Revisiting Days of Old: Bikepacking the South Downs Way
Blue skies, green fields… where is the rain?😯
Some of my greatest memories of University were cycling to a different football club every Saturday in the South East of England. Football-mad, we pinpointed every club that interested us on a map displayed on my friend Chris’ bedroom wall, and set off early on weekend mornings on long, cold rides through the English countryside. The destinations were not glamorous, with very few Premier League clubs in the area. Instead, we journeyed to far-flung, little known football stadia, where the team was playing a game few knew about and about which even fewer cared. Cirencester Town battling to a 1-0 win in the seventh tier of English football, Forest Green Rovers being heckled by Wrexham fans about their vegan burgers, and my personal favourite of a race against time to make it to a game in Salisbury, barely noticing Stonehenge as we pushed on past, culminating in us arriving late and spending the whole game shivering against the cold, barely taking in the action of a resounding 2-0 home win.
Times have moved on and Chris and I spent the majority of the next ten years living in separate countries. But on the rare occasions we saw each other again, we made a point to try to re-live old times. Forest Green Rovers was a nostalgic favourite, and we tried hard to outdo our former selves in 2016 with a ride to watch a Bashley F.C. side in the eight tier that was setting records for not having won a game in two years (‘The Bash’ obligingly lost again for our entertainment). Chris also visited me in China in 2018, and we took a trip to Taiwan where, substantially less fit than we had been at university, we tackled the Wuling Pass, site of the Taiwan KOM race, a 100km climb from sea to a mountain pass at 3,275m altitude.
Epic scenes from the Taiwan KOM - needless to say we weren’t as fast as these guys😂
Last year, back in the UK finally and again wanting to find a trip to reconnect, Chris and I set out to do the South Downs Way. We may have grown older, but it is incredibly questionable as to whether we are wiser. 10 years of office work had taken its toll on Chris’ fitness, with cycling a rarer and rarer occurrence. Despite this, we started throwing ideas out there, and the South Downs quickly began sounding like a good idea. 100 miles of off-road riding across the scenic south coast of Britian. Over a long weekend, that sounded easy…
Not so. There is off-road riding, and then there is British off-road riding. No smooth gravel or fire roads here. The South Downs Way is relentless, with sharp steep climbs over bumpy surfaces, interspersed with gates to open and close and descents on clay that look innocuous enough, but become a different, slippery and treacherous beast in the rain. And this is Britain… of course it was going to rain.😂 On top of that, in another foolhardy overestimation of our fitness, we had decided 180km wasn’t enough for two and a half days, and committed to doing Queen Elizabeth Parkrun on Saturday morning before even getting started with our riding for the day.
Friday
And so it was that we set off from Winchester, with rain falling lightly below dull, grey skies. After the obligatory photo in front of the statue of King Alfred, the first half of the day was comfortable. But just as we were being lulled into a false sense of security, the terrain got suddenly harder. The final uphill slog to arrive at the charming AirBnB cottage before dark really took it out of us, and no amount of extolling the virtues of the village pub by the host could tempt us – we cooked up a massive pasta dinner and got an early night to prepare for Parkrun the next day.
Saturday
An untried short cut is rarely a good idea. We found this out to our detriment on Saturday morning, taking the cycle route sign suggestion of a new route to Queen Elizabeth Country Park, only to find ourselves pushing up more steep, gravel climbs. With time running out before the start of the race, we couldn’t have the chilled morning warm up ride we had hoped for. Instead, we were flat out racing to make the start line, arriving out of breath and desperately trying to change our shoes as the course director gleefully informed participants of the particulars of what he was advertising as a difficult, hilly course. He wasn’t exaggerating. I set off chasing the lone leader up a steep climb, only to find the descent on the other side was even more challenging. A steep drop on wet grass with a sharp turn at the bottom saw another much better prepared runner in trail shoes fly past me while I desperately tried not to go head over heels on the treacherous surface. I pushed hard through the rest of the race but couldn’t close the gap. Trailing home in third place, I couldn’t help but hope Chris was alright, and more importantly, would have the energy for another 63km of mountain biking after this. I shouldn’t have worried about him during the race – he loved it, recording the sketchy descents on his GoPro and putting in a decent performance. But the riding ahead of us was to be another matter entirely.
Again, after a mild, sunny morning, the weather turned and we spent the majority of the 63km battling constant up and down trails, high winds and rocky terrain. Cold, tired and hungry, we were saved that night by a YHA right on the route, which mercifully had a kitchen still serving food at 9pm. We bedded down that night nursing a slow puncture on the bike, hoping it would be alright for the next day.
Sunday
It wasn’t. When we woke before the sunrise to give ourselves time to make the 4pm train back from Eastbourne to our cars in Winchester, my back tyre was predictably flat as a pancake. Reluctant to go for a full inner tube change and trying to nurse the tubeless sealant into blocking the hole, we proceeded with several more stops than normal. Overnight rain also made the chalk descents scary, but the falls we did take ended up just being funny – with the breaks on, they were all slow speed and harmless. Luckily, Chris toppled over much more than me, leaving me looking on in amusement as he disentangled himself from the undergrowth bordering the trails. A steady diet of coffee, hot chocolate and flapjacks kept us moving, and the prospect of finishing another cycling adventure spurred us on. As we descended into Eastbourne, it didn’t matter that we were facing the prospect of standing on a packed train for three hours and then a long drive home. We had set off on another crazy journey and completed it. We were young again.
At the end of another adventure