King Alfred’s Way Adventure

My friend Laura and I have been discussing doing the off road King Alfred’s Way since its launch by We Are Cycling UK in August last year, but you know Covid and all that jazz. Anyway after much discussion we decided to put a date in and at the weekend we set off to see what all the buzz about King Alfred’s Way was about.

We are Cycling UK

The lovely people over at We Are Cycling UK not only have all the information you need on their website, they have the GPX to download and a Facebook group to join for anything and everything you might need! Honestly this was invaluable and I cannot praise them and all the contributors on the Facebook group enough. I also bought the hard copy book – love me a hard copy!

In the facebook group someone had shared a map where contributors had added all the absolutely amazing detail you could want for an adventure like this! It was the route map with the following marked:

• pubs
• cafes/mobile food
• shops
• bike shops/wash
• train stations/car parking
• water taps and wild swimming
• campsites
• hotels/B&Bs
• alternative route options

I would say, however, that a lot of the places marked are off the route so bear that in mind unless you want several km off route and then back again. We had seen reviews from people saying you don’t need to carry too much as there is a lot along the route but found we ran out of water more than once.

What is King Alfred’s Way?

It is a 350km loop around Wessex, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Alfred the Great hence the name! A super popular route now for bike packers that can be done as you wish.

We joked it was sponsored by estate agents as passed all the beautiful properties along the route.

How long does it take?

That is the beauty of it like I said above you can do this as you wish. From the Facebook group I have seen people complete this from 1 day (amazing) to over a much longer period of time returning to complete certain sections minus the bike packing so you pick what suits you best.

We met several people on the route also cycling it and the days to complete varied from 5/6 days up to 9 days. Initially we had planned to do this over 3 days, which seemed doable but is long days in the saddle off road, which is far more tiring than road riding that I am more used to. Unfortunately the British weather was not with us and on day 2 the rain started fairly early on and then when we realised the forecast had changed so checked again we saw that it was forecast for heavy rain all Saturday and Sunday for where we were going and yellow warnings for thunderstorms – not ideal for wild camping and for the terrain we were going to be facing so we decided we would go as far as we could and return another time to finish.

The Prep

This was the interesting/worrying/exciting in equal measures and made our first bike packing trip seem very real. With there being two of us it meant we could share the load with certain items to distribute the weight between us and not carry anything unnecessary.

The trap you can so easily fall into here is that the list can become endless and you have to bear in mind whatever you take you have to carry and ride with. Knowing this route has a fair amount of climbing in it, and being off road, we were both keen to keep weight to a minimal!

How we got on

We headed to Liss on the Thursday evening after work and had dinner at The Flying Bull and parked in my camper van overnight. We booked using Your Parking Space to leave the van on a driveway for the time we were cycling and off we set!

This was super easy, however, the owner of the driveway we had parked was not ready and so we had to wait for him to move some cars around so we could park and this delayed the start time. So we set off later than planned and not an ideal start.

Friday – just under 100km in total and 1,000m elevation:

• we were parked in Pangbourne and had to cycle about 10km to join the route from Whitchurch on Thames, which is on stage 5 of the route and runs until Reading
• stage 6 – Reading to Farnham, which was confusing and saw a lot of back and forth where the route was not entirely clear but we learned from others they experienced the same so was not just us. A lot of urban roads, riding through part of the city shopping area, which was odd and along the canal. Farnham was busier than I expected
• stage 7 – Devils Punch Bowl – this was savage! Honestly the terrain makes such a difference in how brutal a ride can be. There was grass, gravel, stones, rocks, chalk, mud, thin and thick sand and it was leg and energy zapping. And that was without the elevation that came with it. It also passes part way across a golf course so watch out for flying balls!
• we ate at Devils Punchbowl Hotel, which was a welcome site after some tough riding.
• we cycled from here to Hindhead and then set up our wild camping site in the woods.

Saturday – just under 50km in total and 550m of elevation:

• stage 7 – after we packed up camp we left Hindhead and headed to Liss for breakfast at Turtle Bean Cafe and I cannot recommend this place enough – the staff were amazing and they are set up for cyclists with the food, garden area at the back with bike hooks to lock bikes too, and toilets with wipes and nail brushes felt total luxury after wild camping.
• stage 8 – Hindhead to South Harting, which has more off road sections that were very welcome although it was more of the South Downs Way so more climbing and most of those were on thick gravel or rocks/stones and then descents that were the same surfaces.

If I had to describe it I would say it was epic but I want to be totally honest about it so here it is starting with the cons:

• it was so much more hard work than I thought – I completely underestimated it and not too proud to admit that
• the elevation is a lot but off road elevation on difficult terrain in places makes it even harder
• we saw people on e-bikes (jealous), gravel bikes, MTBs, old steel frames so a complete mixture but I am pleased we went with MTBs as it felt much better on some of the off road terrain though of course gravel would have been better for the off road sections
• I should have trained more on a fully loaded bike as that was very different to handle
• I opted for more space on the bike for bags and took one bottle and ran out of water three times
• there may have been tears
• take bug spray – we did and yet I have still been eaten alive although completely expected it
• we didn’t get to experience the whole route

And now the pros:

• I rode some technical sections that I would have not tried before
• I managed some climbs I really didn’t think I could do
• I didn’t fall off my fully loaded bike
• we wild camped successfully for the first time
• we laughed a lot
• I learned that hike a bike is a thing and to expect parts where bikes are pushed and that is ok
• will just have to go back to finish the rest

It was so much more hard work than I thought but I have returned wondering when I can get away for more bike packing – this will absolutely be a new love of mine!

I will share a separate post on what I packed for the trip.

A couple of thank you’s as well:

• my husband for always helping when I come up with these mental ideas
• my friend Laura who I know I can count on when I want someone to accompany me on these sorts of adventures, for being patient over the time we were away as she is a much stronger cyclist than me but we always start and finish together
• Laura again for not pushing me down one of the many climbs across the South Downs Way as I moan about climbs
• My friend Helen for her super useful recommendations from her bike packing trip last year so I could look at that for ideas around the prep too
• We Are Cycling UK for soooooo much!

Some items mentioned in this post were gifted from Evans Cycles but all opinions are my own.