Bikepacking the South Downs Way

Bikepacking – I had never done it before, but decided that I really wanted to. I had already known about the South Downs Way for some time, and had decided that this would be the ideal route for my first bikepacking trip.

Not wanting to do the trip alone, but not knowing anyone who I thought would want to do this trip, I advertised on Explorers Connect for team mates. This turned out to be a brilliant idea, as I ended up with a really great group to do this with. We had a mixture of experience between us, and crucially one of the guys, Chris, was pretty experienced at bikepacking and it was brilliant to have him with us. The others were Moritz, who I had already met up with a few times for planning the trip, and a friend of Chris’s, Harry, who was also an experienced rider.

On the first morning, I had to cycle to my local train station to catch a train into London. I was nervous leaving the house - had I forgotten anything? would I cope with the riding? would I make a prat out of myself?? I had to force my nerves to quiet down though, as I didn't want to miss out on this ride, and I had a train to catch!

Arriving in London was also nerve-wracking, as I now had to navigate the busy and potentially dangerous-for-cyclists London streets to make it to another train station. All went well though, and I made it on time to meet Moritz.

From London, Moritz and I caught the train together to Winchester, where we met Chris and Harry for the first time. Introductions complete, we set off down the hill from the station to find the start of the trail.

99 problems...

The start of the trail was a little tricky to locate at first, but once we were on our way it was beautiful – although pretty hot!! The sun beamed down on us, and we all developed fantasies of finding a lovely country pub and sitting in the beer garden for ice cold drinks… mmmm…   We found the perfect pub, complete with beer garden, and…        …it was closed! The next pubs were also closed, although we were able to topup water from outdoor taps. A little while later when we found a lovely looking place with a cool stream at the bottom of the beer garden, we decided to hang around and wait until it opened. The sun-warmed water we carried with us just couldn’t hold a candle to the thought of a nice pint of something cold…

While we waited we did a bit of admin, sorting out bike niggles and cooling our feet in the stream. The pub opened, we got our drinks, and refreshed we headed off once again into the English countryside. As evening drew in and the sun sank lower, it cast a beautiful golden glow over the fields of ripening wheat, rewarding our climbs with glorious views over rolling countryside.

We continued following the single tracks, not making quite the progress I would have liked - unfortunately my fitness was not where I wanted it as I had been injured in a mountain biking fall, and unable to do any kind of training for a few weeks before the trip, plus I was not used to pedalling with so much weight on my bike. We had also made a later-than-ideal start due to the restrictions on taking bikes though London stations during rush hour. Therefore we didn’t make it all the way to our planned first night’s stop, but instead we wild-camped in a handy field. We lay out ground sheets and sleeping bags, then prepared and ate our camp food as the sun went down, and we even enjoyed a tot of whisky thanks to Harry and his hip flask. Then, lying under the stars with curious sheep for company and the glow of the lights of London still visible above the horizon, we settled for our first night’s sleep on the trail.

Home Sweet Home for night 1

In the morning I was surprised not to be aching more after the unaccustomed effort the previous day, and after breakfasting and breaking camp, plus a little bit of posing with our various bikepacking set ups, we hit the trail again. More single track led onto some larger rolling hills and some very fast descending into the Queen Elizabeth Country Park (QECP), at which point coffee and cake was a lure too strong to resist. It’s a tough life on the trail… ;)

Coffee and cake at Queen Elizabeth Country Park

Here we discovered that we had inadvertently managed to coincide our trip with the Oxfam and Gurkhas Trailwalker event. This walk goes from QECP to Brighton via a significant section of the South Downs Way trail, and for the rest of the day we had to share the trail with hundreds of walkers, constantly calling out to them so they could move aside to let us pass – or in my case on the steep uphill sections, trying not to feel too disheartened as the walkers passed me!

The ground now is very chalky, and the clouds are rolling in. We divert a few kilometres off the trail to get lunch at a pub, and here Chris’s first aid skills are called upon as not only did Moritz take a tumble on the track down to the road, but an old lady arriving at the pub falls and injures herself, requiring an ambulance to be called. At this point I am pretty knackered, and with Moritz in pain (though not admitting it at all) and Chris busy helping various people, lunch is much deserved and we take a decent break before leaving again.

Moritz's poor knee

This allows the clouds to further gather, and it starts to rain. Chalk + water = very slick ground, and we have to work hard to keep control of the bikes. The wheels slip around making it slow going, and there is a real risk of falling at some points and picking up more injuries to the group. We push on as there is nothing else to do, but the rain falls harder and I for one can feel it leaching away my morale.

Descending again, carefully this time rather than enjoying the cruise, we arrive in a field to a round of cheers as the Trailwalker volunteers are welcoming in the Trailwalkers to a checkpoint. All the volunteers are really friendly and they take pity on us in the rain, letting us have some tea and cakes in their refreshment tent. Moritz is able to get some more attention for his badly cut knee, and his wrist is now hurting him quite a bit where he sprained it when he fell. We also make use of the giant route map they have up to try and identify a suitable camping spot for the night. While we’re there, I spot someone I know – I previously worked with one of the Gurkhas there, and he’s now the site commander for this particular checkpoint! He offers us the chance to shelter at the site for the night, and we have a difficult decision to make. The point of the journey was to be self-supported and taking up help seems to defeat this objective, however our shelters are not really adequate for the heaviness of the rain, the wet chalky ground is treacherous, and darkness is close. 

Photo courtesy of Chris

We settle on a compromise; identifying on the map a potential spot for the night, we decide to ride out to it. If it’s suitable we will camp there, and if not we will return to the checkpoint. We pedal off again through the mud and on towards the trees we saw on the map, but when we get there it really isn’t a great camping site, and feeling soggy and chilled we all decide to head back to the friendly Gurkha checkpoint. There, we have the opportunity to dry off and get into clean clothes, and warm up with some very welcome cups of tea. 

Cooking dinner, Gurkha-style

The Gurkhas are awesome and really know how to look after themselves – they have a fire going and I join in for a bit as they prepare and cook up a brilliant communal meal. We all eat and chat and express our thanks to our unlikely hosts, and then us bikepackers head off to our shelter. It is full of midgies, and there is an interesting interlude as Harry plays a weird kind of Pied Piper, switching off all lighting within the tent and leading away streams of midgies with the light of his head torch!

Settling into our sleeping bags for the night, I realise that I feel really happy. I hadn’t been at all confident in my physical ability to cycle like this for days, had not felt hugely confident in my ability to organise it happening, hadn’t even been sure whether I would go through with it all! But here we all were, after two days on the trail. I had actually managed to overcome my insecurities and organised and took part in this trip. I may not have cycled as well as the others, but I had got out and done something, and it felt so good.

We ended our journey here – we had another day at our disposal, but Moritz needed to protect his injuries as he was to be a skipper on a charter yacht shortly after this trip. Chris had bad saddle sore despite his good equipment and experience, and my leg muscles were really starting to rebel with soreness and stiffness. Harry was fine, though he is a machine – at one point while cycling uphill on a road section, he had actually been strong enough to give me a push when I was struggling! We are near to Amberley, so we get breakfast overlooking the river and then jump on a train back to London together.

Homeward bound

The South Downs Way has not been completed this time, but that’s all the more reason to go back again.

** Chris also wrote about this trip in his blog, (Un)inspired Ramblings ** 

On Yer Bike - Off Yer Bike!

A couple of weeks before my planned South Downs Way cycle trip, I decided to go on a short course to boost my (very basic – and very rusty!) mountain biking skills.

Plas y Brenin in Snowdonia, North Wales, was running their Big Ride Weekend. Food and accommodation was included in the price, along with a goody bag, and over the course of the weekend you could choose from various morning skills workshops and afternoon guided trail rides. Sounded perfect for me!

I had been to PYB once before for a whitewater kayaking weekend, and I found the standard of food and accommodation to be excellent, the staff and instructors and general atmosphere to be great, and also it was a great way to meet really nice people. This second trip there did not disappoint, and from my room mate, to workshop mates, to trail riding mates, to people I met in the bar afterwards – everyone was lovely: really friendly, really interesting, and all keen to mix with everyone else and make new friends.

The biking was excellent and really boosted my confidence. The first morning I did ‘Technical Ups’, learning the little tweeks to technique that really help you to get up the steep and technical bits of a trail without falling off (although I did manage quite a bit of that on the steep corners!) and without losing momentum or control. Lots of tips about shifting your body weight to keep traction, where to change gears so that you keep the pedals turning smoothly, and when to give yourself an extra blast of power to shoot up over obstacles and short ups without losing speed. 

Technical Ups

While all this uphill practice did wonders for my faded confidence, it also did wonders for my appetite! After an excellent and hearty lunch, the next part of the day was trail riding.

I joined a group riding the Marin trail, described as “a proper mountain bike trail in every sense of the term. Big climbs, big descents, brilliant singletrack and truly awesome scenery make this a trail to remember”. The trail was hard work after the uphill work in the morning, plus it was a really hot day! Having only gotten back into biking a few weeks before I was relatively unfit, and at the top of each climb there was me and another lad constantly lagging behind! Embarrassing, but I could still see that I was tackling the singletrack in a much more confident manner than I would have managed without the morning’s workshop.

A brief breather on the Marin Trail

When we got back to the PYB centre I was exhausted, and just so so hot! PYB has a lake right by it, so I met up with another guy who been riding a different trail, and we headed down to the lake for some wild swimming to cool off. The water was really quite warm so we were able to stay in for quite a while, swimming right across the lake and generally chilling out until the time came to get out and go for food. 

Beautiful spot for a wild swim

Dinner was once again a fantastic meal, and afterwards I signed up for the following day’s jumps and drops workshop. I picked this one as I have a problem with downhill sections of relying too much on my brakes, which not only slows you down but also breaks up the flow of the ride, and can actually increase your chances of falling by causing you be off balance or coming to sudden stops as the gradients change or the ground is uneven.

This workshop was especially enjoyable as unlike the ups from the previous day, this one had a fairly large element of adrenaline included!! We began with flat wooden ramps, first practising rollovers – where you simply roll over or down the bumps – then onto drop offs, where you keep the front wheel up a bit as you go over and have a nice flat landing. We finished off the ramps with a larger one for jumping. We had several goes each of jumping, and this was great for confidence as you knew what to expect and could put more and more oomph in with each try you had! 

The small wooden ramp

Once we had finished with the ramp we moved onto the track. This felt very different as the ground could be different shapes and different textures, the take off or landing could be uneven, there might be obstacles to avoid or bends to negotiate. But each time you handle something well, or it doesn’t quite go so well but you can learn from it, then you feel your confidence and determination growing – a very pleasant feeling!

We progressed through steep slopes, small drop offs, larger drop offs, small jumps, and then finished up with some playing on the jump track. We had a few roll throughs (going through the track rolling over the jumps without jumping) as a group to get used to the track, then the instructor stood by to shout out tips and give feedback to improve performance on individual runs. I did several roll throughs as I worked on the line I took for bends, getting my posture right, feeling more comfortable with the idea of jumping… Eventually I felt I had taken on all of the tips and was ready to try a jump. 

Rolling over a tabletop jump - shame it's not a longer shot to get the height in!

I rolled down the entry with good speed, went up the table top and then jumped at the right moment getting into the air well. Unfortunately, that’s where the good bit ended and what happened next happened so quickly! I saw how far down the ground was, and the scared part of my brain took over and froze up my body, bracing me for impact. Instead of staying nice and relaxed to land well and absorb the landing properly, my hands squeezed the brakes and I went pretty rigid. The landing was hard, and the suspension of my forks fought back after I went over the handlebars on impact, popping my bike back into the air and landing back down on my ribs. My bike is old, and not that light!! Winded and very bruised, my riding was over for the day. But I knew what I had done wrong, and I was still able to recognise the improvements I had made over the weekend. Plus, I got lots of cool points for the way I dealt with the accident – no tears, no whining, just a lot of deep breaths (once I could breath again!) followed by some self-deprecating humour once I was on my feet again – although I was still shaking very badly from the adrenaline surge!

The bruise starting to develop the next day - along with so much swelling that I had to wear stretchy trousers!!

Still: it's not about how you fall, it's about how you pick yourself back up again - and I can't wait to get back out there and make even more improvements!