Bikepacking 3: Chippenham -> Reading - 2 days

I didn't post this before because I wanted to do pictures and shit but it was hard to do that so I decided I'd do it after I sorted out Lack-Of. Lack-Of is in a much better place now, so here it is.

The Concept

Piotr Brzezianski, a old work colleague, had wanted to do a bike packing trip over 2 days with some distance and beautiful scenery. We'd done shorter day trips with Big Rob and my neighbour Igor, but we fancied a challenge. We hoped to do it over the summer but I fucked my ankle so we slammed a date in waaaay into the future, turned out that was the beginning of October.

The plan was: get a train to somewhere and then ride home, stopping at a pub mid-way. He wasn't too keen on the idea of hauling camping stuff. He used Komoot for planning because it's good at national cycleways in gravel and Strava is better for roads. I checked it on Strava and it looked like a lot of up and down hill. It was that because of going along The Ridgeway, AKA King Alfred's Way. The Ridgeway isn't a "go up and then ride along the top". It's "go up and then up and down all day". And going up and down on shitey rough terrain too.

Day 1

Here's Jolene, all pristine and ready to go. I'm not carrying the full handlebar cannister because it wasn't needed. I'm carrying extra clothes that I didn't before because I knew we'd be relaxing in a pub. For those that haven't met Piotr, here he is. Piotr is Polish for Peter but he's been over here so long he's more British than Polish.

We squeezed onto the train to Chippenham, it seems that booking your bike in is all bullshit. It doesn't cost anything but they don't do anything about randoms with bikes. We saw the white chalk Uffington White Horse from the train and I suggested that we'd probably be riding over the massive hit it was on.

The train took only 40 minutes and pretty much straight out of the station it was lovely riding on smooth bike paths for a good few kilometres, and then gravel.

Knowing that the first big hill was after Avebury, we paused to look at some stones. English Heritage have a visitors centre and cafe, so we noshed lunch there.

The big hill was a red line on Komoot, Strava and Garmin. They all agreed. Steep, long and rough. 3km along, 100m up and all endless slippery chalk and shale. We had loads of energy after lunch and were still feeling great, keen to get up onto the hills where the views were and "get on top" of the Ridgeway, where we'd spend our day. It was tough and we paused a couple of times but I was impressed that we both managed it after 25km and a fair amount of climbing.

Avebury is down in the valley and behind it is a hill with a tower on it that we also slogged over the top of.

The views from the top were superb, as expected. You just had these two grinning idiots getting in the way all the time.

There was still a fair amount of up and down after this big one and that sapped the energy out of us in a big way. It's amazing how lots of little rises are just as exhausting as one big one.

Finally off the Ridgeway to Bishopstone. The Garmin warned of a big fat hill ahead, so we cheekily went around it. We didn't avoid all the ups and downs in our detour but I think it was a better route.

The Royal Oak in Bishopstone is a delight. There's not just a pub, there's an inn, a farm big garden, huge decking, farm shop and so on. An utter gem. We unpacked the bikes in the courtyard outside our room (left of Jolene) in this picture. It had an eccentric charm that was a complete delight.

We chilled in the shared family room before dinner, allowing me to take the most accidentally funny picture of the weekend.

We say in the corner of the pub and argued about whether machines were conscious or any different to humans and ate delicious pork belly from the farm. I could have done with a larger portion but only because I had burned a load of calories that day!

We pretty much zonked out after that, knowing full well that tomorrow was a longer day.

Day 2

Up early, we descunged and headed off to breakfast an hour too early (I am sure she said 7:30am, not 8:30). The eccentric landlord kindly got Piotr's full English breakfast on the go while I sorted out my bowl of gallbladderless-safe muesli. It was chilly but I had packed an inexpensive down jacket I got from Decathlon. The landlord explained that many cyclists who do King Alfred's way (this part of the Ridgeway) treat it as something of a race and try and do the whole length in 3 days. I can understand wanting the challenge but you'd miss so much of the beauty doing that!

Almost straight away it was right up the hill onto the Ridgeway again. No rest for the wicked.

Another glorious day of sunshine, not too hot or cold but still lots of up and down along treacherous pathways. As we puffed our way up one hill, we saw signs for the Uffington White Horse we'd seen from the train. As we creseted the hill, we took a detour, walking our bikes as requested by a the Nation Trust signage. A Trust tour were at the trig point on top, one of the volunteers met us to thank us for walking our bikes. He said he would have had to tackle us otherwise but I think he just wanted a hug. We asked for directions to the horse and a couple of minutes later found ourselves looking out over the beautiful countryside. A passing dog walker helped with a photo.

We bashed on along the Ridgeway, up and down endlessly. Unsurprisingly, the top of the Ridgeway was not flat. We saw other groups of cyclists, mostly on full suspension mountain bikes, most waved back, all going much faster than us. These seemed more like day trippers than bike packers. We also saw elderly people on electric MTBs, which filled me with joy. That's my future. When I can't do this manually, I'll go electric. No shame in that, being old is adventure enough.

On one downhill section, Jolene's front wheel got stuck in a rut and as I tried to steer out of it, she went out from under me and I slammed down into the grassy central verge. Where Jolene had fallen onto one leg hurt a lot and I banged my cramp-injured calf on the frame. It hurt a lot but mostly through shock. I took ibuprofen, let the pain subside and 10 minutes after my tumble, we were back on our way. I got lucky, some of the slopes were chalk and flint, this one was grassy and earth. I was only doing 10-15km/h and it didn't hurt much after. My confidence was rattled, though, and I took the rest of the day with more care!

The views kept coming as started to think about lunch. We needed to get off the Ridgeway to do that and the Foinavon in Compton gave us that sense of a "random pub trip". It took an hour for them to serve us as they had an unexpected party but that was ok, we needed the rest. The burger was excellent.

Out of Compton it was up another evil hill, one so bad that I had to get off and push. I really needed a lower gear than I had. We saw a road cyclist going up it, taking it in his stride but this was nasty. Piotr managed to cycle up it, so fair play to him. I was tired by this point and although we were halfway, I was ready to be at home. One more short hill (that we both pushed up, it was a cliff) and it was home sailing. As we approached the bridge at Tidmarsh, it started to feel like home as we were about to intersect the last half of the Pangbourne loop that takes us pass the Cunning Man and into Reading.

Felt so good to pass Wilder's Folly, a love letter from Henry Wilder to Joan Thoyts. I got to roll out my joke about Piotr riding past it and not seeing it and we put heads down and blasted home along the flat.

We separate under Rose Kiln Lane bridge and I ploughed my last hills to home. I left the bike until the next day to derig, stretched off and then was jumped by Naomi, who wanted to play. Shower, changed and it was back to the grind.

Things I Learnt

• Need a suspension stem with a rise, I need to sit up more as I'm not comfy at all on the drops. I got one.
• Need a lower gear. To do.
• I got bored of nuts, get cereal bars and break them up
• Carry a little more trail food. Another 2 bars would do it.
• Use hydration tablet things in the water. Piotr had some and they were nice.
• Don't forget to pack lens cloths for cleaning sun glasses, the sweat made everything blurry.

Next Time

I'm itching to do another couple next year. I want to do at least one solo camping trip and another pub one. Probably going to make that shorter and open it up to more peeps now that we know what the situation is. Might also be able to do a 3 day ride one because Naomi is getting older and needs me less.