Great rides: Riding into cycling history

King Alfred’s Way is five years old this year and already looks like a bikepacking must-do: Cycling UK’s guide for it has been downloaded 50,000 times. The 350km loop of southern England uses off-road trails, taking in diverse landscapes and 10,000 years of history.

There is a nominal start at the eponymous monarch’s statue in Winchester, but I decided to begin at Swindon, an £11 train ride from home. Not wishing to rush, I scheduled six days and divided up the journey using the Cycling UK guidebook to plan accommodation.

Blue skies, bad bearings

As I pushed off from the kerb at Swindon, I was feeling confident. The first pedal rotation was met with a sharp click as my right foot passed the three o’clock mark. Then again. And again.

The pedals were new. My decision not to change the bottom bracket was looking like a mistake… As there was no play in the cranks, I continued – with fingers metaphorically crossed.

I joined King Alfred’s Way by a battered sign identifying the Ridgeway and the distances in either direction. I began a slow, clicking climb. Swathes of hawthorn blossom flanked the trail. Birdsong became audible, skylarks arpeggio-ing as they flickered into the sky, a yellowhammer offering his ‘little-bit-of-bread-and-no-cheese’.

The first landmark was Wayland’s Smithy. Supposedly the workshop of the Saxon god of metal working, it’s a 5,000-year-old barrow, shaped like an inverted ship’s hull. I walked around it, before crawling inside to feel the damp stone under my knees.

Back on the trail, a hare padded out into the centre of the path, looking me in the eye for a second before loping off into the hedge. It capped a fine day’s cycling, despite a bike that had begun clunking instead of clicking.

At YHA Streatley, I phoned AW Cycles in Caversham and explained my predicament. “Call in first thing – I’m sure we’ll be able to help,” I was told.

Benevolent bike shops

I was on the Thames Path by 8am. The first swallows of the trip were swooping around meadows where well-groomed horses grazed. By 9.15am I’d reached AW Cycles and by 9.35am my bike had a new bottom bracket.

Thanking them, I slipped down a side road to rejoin the trail. Four hours later, I was pedalling up a country lane when I felt my left foot move at an erratic angle. The crank was loose. I stopped, knowing that to lose the bolt would be a disaster. It was gone.

I freewheeled back a mile to look for it. No joy. I thought about phoning my father for a rescue but there was no signal. Surely Fleet would have a bike shop? I began a 10km walk.

Pedal Heaven was buzzing with a Pinarello demonstration day. The sight of a cyclist crank arm in hand was met with sympathy and a cup of coffee. The diagnosis was worn splines.

A new bolt was Loctited into position and I was back on the road with a promise of a five-star Google review and my dad undisturbed. The bunkhouse at Puttenham provided a decent mattress, a hot shower and a good kitchen.

Sun, sand and sea

Day three began in beech woods. “This is the best section of the route,” a fitter cyclist shouted as he disappeared up the hill in front of me.

There are various points on the map where you might be tempted to miss a section. Don’t do it. Frensham Common is such a detour but it’s there for a reason: it is a site of Special Scientific Interest with sweeping views.

The stones were visible from half a mile away, contrasting against the greens and the white of the local landscape

 

Just be aware that sections of the trail are a soft sand that beaches would envy – a feature responsible for my only tumble of the trip.

At the Devil’s Punchbowl, I took my coffee break and enjoyed the view among hundreds of day-trippers and motorcyclists, who buzzed like wasps along the byways. I reached the South Downs Way that afternoon, grateful for the National Trail way-marking. At the summit near South Harting, I looked out over the English Channel.

Monarchs and monuments

Opening the tent in the early morning, a barn owl was making one final pass of the hedge before heading home. The South Downs Way takes the route closest to the hilltops except where it plunges into valleys, necessitating a gravelly scramble up the other side.

On Twyford Down I paused to view Winchester. Traffic on the M3 roared as I dropped down from the bucolic wonders of chalk grassland into the clamour of urban life. King Alfred stands victorious above his city’s main street; I leant the bike and took pictures.

King’s Somborne proudly declares its association with John of Gaunt, but I was more interested in its yew trees. Dozens of ancient specimens mark boundaries, their role long forgotten.

In chalk-stream country, away from the hills, fast-moving bodies of water moved across white beds of stone, green weed pulled taut like linen on freshly made beds. Dinner was locally caught wild trout.

Stone circles and firing ranges

Near Old Sarum I heard the two-tone proclamation of the first cuckoo of the year. There are two possible routes here: via Amesbury or a byway through Stonehenge. Although I would have to cross the A303, I decided to visit the World Heritage Site. I rode up a trail that climbs a valley to the stones.

Tumuli were scattered in all directions. Half a dozen lapwings took to the sky. The stones were visible from half a mile away, contrasting against the greens and the white of the local landscape.

The scene quivered with thousands of tourists decanted from coaches. I crossed the road carefully, looking forward to a time that a better junction can be created.

At Bustard Junction, I looked unsuccessfully for the eponymous world’s heaviest flying bird, which lives near here. I settled for my first house martin instead.

A notice warning of a military road closure proved an unnecessary anxiety; the route turned off just ahead of the red barrier. I pedalled alongside warning signs and the ominous red flags that characterise much of Salisbury Plain.

Wet weather and the way home

The sodden tent was strapped to the top tube one last time, and I made an early start along the Imber Range Path. This vast military area is the reason that there is an expanse of white on the map. The village of Imber lies at its centre, emptied of its inhabitants in 1943.

I turned onto the Ridgeway, following its signs back to where I started. Miles of gravel roads followed the summit as I progressed towards the final monument: Avebury stone circle.

Less famous than Stonehenge, it is bigger, quieter and has none of the restrictions, allowing you to walk among its stones. Sightseers who had ventured out today were soon beaten back to their vehicles or nearby cafés by the rain.

The climb out of Avebury is rutted and steep. I was glad when the sky cleared and I could lose a layer. A benevolent south-westerly wind had been following me all morning and pushed me up the last few climbs. When Swindon at last came into view, I checked the train times home.