2020 has been the summer of staycations for us along with many others, so I was looking for some adventure closer to home. The ‘adventure on your doorstep’ variety rather than ‘adventure begins at the edge of your comfort zone’ kind.
The South Downs Way was the first long distance footpath on bridleways in the UK (meaning you could legally ride a bike on all of it) and runs from Winchester to Eastbourne. It covers 160km, mainly off-road, with about 3500m of ascent in total. In these Covid times we didn’t want to be stuck in Eastbourne looking for accommodation having missed the last train home, nor indeed did we relish the the idea of getting on a busy evening train. And so the plan was hatched for a two day bike-packing trip to ride the trail and then cycle back home to London, off road as much as possible.
Martin did a great job with the internet research and found a way home that linked up the Cuckoo Trail (from Eastbourne to Heathfield) with part of the ‘Avenue Verte’ London to Paris route (from Heathfield to Wimbledon). Neither of us had any bike-packing experience but through a combination of common sense, bivvying experience from mountaineering and luck we didn’t make any major mistakes… so I haven’t been able to call this post ‘5 Rookie Bike-Packing Mistakes’ as I originally intended! Conditions for our ride were almost perfect. The trails were dry – they become a combination of quagmire and ice rink when it rains – it wasn’t too hot, and there was a light tailwind.
The rest of this post contains photos that tell the story of our ride and finishes with some practical tips.
This map shows the route of the trail though while riding we used a excellent ‘paper’ map (Harveys South Downs Way map). Although you could follow the signs (which are at every junction) or a GPS route, I really enjoyed being able to read the map and see where we were on the trail.
The South Downs Way starts in Winchester at the statue of Alfred The Great, King of Wessex. We caught the 5.43am train from Wimbledon and had found the statue, taken photos and were ready to start the trail proper at 6.54am!
The initial section of the trail was easy riding by fields of wheat and barley with early morning long shadows. Beautiful. This was taken 18km in, at the top of the first proper hill we climbed, Beacon Hill.
I had punctured in the section before Beacon Hill. To my consternation, the small hole in the tyre squirted out air rather than sealant. I had filled up the tyre with sealant about 2 months previously so I didn’t understand what had happened. There must have been some sealant in there as the hole eventually stopped hissing and after pumping the tyre back up to pressure it seemed okay. I added some extra air in the tyre on Beacon Hill and everything was good for a few more hours… (Thanks to Martin for this and the other photos of me.)
There are some steep climbs in the trail and the first one was Old Winchester Hill, pictured above. The SDW heads to the right here. However, we were following a runner who had been ahead of us since Beacon Hill and missed the signage. Instead we went directly up the hill – it did seem odd that there were some signs saying ‘No Mountain Bikes’ but we figured they related to downhill mountain bikers! For our reward we were given a steep tree root covered ascent (nasty) which lead to the the foundations of an old fort on the top of the hill which made the effort of the climb worthwhile.
We eventually caught the runner at the bottom of the next descent, almost 30km into the trail. He’d stayed ahead of us for about 10km! We had a chat with him as he was about to turn around and head for home. In the past he’d run the whole SDW which had taken 17 hours. Given that his Saturday morning training run was a 60km round trip he clearly had some ultra-running talent.
Our plan had been to get moving quickly and not stop for breakfast until the Queen Elizabeth Park where we’d read there was a good café. Martin is descending down towards the A3 road in this picture and the cafe is located on the other side of the road. It did not disappoint with us both ordering bacon, sausage and mushroom muffins. There are some mountain bike trails in the forest above the café which looked worth checking out another time.
We were riding the SDW on 1 August which was the day of the 2020 Strade Bianche professional road race which was taking place on the gravel roads of Tuscany. The white tracks on this section of the trail reminded me of the race and by strange coincidence the distance that we rode on our first day (135km) was almost exactly the same the women’s pro race.
The section of the trail which took us to the River Arun was I think the most scenic. There was a combination of grassy hills, farmland and forest, with views down into picturesque villages. Not long before this point we could see a cyan coloured spire gleaming in the sun to our left which I later read it was the copper spire of the church in South Harting.
The crops in the fields seemed just about ready to harvest.
I think this is wheat, but it could be barley… or perhaps something else.
After crossing the River Arun, where we had a bite to eat in the Amberley Tea Rooms, we climbed over the next two hills to the River Adur, where this picture was taken. My rear tyre started going flat again and required pumping every 10 minutes or so. As we weren’t too far from the Adur we decided to try and make it there, put the tyre in the river and find the source of the leak that way. Unfortunately the river was tidal with 5 metres of steep mud to cross to reach the water. So we abandoned that plan and luckily I managed to locate the leak which we then plugged. Other then my tyre randomly going flat once the following day that was our last puncture-related issue.
After the Adur the kilometres started to drag. It seemed to take an age to get from the Adur (at 100km) to Ditchling Beacon at c.118km. Our batteries were running low approaching the Beacon – well known to anyone who has completed the London to Brighton bike ride – but after it we felt more energetic. I’m not sure if that was due to stopping for a few minutes or the fact that we knew we were now going beyond our target for the day. We had figured that we needed to reach at least Ditchling Beacon to have any chance of being able to finish the trail and ride back to London the following day.
By now it was 12 hours since we had left Winchester. We knew we had to stop near a tap for our bivvy and we could see on the map a potentially promising spot in the village of Southease which was in the valley ahead of us in this photo. (Our map had all the taps marked on it which was very useful although they weren’t all accessible as some were in campsites that were closed.)
We found the tap in Southease and by good fortune it was a perfect place to cook dinner. No-one came by whilst we were cooking, we were sheltered from the wind and it was such a quiet spot that we contemplated sleeping in the graveyard of the church!
We used an MSR Pocket Rocket burner on a 100g Jetboil canister. It worked well though was not the most stable set up.
I introduced Martin to the wonder food that is Korean instant noodles (almost 500 calories per packet). This was complemented with some gourmet ingredients that we had carried with us. Porcini mushrooms, seaweed, fried tofu and canned line-caught tuna. Tasty. After dinner we found a good bivvy stop nearby on a path parallel to and on the east side of the main road from Southease to the neighbouring village of Rodmell. We had time for a pint in the garden of the Abergavenny Arms in Rodmell. We were the only customers on a Saturday night… the sad impact of Covid-19. Then we rode back to our bivvy spot got ready for sleeping. There was a full moon that was so bright that we did everything by moonlight which was magical.
The night passed without any incident, rain being the thing most on our minds, and we woke feeling pretty refreshed at 5.20am the next day. Breakfast was powdered cappuccino and instant oats with some added raisins. For reference our 100g canister contained enough gas to boil 6 pans of 750ml and simmer three of those for about 4 minutes (for cooking our various noodle courses).
We freshened up back at the tap at the church in Southease and set off at 7.50am for the final 25km of the trail.
This is looking back towards Southease which is in the copse at about 1 o’clock to the big barn in centre of the picture.
We now began to see more glimpses of the English Channel. This was taken on Firle Beacon with the town behind Martin being Newhaven.
The final 25km of the trail remained challenging. The climbs weren’t that steep but were long and unrelenting, like the above ascent of Wilmington Hill, the penultimate climb.
The SDW ends by the Kiosk Café in Eastbourne. Funnily enough, the only time we lost the trail was on the very final descent down to the café where we ended up following a path the ended in a steep rooty section that we had to carry our bikes down!
By now it was just just after 10am, the perfect time for a second breakfast. This egg and bacon panini was delicious. I would have gladly had another but as we still had 135km to ride home we decided to push on.
Eastbourne looked attractive with impressive Victorian-era hotels on the seafront Grand Parade and a dip in the sea looked almost tempting. For us though the beachfront promenade was just a stepping stone to the Easbourne end of the Cuckoo Trail. This followed a disused railway to Heathfield. From there we picked up the Avenue Verte which we found followed National Cycle Network Route 21 for most of its length with the occasional diversion onto Route 20. There were two more long gravel sections on disused railways plus a small amount on proper off-road trails and some quiet roads (about a third of the route was on the road). It’s probably best described as a voyage of discovery. I’m sure we could have ridden back on the road in not much more than half the time. However, whilst there were a couple of times where we wondered what we were doing following such a convoluted route, for example when we lost the trail in the Gatwick Airport ‘Staff B Car Park’, there were plenty of cool things to compensate. I enjoyed passing by Harrisons Rocks (one of the few places you can rock climb in the south-east and somewhere where I’ve spent many a day) and swooping down into Cousldon (an outer suburb of London) from Farthing Downs.
Just after Redhill we left Route 21 for good and followed Route 20 all the way back to Wimbledon. As the sign above shows, the Avenue Verte is also clearly shown on all the route markers. We continued to weave our way through sections of forest and park even once we were will within the built up part of London, and a final highlight for me was the last 10km which followed the Wandle River almost all the way home.
Practical Information
Our riding stats were as follows.
Day 1: 135km, 2650m ascent, 9.13 riding time, 12.21 elapsed time, 14.6kph. Our two café stops took just over an hour so I’m not sure where the other 2 hours of non-moving time went. There were certainly lots of gates to open and shut which would have used up a chunk of it. But being actually moving for about 75-80% of the elapsed time seems a good rule of thumb if one is stopping at cafés and taking lots of photos.
Day 2: 159km, 1700m ascent, 9.03 riding time, 11.43 elapsed time, 17.5kph. Finishing the last 25km of the South Downs Way (c.700m ascent) took 2 hours riding time and 2.20 elapsed time.
And in terms of the kit we packed, the only thing that was missing was some spare sealant. What was a bit annoying was that some friends who had ridden the trail the weekend before had given me the advice to take some sealant… but when I was packing my kit I couldn’t fit in the container and was too lazy to transfer it to a smaller receptacle.
My bike with all my kit, including two litres of water, weighed 20kg. We each had a short thermarest, a bivvy bag, a lightweight sleeping back and a light puffer jacket. With the warm weather we would have been okay with just one of the last two items. I also packed a spare pair of bib shorts and socks; perhaps that was unnecessary luxury but it felt good to put on some clean shorts on Day 2.
Coda: South Downs Way in a Day
Four weeks later I was again waiting for the 5.43am train. This time it was just me and my trusty full-sus Scott Spark RC. I was planning on completing the trail in a day but things didn’t get off to a good start. There had been some heavy bursts of rain in the preceding few days and I overheard the platform guard telling another cyclist, also heading to the South Downs Way, that a land-slip had closed the section of line that ran to Winchester. The train took us to Southampton and we caught a taxi to the King Alfred Statue but the rigmarole meant I did not set off until around 8.05am, over an hour later than I planned to get started.
It meant that any coffee and food stops were out. Luckily though I was carrying a lot of food in my backpack, most of which I ate. In total: 3 BelVita breakfast bars, 5 Nutri-Grain raisin bakes, 6 mini pork pies, 6 kabanos (mini Polish sausages), 2 homemade sandwiches and, in terms of maximum impact for gramme, a big packet of peanut M&Ms.
What a difference four weeks makes. Everything looked bleaker. Instead of golden fields of wheat and barley there was now jagged stubble. The rain meant some of the trails in the first half of the trail were muddy, though not luckily not unrideable. The sky was battleship grey for most of the day and a strong northerly wind assailed me. Thankfully it was mainly as a cross and occasionally tailwind. The air temperature was around 10 degrees in the morning and it was cold enough that I only took off my leg warmers at around 3pm when the sun started to make an appearance.
This is the same place where the photo of me in the wheat/barley field was taken.
Aside from a couple of minor route-finding errors everything else went well. I only stopped to eat, fill up water bottles and open and close gates. I pushed harder on the pedals than previously, meaning that after 4 to 5 hours I started to feel properly tired. The toughest section, which is relentlessly up and down, was between the River Adur (at 100km) and Ditchling Beacon (at 116km). After that I felt stronger – maybe it was those M&Ms – and I made it to Eastbourne at around 6.40pm. The Kiosk cafe was closed so I rode straight to the station and caught the 7.06 train home.
The weather brightened up in the last couple of hours of my ride. As I rode towards Eastbourne the final few kilometres, I could see the town spread before catching the evening sun.
Ride stats from my Garmin were 10.36 elapsed time, 9.28 ride time, 160km covered, 17.0kph average speed and 3330m of ascent. I had three sit down stops at the Adur, Ditchling Beacon and Southease, totalling about 25-30 minutes so that leaves about 35 minutes of ‘dead’ time which I would have struggled to reduce much further.
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