King Alfreds way off road adventure day 1. Reading to Hindhead

 King Alfreds way day 1

Big George loves his gravel bike so was excited to find the first official gravel bike circular route in England had been opened. It is called the King Alfred way and is 220 miles all the way round. He was extremely keen to cycle it and organise a trip. In case I haven't mentioned it I had long covid for 9 months which had given him plenty of time to put a post lock down trip into action. But history tells us that Big George is more of an ideas man so not surprisingly it was left to me to put it all together. Which I did.

The route officially starts in Winchester but as Reading is nearest point to Norwich we decided to start from there.

The King Alfred way route

We plan to take 4 days but no idea how long each day will take as we have never ridden this far off road before, but how hard can it be? As it turned out, very.

Big George had used his randomising app to decide who drove and it chose him. 

On arrival in Reading we attempted to park at our booked space only to find we need a permit which had not been provided so we cancelled the booking and eventually found an off street spot instead but had wasted an hour of our riding day.

I promised Big George the first cafe stop would be only a few miles into the ride so we set off to see what an offroad experience offered. I would also being using science to see if cafes on a gravel route are better than road based ones. 

About to set off

We left Reading along the River and soon found ourselves on the first off-road sector. 

Early river section

It is a very different experience riding on bumpy tracks with a bike with luggage so progress was slower than expected. Although as the tracks our narrow you can’t chat as you go along which we were both rather pleased about as we had run out of conversation about an hour into the car journey down.

Start of sector 1

After 10 miles we arrived at the Wellington park farm shop and cafe which was heaving. However the service was excellent and we were offered a table with stunning views which upped the atmosphere and ambiance score.

View at Wellington park cafe

The cake selection was a bit too flan based for my liking but they did have posh egg on toast (off nine quid!) which I opted for as part of my continuing hunt for egg on toast of the year which had started pre pandemic and I’ve no idea when it will end.

Expensive and average posh egg on toast

Fortunately the eggs were not runny and sour dough toast very hard so it didn’t score well saving me a long trip if it had got into finals week.

Despite it being a baking hot day I still stepped up and ordered a hot chocolate and chocolate tart. Big george had a flat white and full English. The food was quite nice but very expensive so science would say that so far road bike cafes beat gravel bike ones, but it’s early days.

We still had forty miles to go and it was now gone 1pm. However a steady 10mph was easily achievable on the this terrain so we should be at our accommodation by 5:00pm. Oh how wrong I was.

We were straight on to the next off-road sector and progress was slow.

Start of first post lunch sector

Then just as we were starting to get the feel for it Big George hit a big bump and flew off his bike.

I obviously dashed over but disaster. Before I had a chance to take a photo he had got up so I can only offer this one from just after the event.

Big George recovering after falling off

For the next few miles I shouted bump ahead and suggested he fill in a risk assessment form every time we came to a lumpy bit. Apparently this wasn’t funny or clever even though it was.

One of many bumpy section

With our finishing time continuing to slip on the difficult rutted and muddy tracks we then hit a long section along nice country lanes. I’m sure you all know what a country lane looks like but here is a photo of one anyway.

A feature on my bike gps is how many climbs you have on the route. In Norfolk this feature never gets activated but today there were two. And the first a short steep one was coming up.

It was particularly tricky as half way up it turned up through the woods for the steepest bit. I struggled to the top but no sign of Big George. After a few minutes I got a text saying he had gone the wrong way. 10 mins later still no sign but a further text conversation established he had abandoned difficult wood section and gone up the road thus bypassing my waiting spot. 

Eventually we worked out where we both were and I cycled to him with more time gone and the chance of a pampering in the spa a distant memory.

We cycled Into Farnham and decided to have an unscheduled stop at the at blue bear book shop. As it was unscheduled  and very hot, I decided it was ok not to have a hot chocolate and have tea with my banana and chocolate loaf while big george surprisingly had a flat white.

It was all very nice but as the cafe was in a town by a busy road it wasn’t really a gravel bike stop so I excluded it from my experiment 

We had a table at the pub booked for 7:15 and it was now 5:00 and we had 15miles to go. We were averaging 10 mph so should be at hotel by 6:30 and to the pub on time. Simple. Or was it. We decided to have a check at 6:00pm and decide what to do.

Back on to the paths through the trees

However suddenly I noticed I had a flat back tyre. I sent Big George on ahead while I dealt with it putting us further behind the clock. Then the wire holding my front bag decided it couldn’t take anymore shaking and snapped leading to emergency repair.

Next we entered the forest to find we were cycling on sand. It was very slow and hard work and big george kept getting off to push. I did technically fall off twice in the sand but as my cycling guest was walking at the time it didn’t count. 

One of the few occasions Big George actually rode his bike on the sandy sector

By this time we had put our table at the pub back by 30 mins. But it turned out this wasn’t enough. I knew we had a 4 mile hill to tackle at the end of the day. I didn’t realise it would be off road and sandy again making it very slow progress. 

Big George rebooking pub

Now hot, out of water and very late the final straw was that my back tyre gave up and went totally flat. I had to pump it up 3 times in the last 2 miles as we crawled in at 8 o’clock. (Don’t tell Big George that I feel off my bike again cycling up hill and snapped my sun galasses as he was so far behind he missed it.)

4 mile long sandy, stoney hill at end of dayNow experienced gravel bikers we should smash tomorrow (if we can move).

Map of todays route

Day 1 route

Click here to download King Alfreds way day 1 gpx file to your gps

Day 1 Elevation

Cafe ratings

Cafe	Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Cake Selection	Cake Taste Quality	Atmosphere and Ambiance	Total
Wellington Farm Shop	7.2	6	6.8	7	7.8	6.96
Brown bear book shop Farnham		8	7.3	8.6	5	7.23
Queen Elizabeth Country Park
Heale Garden tearoom
St Arbucks cafe
Three Trees Farm shop cafe
Saddlebank farm cafe

Stats 

Route	Miles	Average Mph	Time on Bike	Metres climbed
Reading to Hindhead	47.6	9.81	4:50	791
Hindhead to Winchester
Winchester to East Kennett
East Kennett to Reading
Totals