The Old Chalk Way
Being a northerner and living “up north” we don’t get to do much riding “darn sarf”, we did the King Alfred’s Way a few years ago and the Tour of the Cotswolds the following year, but apart from those, basically nothing. I’d got my eye on The Old Chalk Way, a route from Lyme Regis on the south coast to the Norfolk coast beyond King’s Lynn linking up a series of long distance paths and route. The main part of the route utilises The Ridgeway, supposedly the oldest road in Britain, and its many ancient monuments: barrows (mounds of earth); Silbury Hill (bigger mound of earth); Grim’s Ditch (really long mound of earth); neolithic forts (massive mounds of earth); stone circles (stones in a sort of round shape pattern); chalk figures (Thag Simmons was here) so plenty to have a look at.
With the near drought conditions for the last six weeks (this was 2025) or so there was little chance of it being a slop fest and being early in the year the underlying vegetation (nettles and brambles) wouldn’t be so bad.
An advantage of being (ahem) more senior is that with a railcard you get 30% off rail fares so I booked a journey from Skipton down to Axminster, the nearest station to Lyme Regis. Unfortunately this also meant having to cross London.
Having packed ready for the off on Friday morning we were having tea on Thursday evening when I wondered what the dog was doing - it turned out he’d grabbed my sunglasses off the table and was contentedly chewing them to destruction. Great, no sunglasses on a ride on a bright white surface.
Ride down to the station, hop on the train to Leeds, across a couple of platforms to get the LNER service to London Kings Cross. A pleasant couple of hours relaxing at 120 MPH through the English countryside (my god there’s a lot of flat) and then it’s London. “You can’t go on that underground line with a bike” Turns out you are only allowed on the older, shallower tube lines. Get the right one and trundle round to Westminster (note to everyone - the tube stinks), rather than figure out another journey to Waterloo it’s actually easier to just ride the bike over Westminster bridge to the station, the main problem being tourists taking selfies with Big Ben in the background.
Then it’s third train company of the day down to Axminster.
ImageRather than take the direct route to Lyme Regis I’d plotted a slightly more off-road version. Unfortunately I’d selected some footpaths. What the hell, I’d be able to drive along them in my van so I cracked on. A total of 10km and I was on the sea front and at the start of the route. I didn’t fancy hanging around - the place was full of tourists and it was 1700 so I’d about four hours of light left.
Getting out of LR was “fun” - my Garmin would bleep that I was off course and should turn round then moan that I still wasn’t on the route. I visited most of LR before it decided that “yes, the road you took the first time was the right one and I was just having fun with you”. There’s a big climb to begin with but at least it’s in the shade. The route is fairly easy to follow but I make one mistake in taking the wrong one of two parallel tracks, easy enough to correct.
There’s a lot of up and down. I walk the occasional steep loose section - I’m touring not racing. The coast is in view for much of the evening but becoming more distant. As the light begins to fade I start to look for somewhere to kip. I’ve decided that this is a hammocking trip so woods are a requirement. I find one and after a bit of scouting around there are a few pairs of trees at the right distance apart. Check Google maps and there’s a pub about a kilometre ahead so scoot along to that.
They stop serving food at 8:30pm and it’s 8:35pm. A bit of being nice and the kitchen will do mine as the last meal. Very nice (and expensive) it was too. Back to the wood and it’s now nearly dark.
It’s at this point that I remember it’s over a year since I actually used the hammock and I make the error of putting it up level. Consequently during the night I was slipping down to the foot end. Ho hum. By 5am it’s getting light but I lie in until 6. I put a brew on and start packing away the hammock stuff. By the time the water’s boiled I’m mostly packed and am just standing admiring the morning sun across the bluebells and flowering wild garlic when there’s a commotion and two deer come bounding through the wood passing straight between two of the trees I’d been considering last night. A minute later they return, obviously having seen me standing there and coming back to check what was new. They look at me from maybe five metres away before realising that this new “thing” was a “human” and they bounded away out of the wood.
ImageThe initial riding of the first full day was very up and down: no sooner had you reached the crest of a hill than you were hurtling down into the next valley.
After about an hour I reached Cerne Abbas and its famous chalk figure and his massive willy. I took possibly the worst photo ever of the giant - directly into the morning sun. Supposedly if you sit on the top of his phallus you’ll get pregnant. Frankly I couldn’t be arsed to head up there to verify this so it was onto the next hill.
ImageSeveral more hills, quite a few walked, and it was down to Blandford Forum. Quite why a place needs its own online discussion I’m not sure. Finally some easy riding along an old railway line and flat roads to Shaftsbury. I knew what was coming up: Gold Hill often known as Hovis Hill due to the bread advert from Scott Ridley of Alien fame. Very much a trick of the eye, it’s only about 150m long and gains 30m in altitude (info) - the lane up from our house is steeper. The surface is set stone and a bit uneven but it’s not that hard though I was puffing a bit at the top with a few “Well done” comments from tourists.
Lunch beckoned. I’d done 65km with 1200m of climbing. One slight problem was that I was running out of juice on my phone and hadn’t got the correct cable. Unfortunately no-one in the town sold them. Into power save mode then.
ImagePleasant lanes out of Shaftsbury continued eastward until: “It’s going up that isn’t it?”. Yep. I got off and pushed in the afternoon sun. Once on top came the payback - nearly 20km of very gentle downward gradient on easy tracks. Just before I reached the road I bumped into Faustas from the forum (BearBones not Blandford) and chatted for a few minutes. Then down into Wilton and a restocking before a long steady climb up into Grovely Wood and an amazing 3km avenue of trees that happens to follow the course of an old Roman road as well as Grim’s Ditch of which more later.
ImageBack down again - I know I lost all the height gain because I passed under the railway again - a nasty road crossing then a nice climb up onto Salisbury Plain and the approaches to Stonehenge.
ImageAt this point a couple of riders passed, in chatting it turned out they were local. I knew that the firing ranges were in use so asked about a decent pub on the diversion route. Recommendation received, it was into Larkhill and then a quiet main road to the pub.
The pizza was as good as suggested and the beers most welcome. Time to continue. I’d an idea that hammocking spots might be limited especially as I was heading back up onto the plain. The carb intake helped make the climb feel quite easy but as feared there was little woodland up here - what there was being mostly on military ground, definitely a no-no. As I was descending into the Vale of Pewsey I found a spot, a bit close to the vehicle track I was following (like two metres away) but it would have to do.
This time no mistake with setting up the hammock, plenty of light left in the day, so foot end 40cm higher than the head end. Only problem was that the adjacent wood was the roosting spot for the local crows who chatted way into the fading light.
ImageAfter a good night’s sleep the crows started chatting again. I was packed up and away by 0630. Easy riding through the vale got me onto known ground as the next section is mostly common with the King Alfred’s Way route. There’s a big tarmac pull to get out of the valley then a long grassy descent to Avebury. This is one of the larger stone circles in the UK and being before 8am on a Sunday morning there were no tourists around. Unfortunately that meant the shop was also shut. Onwards it was then.
Image ImageOnce on the ridgeway it was quick going and there were already quite a few walkers and cyclists about. At Barbury Fort the route deviated from the KAW to be more “gravel friendly” - this was mostly downhill and easy going. The routes joined up again a couple of km short of White Horse Hill. Once up this I detoured to take yet another crap shot of an ancient monument.
ImageThe dry weather had baked the ground dry. Unfortunately that also meant that whatever had last left an imprint in the mud was now baked in. Horse hoof prints! Jeez it were rough! As the day went on I was being passed by unladen bikers, no worries, I’m just touring. By now it’s getting hot - mid 20s plus the reflected heat off the white chalk. Hills came and went before the last climb of the section and a long descent to Goring on Thames and the chance for a cafe stop.
A cheeky request found that one of the kitchen staff had a charging cable that fitted my phone so a good excuse to linger, eating and drinking while the phone took on as much charge as possible. Even though it was now 1pm I ordered breakfast - well it looked good on the menu! It was good as well.
After filling up with water at the convenience store it was onward. A section winding alongside the river Thames lead to a main road crossing and an almost hidden “track” that turned out to be one of the best bits of riding yet. This was another part of Grim’s Ditch. The bottom section was too steep and rooty to ride but once higher up it levelled out and was great riding along a tree lined bank top. Eventually it had to end of course and was replaced by a long climb where I resorted to more walking.
Rolling terrain ensued that felt mostly downhill. At the edge of one field I came across a Red Kite. Now that isn’t unusual in itself since this area was one of the major reintroduction sites and you commonly see them in the skies scouting for scraps. This one however was on the ground and didn’t seem particularly concerned at my presence. Not sure if it was injured or protecting some carrion or other food resource it had found. I didn’t get too close and after the shot below left it alone.
ImageThe heat had finally got to me and I was struggling. The area was now much more populous and the route kept crossing roads. There were information boards, reading one I realised that the good bit of singletrack after Goring was the aforementioned Grim’s Ditch - really should have taken a shot, oh well.
Sitting on a park bench I decided I’d had enough of the heat and found a B&B before riding into Princes Risborough and getting the train home the following day.
Take two...
So I’d got a score to settle. Hmmm. For whatever reason I didn’t manage to get back that year and it was only when Cath suggested doing The Rebellion Way down in Norfolk in a shuttle fashion so that one of us could look after the dog that I thought that rather than doing that I could finish off the OCW. Great plan!
So with this year’s railcard I grabbed a ticket back to Princes Risborough to pick up where I left off. Of course the chosen dates coincided with the third heat wave of the year so I wasn’t going to escape the heat either.
Easy down to London, then a tour of the back streets to get across to Marylebone Station (mainly to avoid the very busy Euston/Marylebone road) which is when you realise that it isn’t just the Underground in London that stinks! I’ve a bit of time before the train out to Risborough so I grab something to eat.
A dive into the Co-op to get water and some last minute supplies then it’s a matter of picking up the route from the High Street. This is a long tarmac drag to get up onto the eastern side of the gap used by the railway. There follows a lovely descent through beech woods.
Eventually this lead to a rather busy road with a hidden escape - one of those small gaps in the hedgerow that faces the way you are riding so you don’t see it until it’s too late. What I didn’t realise about this next section is that it rides around the edges of the Checquers Estate so I was probably being tracked by some secretive service or similar.
Another drag of a road climb then a really great descent towards Wendover dropping into old sunken tracks and long lanes through woodland. The route popped out right next to the HS2 works and the line of the route was blocked. However it was easy enough to ride 100m north and follow the road round to the other side.
What goes down in this part of the world must go up and so it proved with another climb into Wendover Woods. I had considered this as somewhere to bivy but it’s full of activity things like Go-Ape and fitness trails so time to carry on. After another long descent I popped out onto a main road. And was thinking of hitting the filling station that I could see when I thought to try the pub, didn’t look open but looks can be deceiving and after a nice (and rather expensive) meal and a pint of lager shandy it was time for another climb.
This was considerably easier and put me on the last part of The Ridgeway heading towards Ivinghoe Beacon. I actually went past the end of the woods before deciding to backtrack to find a place to bivy. It was nicely secluded despite being only a few metres from the track which was still in use late into the evening.
While I had a gas stove with me due to the ongoing drought I didn’t intend to use it when camping - just in case. It was more for emergency use that I’d fire up in a car park or somewhere similarly non-flammable.
Oh, yeah. I picked a bivy spot underneath the approach path to Luton Airport!
Up and away by 0630 I’d got a couple of potential bivy spots to aim for. The first was at 100km. Now the end of The Ridgeway is pretty much the end of the main climbing on the route so even though I hadn’t done a big distance for over a year I wasn’t sure just how far I could ride.
A few hundred metres past my turn-around point last night and I was on the road at the end of The Ridgeway. Getting to Barnstable was easy going in the cool of the morning. The blurb on Bikepacking.com apologises for the route through Barnstable and Luton but it's actually pretty straightforward just following one of those guided bus routes before taking a main route out of Luton. Noisy but otherwise stress free. I grabbed breakfast at an M&S filling station on the edge of town.
From here the route takes a distinctly agricultural turn with the bridleways hugging the edges of wheat and sugar beet fields occasionally clipping the edges of villages. My next target was the town of Royston where I was looking for lunch.
It was just before Royston that I made my only route-finding error of the trip: riding on one of the few really, really busy roads the route takes you on I missed the crossing of both lanes to take “a track”. As a result I ended up on the town’s main bypass! Not good. I eventually got into town and found a café for lunch.
Now, prior to setting off I’d been having problems with my rear tyre - sometimes it would stay inflated for days, other times it would become flat in an hour or two. I then discovered I’d forgotten the charger cable for my pump (one of those new-fangled mini-pumps) so return to town and buy a new one. This turned out to be fortuitous.
Out of town and onto lanes, tracks and partially overgrown singletrack though the drought probably meant that they weren’t as bad as might be. It was here that I met the only other cyclists on the route, heading the other way, and eventually Land’s End. Given how down one of them looked I didn’t have the heart to tell them that they’d be facing long draggy climbs for just a short steep tarmac descent.
The next target was the village of Linton. This is the last on-route supply for some 60km so needed as much as possible. The climb out of the village was the only steep one on the route today and due to onset of cramp it was the only one I decided to walk. The remainder of the way to The King’s Forest felt decidedly downhill so maybe the two lads already knew their route direction error. Turning into the forest I hit sand!
The route blurb mentions this but it was a shock to get it metres off the tarmac. It was only shortish sections though and most of the route through the forest was on hard packed tracks. The “fun” started after the forest just after passing a pig farm when there was a good two kilometres of pushing the bike through deep sand both uphill and downhill.
This section ended up in what can be charitably called “a less well off estate”, a few “nice bike mate” type comments didn’t make me want to hang around. A while later there was a Tesco supermarket. I really needed to restock.
“Where is this mate?”
“Tescos”
“Errr, no. I meant the town. What’s it called?”
“Oh, Thetford”
I wasn’t going to stop here so rode on about ten km to find a spot in some woods. It had been a long day, 167km, my longest ride in three years or so. I was knackered.
I managed to do the opposite of last night and pick two trees too close together for my tarp. It was a fine night so I decided just to forego such niceties and crashed out looking up into the canopy. Just hoping that the squirrels didn’t decided to bombard me with acorns.
Apart from attacks of cramp! Not a restful night.
Another early start, again no cooking to avoid any fire risk, I hadn’t too far to go now, maybe 70km in total, and the going was pretty easy with long steady climbs on good surfaces.
Then things started to go pear-shaped. A pumping of the rear tyre and it was just a few km before it needed doing again. After a somewhat awful filling station breakfast near Swaffham I decided to fit the spare inner tube (the tyre was tubeless). This turned out to be a bit frustrating as having got the tyre off and checked for thorns, I couldn’t undo the valve! Eventually using a hack of the chain-tool fitting the valve core I managed to get it removed and the inner fitted and inflated.
The next village, Castle Acre, had a nice looking café so time to stop. A while later a group of cyclists appeared: “Is that your bike? The back tyre is flat as a pancake”
Grrr. Cath was on her way down and only an hour away so I called in the cavalry.
Summary & Postscript
The route is definitely one of two halves and my efforts pretty much aligned with those: a lot of climbing in the western half, very little in the east. With one exception all the climbs after Linton were in the big ring, so very gentle riding.
| Strava | Start | Finish | Distance (km) | Elevation (m) | Riding time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Lyme Regis | Evershot | 55 | 1300 | 4:05 |
| Day 2 | Evershot | Charlton St Peter | 138 | 2100 | 9:50 |
| Day 3 | Charlton St Peter | Princes Risborough | 125 | 1440 | 9:20 |
| Day 4 | Princes Risborough | Ivinghoe Beacon | 33 | 650 | 2:40 |
| Day 5 | Ivinghoe Beacon | Bridgeham | 167 | 1440 | 11:10 |
| Day 6 | Bridgeham | Castle Acre | 43 | 320 | 2:55 |
| Totals | 551 | 7250 | 40:00 | ||
If it hadn’t been so hot on The Ridgeway it’s likely that I would have got to the bivy spot at Ivinghoe Beacon that day, I’d pretty much stopped riding by around 1600 so plenty of daylight left. Whether I could then have done the 167km to Bridgeham the next day is possible but equally possible that it is unlikely.
While I wasn’t rushing, equally I wasn’t hanging around but each day did have a considerable amount of stopped time wandering off to take photos or having lunch etc. - the three long days each had three hours or so of stopped time. I generally rode at a steady pace that I thought I could maintain for the duration and without messing me up for the days ahead. The remaining 32km or so from Castle Acre to the sea would have taken a little over two hours.
The above “six days” which are really 3 days and 3 part days are effectively four. An early start from Lyme Regis would put the bivvies at different points, maybe Salisbury, Goring and Linton.
An extra day would make things very relaxed but might lead to a bivy in the long empty section between Linton and Thetford. Bikepacking.com give six days for the route but their timings are always on the generous side.
Kit
The bike was a Cannondale Topstone gravel bike with 39c tyres. This felt more than enough bike to handle the terrain, just under half the route is on road so anything more is just going to slow you down on those bits. There’s very little “technical” riding but if you come to something like this from road biking you might be a little phazed.
Hammocking is a good option and definitely worth considering. For someone used to the sparsely wooded north there are a surprising number of woods and copses along the route though the area between Goring and Luton feels very close to urban centres. You just have to be prepared to stop earlier than might be thought and scout out potential spots.
Bags were a pair of 5L bags in Gorilla Cages on the forks. These held well and didn’t unmount at any time. The hammocking kit went in these.
A Wildcat Ocelot partial frame bag held most of the food plus stove and gas. Out back a Wildcat seat harness with a 5L tapered dry bag held my clothes plus things I wasn’t going to need through the day like powerbank batteries.
Finally I had a Camelbak with a 2L water bladder. Given the heat and potential for long distances between resupply this turned out to be a good decision. Some days saw three refills.