Great rides: Bikepacking made e-asier

Let’s get away for another long weekend this year,” my sister Jenny suggested. We’ve hiked through the Peak District before but didn’t want to repeat that. As I’d recently bought an e-bike, I voted we try bikepacking. We’ve both cycled a lot but never on a multi-day trip. One of Cycling UK’s long-distance routes would be a great opportunity to test my e-bike – and ourselves. Jenny could hire an e-bike. 

We settled on Rebellion Way, the 373km (232 miles) route around Norfolk. We know the area pretty well already, so it felt like a safe introduction to bikepacking. Rebellion Way is supposed to take five-to-seven days and we only had three, but surely on e-bikes we could whizz round? I did some longer distance trial runs and realised that 80 miles in a day was ludicrous for us. We would scale it back to no more than 50. That meant some tweaks to the route: we’d skip the bottom section and only do the bits we were most interested in.

Sun, trees and sand

The forecast for the spring bank holiday at the end of May was spectacular: three days of sun. With our mother’s warnings of extreme heat in Norfolk in our ears, I bought one of those little caps that go under your helmet to keep the sun off your face. That would do the trick… 

Carrying enough snacks to last us a week and lots of water, we set off from Brandon Country Park with our support crew/driver (my husband). He was doing the first 15 miles with us on his gravel bike before turning round and returning home. It was beautiful in the forest and the riding was flat and easy. 

The forest lasted for much of the first half of the day. It was glorious: shady trails; great coffee; and lots of friendly cyclists and walkers. Then we hit ‘the sand’. Having burned out my motor a few weeks earlier on a sandy heath in Suffolk, I cautiously made us walk. It wasn’t pleasant but thankfully didn’t last too long, as e-bikes laden with panniers are not what you’d call ‘lightweight’. 

Back on the road, we bowled into Swaffham to be confronted by market day. We found our intended café and, a little dazed from the sudden hustle and bustle and low on blood sugar, we ordered the first thing on the menu: the Rebellion Way Toastie. We were kindly allowed to plug in our batteries. 

Feeling deflated 

Suitably revived, we set off for our afternoon’s journey north to the sea. We diverted from Rebellion Way to visit the village where our grandparents lived. From there almost all the way to Heacham we were on a 12−mile-long mostly unpaved track. Off-road riding is rather bumpy when your bike is heavily laden, requiring lots of concentration to avoid sharp stones, holes and sandy patches. Disaster struck. With about 10 miles to go, I noticed that my back wheel kept sliding about. I had a flat tyre. 

As we were in the middle of nowhere, we had no choice but to try to patch it up. We couldn’t get the wheel off with our little multitool, but managed to pull out a thorn and then remove and patch just that section of tyre. Then we had an almighty battle to get the tyre back on. Much swearing was done. We pumped up the tyre, proud of ourselves for completing the task… and then watched as the pressure started seeping back down again. 

Too tired to go through it all again, we continued on to Heacham, stopping every mile to pump up the tyre – until the pump seemed to give up and I began losing more precious air than I was putting in. I mentally calculated how far I could walk if I had to. In the end, the slowly softening tyre held up long enough to get us to the hotel by 6pm. We settled down with cold drinks and good food, steeling ourselves to deal with the problem the next morning. 

After a hot, anxious night, I rushed to the nearby bike hire place next morning. The woman behind the desk had no idea about bikes; she was running the golf shop and would be on her own all day. Reluctantly, I did the one thing I didn’t want to do: I asked my husband for help. He sweetly loaded up the car with the proper tools and drove nearly two hours to mend my bike for me. After a pause for a coffee, he sent us on our way and then drove all the way home again. What a legend! 

National Trust, proper teas 

Having lost both time and our desire to ride on gravel tracks, we shortened our route and removed most of the off-road sections. It was still a lovely journey. We cycled past the impressive Holkham Hall. At Wells next-the-Sea we stopped at a nice pub for lunch and a recharge (us and batteries). Then we rode through many pretty villages to finish the day in Sheringham, where our youth hostel and a pub overlooking the sea awaited us. 

Day three dawned with a hearty breakfast. We were keen to see what the next section of the trip would bring. That turned out to be an immediate off-road, uphill section that was so steep we both had to get off and push. Even MAX POWER couldn’t haul us up. We were rewarded with the most beautiful downhill section through rhododendron-studded woodland, where we didn’t have to pedal at all for a couple of miles. 

The rest of the morning was lovely. We passed Felbrigg and Blickling Halls, then stopped at a National Trust tearoom for an early lunch. (It’s compulsory to stop at a National Trust tearoom.) Arriving at Aylsham, we were looking forward to the Bure Valley Path, an eight-mile stretch of cycle track running beside a small steam railway. 

We got to see a lot of the steam train as we played tag with it along the way. It would stop; we would stop. I did a lot of waving to the passengers, and the driver blew the whistle for me. 

Narrow trails and Broads 

The only fly in our beautiful Norfolk ointment was that both our bikes had wide handlebars – almost too wide for the Bure Valley Path, which is lined with wire fencing. One false move and your bar is lodged in the wire. We both ended up in the fence, with scrapes and bruises to show for it. 

Jenny managed to dislodge her chain. We just could not get it back on. Possibly it was because we were too dripping with sweat in the midday sun to see what we were doing. I accosted a man out for a ride with his family and asked him to help. Covered in chain oil and with only a wet wipe for his troubles, he fixed it and then rode away through the heat haze to catch up with his family. 

After a while, the path switched to the other side of the train track and was much wider, so we had a more relaxed pootle down to Wroxham, which was very busy on the sunniest bank holiday Monday ever. The Broads were chocka with people messing about on the water. We stopped to take in the views down at Salhouse Broad. It was fun to watch the novice boaters tackle steering. No judgement from us after our Bure Valley mishaps! 

All too quickly, we were onto the home stretch. After more quiet country lanes, watching wildlife and nattering, we rolled into our final pub stop for a celebratory pint. This last stretch felt bittersweet, knowing our glorious tour of Norfolk would soon end. We were looking forward to a rest, but neither of us really wanted to leave our new life on the road. That’s the best way to finish an adventure: wanting more.