Great rides: Chiltern thrills – riding Royal Chilterns Way

How many times can a group of cyclists stop for coffee on a ride? We were going to find out. On the first day of our trip, sun high in the sky above us, we were already on our fourth.

“I can’t believe we’ve only managed 17 miles,” said Sven. “That can’t be right!”

“We’ve been riding for hours,” Claire added.

Harley, our coffee-finder-in-chief, savoured his flat white and frowned at the Garmin. Somehow we’d spent more time sipping than cycling. We were seriously behind schedule. Perhaps, I thought, this route was going to be more challenging than we had anticipated.

Chalk hills and woodland

Royal Chilterns Way is the seventh route in Cycling UK’s Adventure Series. It’s around 280 kilometres long, weaving a helix shape around the Chilterns. It starts in Reading, heads north and calls in at a number of towns along the way.

Max Darkins, one of the route’s designers, told me that this was deliberate. He wanted the route to have a variety of access points, so riders could break it down easily if they wanted to. After all, not everyone has the time or energy to tackle 280km and 3,500 metres in one go.

The route consists of three loops, with the southernmost – around 70km long – starting and finishing in Reading. The middle section is roughly 100km, and has various access points, including High Wycombe and Princes Risborough. The final, northern loop travels 100km through Wendover, Amersham and Berkhampsted.

In total, the route passes 13 train stations and two London Underground stations. It is therefore easy to split up the route and ride it over several weekends, or just do one sample loop. The aim of this, Max said, is to help make the route more accessible to those who are new to off-road riding and multiday adventures.

I rode Royal Chilterns Way with a group of six friends over the August bank holiday weekend. It was boiling hot and hadn’t rained for months, so the grasses were bleached yellow and the exhausted trees were already dropping their leaves.

These conditions made the trails on the route dry, dusty and fast, although the bumpy bridleways did speak of deep mud in the wetter months.

The dry nature of the trails meant we whipped around the route in three days. We rode a mixture of bikes: hybrids, gravel bikes and hardtail mountain bikes.

Gravel bikes are perfect for this route as we encountered nothing hugely technical. However, some of the steeper sections and roots do make it useful to have wider tyres and lower gears, which not all gravel bikes are equipped with.

Day one: a slow start in the sun

We set off from Reading on the deceptively gentle start to the route, which goes along the Thames towpath. Pretty soon, though, we zipped off up the first of the route’s many hills. Although none of those hills is higher than 250 metres, the accumulation of climbing over each day is more of a challenge than we expected.

We ambled up and down pleasant, forested tracks that took us to our first coffee stop in Henley-on-Thames, where a baker’s dozen of eateries selling sourdough bread encouraged us to stop and take in the bunting-clad town.

The whole route offers an abundance of opportunities to buy fresh coffee, sandwiches, lunchtime shandies and emergency ice creams. There were, in fact, so many excellent places to stop, we found ourselves pausing every few miles.

We joked that this wasn’t quite so much a cycling tour of the Chilterns as an eating tour. Which was why, after a dairy-heavy lunch at The Cheese Shed in Nettlebed, we were shocked to realise we’d only managed 17 miles that morning. We would have to knuckle down and ride hard to reach our destination that evening.

Going north, we followed the Icknield Way and the Ridgeway along gentle rises, marvelling at how many beautiful trails there are across the landscape here. I loved this part of the route: the trails were easy to ride, well maintained and quiet, with green views over Oxfordshire.

There was then a climb over Stokenchurch Gap, followed by our last of the day: Whiteleaf Hill. It is surprisingly steep. We ended up having to push because it was so rooty. The view from the top was worth the slog: a golden patchwork of fields and villages stretching away to the horizon.

We spent the night in Great Missenden, staying at the beautiful abbey that’s been converted into a hotel. There’s a great pizza restaurant in town, and a Roald Dahl Museum to visit. We opted to watch the sunset in the walled gardens of the abbey, eating our pizzas and massaging sore legs.

Day two: bike repairs and big skies

On the second day we suffered a series of mechanicals. We should have ridden from Great Missenden up to the northernmost point of the route, then back to Amersham. We ended up shortening the route around Ivinghoe Beacon.

Luckily, it’s quite easy to factor in shortcuts on Royal Chilterns Way. The route loops over itself a few times, so you can cut off sections as you need to. There are also lots of stations nearby if you need a rail-assisted solution.

Our first incident occurred only a few miles into the day. Sven’s chain snapped. Luckily, it happened almost next door to OTEC Bikes and the Buckmoorend Farm Shop.

The bike shop’s mechanic whipped a new link into the chain in minutes, while the rest of us petted the farm sheep and enjoyed the farm-shop coffee. It’s a great place to stop, with a commanding view of Chequers, the Prime Minister’s country estate. We imagined every helicopter flying overhead had Keir Starmer aboard.

The next mechanical came just a short ride later, on a quiet section of towpath beside the Grand Union Canal. Harry’s aged pannier fell apart at the seams. We spent a lot of time patching it with tape.

Behind schedule, I suggested we take what looked like a shortcut. This turned out to be a bad decision: the shortcut I’d spotted headed deep into spiky thorn trees. Soon we were literally bushwhacking.

Half an hour later, we emerged from the brambles, covered in scratches and sporting several punctures. My lesson from this was to stay on the route!

It was 3pm and we’d managed a paltry 20 miles. We had a late lunch at Ivinghoe and decided to shorten the day’s ride. Instead of going all the way to Dunstable Downs, we crossed the Chilterns to Little Gaddesden instead. I’m glad we did or we would have been out riding until dark.

Happy with our detour over Beacon Hill, we were treated to spectacular views as far as the white chalk lion of Whipsnade Zoo. We then re-joined the path in the resplendent Ashridge Estate. The section of bridleway here was fun, fast and dusty.

We passed through lovely villages like Latimer, with gorgeous mediaeval cottages and tiny churches. Rolling into Amersham old town as the sun was setting, we were wowed by the ancient high street. We stayed in the 15th-century Kings Arms Hotel, a half-timbered pub, and ate our fill at the Indian restaurant around the corner.

Day three: more ups than downs

The final day highlighted how hilly the route is in places. With constant undulations up and down, it felt like we were riding across rolling waves in the landscape. It was exhausting but satisfying.

We passed through another National Trust estate, Hughenden Manor, pedalling beneath quiet beech woods, where ferns were already turning the burnt orange of autumn. Royal Chilterns Way takes in a lot of historic buildings and estates, offering beautiful backdrops and interesting places to stop if you have the time.

Spectacular chalk trails took us to Turville, a picturesque 15th-century village where The Vicar of Dibley was filmed. The day was very hot by this time, so we had a breather in the shadow of Turville’s church to cool down.

In stifling 30ºC heat, we coasted down and sweated up some serious hills back towards Reading. At last we reached the Thames, where we finished our ride with a gloriously cooling dip.

Royal Chilterns Way is a gem. I was impressed by how many lovely trails were linked together. Even though we were never far from towns and cities, much of the ride felt rural and remote. Because it incorporates long sections of the Ridgeway and the Chilterns Cycleway, you spend only about a third of the distance on road.

Even though the route feels off the beaten track, it’s been designed to pass by lots of local businesses. You’ll encounter thatched pubs with flower-filled gardens, farm shops full of local produce, cafés and restaurants with good food and proper coffee, and lots of places to stay.

A tent and cooking gear are strictly optional. There are plenty of National Trust properties, vineyards and cycle shops along the way, too.

I can see this route becoming a classic, like King Alfred’s Way. It has a little something for everyone. A word of warning, however: you probably won’t have time to stop at every coffee shop along the way!