing in the right d direction. Okay. Are we going Did it say heading north? Are they going clockwise or anticlockwise at the moment? We’re going clockwise. That’s all right then. Yeah. No, there’s no way you could have been there. There’s no way you could have passed me. All right. All right. Thank you. balls. I would have been all right. I’ll get you on camera anyway. Brilliant. I’m going to get £250 for this. Hey, just just so people think you are okay, aren’t you? Yeah. Yeah. See, I asked all right. Oh, yeah. I’m not crying. You’re crying. That would have been a minute going over that bridge maneuver. All right, let’s go over it. We get away from the river. I think we’re going away from the river. Yeah. So, unless there’s a foot path on the left to cut through to the road, I think we got to go back. It’s nice. here. Yeah. Yeah. Back road back. Uh, Uh, right. Right. Do you reckon? Or is it road? It goes onto the road anyway. I think go over the road, I think. Yeah, over the road. Yeah. So down that on the left the road and then right. Clear. There is a car to the left. parking for tap room customers only. I don’t mind. Yeah. So, how is it going so far? Yeah. Uh, I’m glad I did all my hill training in Essex. That’s really helped. And yeah, it’s good fun. I mean, I’ve only fallen off once and uh yeah, driven through the brambles, but yeah, other than that, it’s all good. All good. All good. Beautiful. the sand and then up that. Yeah. Okay. That’s what I like. Let me just have a moment. Yeah. I’ll be taking a moment somewhere. Yeah. Not much past that to be honest. Hey, 4.3. There we go. There we go. We’re We’re recording now. The Twilight Hour. Okay, so we’ve packed up our tents, bikes are packed, ready to go, and today we’re going to be heading over those hills in the distance. The campsite builds itself as a wild camping 7 m pitches. Uh multiple tents per pitch if you want them. Not very many people here at this time of year as you can see. Um that’s the shower which works. It was warm. Toilet block getting ready and Rich riding off into the distance. hotel. So, we’ve made it from the campsite to the road. Yeah, I think that one and uh morning. Just a quick little uh check. We’re going to go in the right direction. Who knows? The white horse may be closed by the time you arrive. So, do we trust Garmin or do we trust Google? Difficult decision. Anyway, yeah. hills. But at least we start on some tarmac to begin with. These are legs into it. So, um it’s 9:00. We’ve uh just called into the pub where Andy spent the night and had second breakfast. We’re just waiting for him to get his act together and we’ll be off. Bloody luxury. Luxury window. You got bookshel bookshelf. So, uh fake Andy’s bike luckily spent the night in the nice and warm and uh this is the luxury that for some reason I chose not to have. There’s there’s spare beds around the corner. Oh my actually is. And a fold out bed. Yeah. Teas and coffees and everything. I think my s the water on it made it heavier. First climb of the day. It’s on tarmac, so it should be easy. Everyone’s in their granny ring. Hopefully getting to the peak. Lovely. Top of the hill. Yeah, top of the hill. Back onto gravel. Uh this stage on the route says it’s the south down. So, here we go. Top of the hill. Boys are getting back on. Starting to flatten out. We all We all walked, but uh yeah, time to get back on. Do a bit of riding. I mean, I’m at like 157 and I’ve pushed my bike up a hill and it’s the beginning of the day and this isn’t really the big hill. All right, just stopped to lube up my nipples cuz they’re chafing some thought. And uh here we go up another trail. Up up up up and up and up on the South Downs way. The first off of the day from Graeme. Yeah. You all right? So, has everybody fallen? No, Rich hasn’t fallen yet. Two for Graeme. Yeah. One each rust. None for rich. Wow. You all right? Yeah. In the woods. No. Well, yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. That was quite a nicer one. Yeah. Come on. Go up. All right. All right. There they go up the hill. Still pedaling. Still going. First proper flat of the day of the trip. It just went down really quickly. I mean, in seconds. last night. So, so I guess the question is, ridiculously small pump or the only CO2 cylinder I’ve got for the whole trip. All right, I’ve got some. You got it. Yeah, punch another two. That’s running. Uh, yeah. I mean, we can only be what, 15 minutes on, probably less. Uh, puncture number two, but it’s the front this time. So, that’s inner tube number two. Um, also known as the last spare inner tube I’ve got. Hopefully, I’ll make it to Winchester at a bike shop before. Well, at least you noticed it cuz it’s still downhill yet. That could have been quite a roll off the rim job if you tried to turn. Yeah. Well, I mean it did come just after I fell off again. Another unscheduled stop. Uh, and I I think we’re going to call it another off for Graeme, but not really his fault as he got stung in the head by bee. Um, great. Okay. 21k. 20k to Winchester. 20k. Uh Beautiful. Must be quite high. There’s trig point there. Little bit of a stop for everyone. Yeah. Just south hurt us a lot. Yeah. Yeah. We’ve made it to Winchester. We haven’t found the statue yet. I guess that’s only a matter of time. I’m hungry. Yeah. And it’s 10 to 10 to 2 and we got a fair old trek ahead of us before we find our campsite. So better crack on. Statue of St. Alfred for the uh theoretically the beginning and end of the St. out this way. But for us, only the middle again. Fruit confab. Where should we eat? Okay, so we’ve just had the athletes dinner of pizza for lunch. Some difficult decisions to make. It’s taking us so much longer than we planned. So, we’re going to have to extend this to 4 days. Unfortunately, Andy hasn’t got that luxury, so he’s probably going to stop uh in Ssbury, which is 40k away, but at our current pace of not much over 10k an hour, we’re not going to get there till about 7:00 at night. And then we’ll just have to see how we go. 7:35 on Thursday morning. Meant to be our last day, but penultimate day now. Rolling out of the campsite on St. in Ssbury. Uh first stop Stonehenge on the 20th of June. Lovely. on to the first climb of the day. Bit grally, bit slippy. Already in the granny ring. Sun’s shining. It’s feeling hot already. It’s going to be a glorious day. Suncreen’s on. just about to turn nine. Uh we’re in West Aimsbury, which is the the little village outside of Stonehenge. We’re here for a breakfast of champions in a greasy spoon. Everyone’s fueling up and hopefully it won’t come back up again on the next climb, but uh we’ll have to wait and see. Athletes. Athletes. Yeah, seems to have half the countryside in his rear mech. We go down there. Can we go down there? Looking like a farmer’s gate. Probably can’t see it in the distance there, but there’s Stonehenge. Uh, we’re just trying to work out which way to go. I mean, that seems shorter. Grant, the way it’s telling me to go is back that this morning. We’re out here. It’s pretty exposed. I’ve still got two water bottles, so it’s all good. But somehow we’ve lost Graeme some somehow, which um I’m guess he’s taking a video of the chopper for himself. Yeah, I guess it’s this way. a little bit of a navigational error a little while ago. I mean, one of the many. So, we’ve actually missed getting as close to Stonehenge as we could, but at least we saw it across a field. Anyway, time to carry on. So we’re out on Ssbury plane here. The live fire Land Rover has just whizzed its way past and Graham is going to use the random portal stuck in the middle of absolutely nowhere. A red flag flying off to the left of this path uh indicates live fire exercises. Just whether the path goes past the red flags or not, who knows? or whether we need to head back over onto that road with you and the flag. Nice. [Applause] past overtake in history. Okay, so we’re on the ridgeway now. Day three. Um, I can’t even see what the time is. After midday. Yeah, we done 45k today. Aiming for 120 hopefully. Um, if we stay on the Ridgeway, we’re doing a decent speed. We’re nearly doing 20k. Yeah, we should do it. Yeah. Yeah, we go for more. Yeah, we we click Swindon and we head east. Yeah, we get Oh, there’s a whole track of them. Yeah. yet another unscheduled stop uh to fix another puncture. Last inner tube hole in the sidewall of the tire fixed with a bit of inner tube. We’ll see how it goes. Hopefully, we’ll find a bike shop at some point. That is large 20. No, no, no. It’s definitely I just seen a fork and it’s gone. That one’s the fork. Well, we can join a There’s a road further up. But that is definitely the way. Yeah, we’re going. I hate that bit cuz I know I want to catch the pedal and go down. Whereas that way, I’m guessing we go over the top and that’s when we drop down into where the M4 would be. And then that’s after we get that. That’s when we have to start walking about where we going to go. Well, John, what’s our latest check in touch? I feel it’s going to go all out there. You see the side of that that track of the field? That’s my feeling. It’s going to go up to the top of that road. Ready? Yeah. It’s just after 7:00. We packed up after our impromptu night at Daisy’s campsite. Everybody’s ready, raring to go, raring for that last push up the hill to uh back to Reading. Got maybe 50 60k to go, but there’s a a large hill on the way. Anyway, here we go. Don’t get up over that lump again. So, it’s along the top of that, is it? Uh, normally I take the top and then along the thread, but that’s south down. I don’t know about the bridge, but Well, I mean, the clue’s in the title, I reckon. Yeah, could be. [Applause] the green. Go. 10 8 in the granny ring. Lungs burning. All right. Go. So, it turns out I could have driven up here. Who knew? All right. Cheers. Yeah. Yeah. Just catching my breath. All right. Refueling my water. Well, drinking basically. I didn’t hear any cracking about behind me. So, where is one? No. Just thought I probably need to drink. I thought he might have had another blowout. No, no, though on that just before we hit the pump track, I thought I’m going so fast. There’s massive rocks. I’m not sure how long this is going to last. Come on, luck. Just hold out for another 40k. Yeah, 25 down. I don’t like where I’m at. I want to come across. I was going to say I’m not really sure this is much better. That bit on the right looks best. Yeah, but I’m not sure I can get up there. I reset my watch. Don’t know if you can see it up there, but there’s bird of prey hovering. We’ve seen all sorts of wildlife on this trip. Uh loads of kites, uh buzzards, sparrow hawk, deer, hairs. Yeah, it’s been amazing. But really, I shouldn’t be looking up at the sky. I need to be checking out the potholes and rocks. on this relatively smooth path to be honest. And we’re going a little bit downhill so it’s quite nice rolling. Nice little bit of tarmac and uh back onto a climb I think. Give me the wall. Up up up up. Okay, we’re starting halfway between Swindon and the Reading. Way to go. Wow. Okay. On the temp’s path in Reading. Journey’s nearly at an end. Just got to get through the geese. quack quack quack quack quack quack quack. Come on. Oh my goodness. Seriously. Right. Okay. And there’s the temps. That’s on the side. Right. There we go. Yeah. Just by that little Yeah, that little tunnel under that bridge was our start of the King Alfred sort of way. It feels familiar but from a different direction. Nice. All right.