Dave’s fourth cycling adventure takes us on a journey through ancient Wessex. Home of King Alfred, Stonehenge and the Avebury stone circles. Another great amateur cycling trip through Wiltshire, Hampshire, Surrey and Berkshire. Using mountain bikes this time, Dave, Warren and Andy spend a week in the south-east of England where they cycle along The Ridgeway, the South Downs Way and other routes.
This ‘boys on tour‘ journey comes alive with witty comments, strange references and excellent photographs.
If you’re thinking of doing a similar ride then this account will set the scene and also highlight the pitfalls of a lack of planning, reliance on technology and disregard for the changeable British weather.
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Sample chapter
Wessex Here We Come!
“I desire to leave to the men that come after me a remembrance of me in good works.”
– Alfred the Great
I feel the same way, Alf. Hence this great tome. OK, first joke done. There are, of course, many other (and far better) guidebooks, maps and route planners available out there for anyone wanting to do this ride. This is the age of the Internet after all. There are even these GPX things you can download and add to your phone. Apparently, they tell you which way to go and if you’ve cycled the wrong way up an avenue, barrow or cursus*. (Yeah, I had to look that last one up too.) So what of this account then?
Well, like my previous cycling books, I aim to give an honest, human and practical approach to amateur biking and offer useful tips for anyone wanting to follow in our tyre tracks. I also like to include some weird and wonderful facts about the towns and villages we pass through and give some titbits about the people and places we visit and the things we get up to. The last bit is usually in the form of how many good pubs we find and how many beers we drink en route.
OK, why this route? Well, the answer is simple. I’ve already cycled the famous Land’s End to John O’Groats back in 2005. I’ve bimbled around Wales (attempting in the process to set up a similarly iconic Welsh ‘LEJOG-lite’ must-do ride – ‘Wales Trails’). I’ve rode the Hadrian’s Wall route in northern England and followed it by doing the Coast 2 Coast, so it was really just a matter of sticking a pin in the map and picking a ‘doable’ jaunt and one which would challenge my old, aching limbs a little.
There are many other rides throughout the UK, some are Sustrans routes, others are brought to life by Cycling UK and many more by Joe Bloggs and his Strava account. However, it was an easy choice for my fourth book for the following reasons: first, it was a circuit or circular route (I love these), second it was near-ish to south Wales, albeit a two-hour drive to get to Winchester, it was going to be mostly flat (I say that as someone used to seeing hills everywhere he looks), the history seemed interesting and lastly it was a journey that could be done on a mountain bike that didn’t involve death-defying jumps past black and red markers.
From Day 2
“As we neared the village, we just had one short lane to go. We could hear the cars on the road, parents were in the village of Chirton picking up their kids from school. We could smell freedom yet here we were, stuck.
Stuck in the mud, chalk, clay and water. The route was unpassable. Our tyres churned up the glutinous mixture that clogged our moving parts and as for the bikes…
Either side of the clay was a high banking that we couldn’t climb out of. We had to push through.”
Amazon Best Seller
During the first few days of the book’s launch:
#1 in Off The Beaten Path charts
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