Well, I've now succeeded. And it was good. It was also pretty tough! I'd like to think I'm on the fitter side of fit and I've done loads of cycling lately, but I found the KAW hard going in a lot of places. It's almost never flat and it's mostly off-road, and given the wet summer we've had, the trail is often muddy, eroded or overgrown (or all three together). I finished the route with my bike covered in mud and chalk and my legs tired, scratched, stung and bruised. But I did very much enjoy it.
Day 1: Winchester > Orcheston (72.6km/45.1 miles, 958m/3,143ft elevation gain)
I arrived in Winchester to rain, which wasn't the start I'd hoped for, but after waiting 15 minutes for a torrential downpour to ease I zipped up my waterproof jacket and set off. The route quite quickly gets you off the road and on to the first farm trail, which was deeply rutted and a bit muddy and which I found quite challenging. I got better at this sort of track later on after I learned (through stop-start experience) to look further ahead to pick the best line, and to just barrel through the sticky bits. I did take a couple of road detours to avoid bits which just looked too muddy.
Stopped at Old Sarum to look at the remains of the ancient castle and cathedral there; it had stopped raining finally. I'd planned lunch at Old Sarum as I'm sure I read there was a café, but there wasn't, so I carried on a short while to the excellent Bridge Inn in Upper Woodford, where they kindly served me a prawn sandwich although the kitchen was technically closed. The trail from here on was much easier going and the sun was out; I got to Stonehenge in good spirits. You can detour off the route to see Stonehenge from outside of the fence and avoid the even longer detour to the visitor's centre, so I did that. It was then a fairly short ride to Orcheston and Stonehenge Touring Park, a nice little campsite convieniently right on the route, where I spent a pleasant evening devouring takeaway pizza.
Day 2: Orcheston > Evelyn's Garden (82.4km/51.2 miles, 1,103m/3,619ft elevation gain)
The route out of Orcheston went almost straight up an off-road climb, and then into tricky rutted farmtrack and my average speed after an hour was about 11kph. I'd had a couple of slow-motion sideways falls and was feeling a bit gloomy about the day's prospects. Luckily I finally hit some harder ground with a road and gravel track alongside the military firing range - the red flags were out, but the route doesn't go inside the danger zone. And then I got a rear puncture, or possibly just a failure of the mended tube we'd put in on the Lon Las Cymru last year. I actually did a reasonable job of putting in a new tube, and didn't entirely waste my CO2 canister in inflating it, but I still decided I would head down the hill as there was a bike shop (Finely Tuned Ride) very close, and I was worried that one spare inner tube and one spare CO2 canister might not be enough for the rest of the trip. That involved a fairly narrow, slippery descent and I walked half of it, but got my tyre properly pumped up and restocked tubes and canisters before continuing onwards. But it had all cost me an hour's time.
The next bit on to Avebury was pretty nice, with a stiff climb and a nice descent, and I rolled into Avebury feeling better about life. I lunched at the National Trust café in Avebury and then walked the ring of the stone circle.
After Avebury the route heads upwards once more on to the Ridgeway, which is one of the National Trails and runs along to Buckinghamshire. It's shared with walkers. After the initial climb there was a really muddy part which I honestly tried to cycle on, but I found the combination of slippery mud and deeply eroded ruts completely impossible. I gave up and walked for what felt like ages, though it was probably only about 10 minutes. But once past that, the Ridgeway was great! I paused to look at the Neolithic barrow of Wayland's Smithy, where a man who said he was a wizard asked if I was visiting the crop circle in the nearby field.
I stayed that night just off the Ridgeway at Evelyn's Garden, a basic wild camping/glamping site with lovely views over the fields.
Day 3: Evelyn's Garden > Greywell (87.7km/54.5 miles, 719m/2,359ft elevation gain)
A good, uneventful day. Lots of easy riding on good gravel trails and even quite a bit of tarmac. I'd dreaded the climb out of Goring on the Thames Path because I'd walked down it three years ago, but apart from a flight of actual steps it was fun and rideable. Generally I zoomed along and hardly had to walk at all! It was nice to be alongside the Thames for a bit.
I stayed in the pretty village of Greywell, about 4km off the route, at the Fox & Goose pub which has a large field and allows free camping if you buy dinner at the pub. I was there so early I had time to go for a wander in the village before dinner.
Day 4: Greywell > Nyewood (82.6km/51.4 miles, 1,077m/3,533ft elevation gain)
I had been worried about this leg because the official guide talked about navigating deep sand on various commons, and I don't really like trying to cycle through deep sand. It wasn't actually as bad as I'd feared but there were a couple of extended sections which just had to be walked.
I picked up a front puncture coming into Farnham, discovering it as I was about to head off after popping to the supermarket, so opted for a lazy fix at Hoops Velo where they made a much quicker job of it than I would have done. Later discovered one of my panniers had a loose screw, which took much longer to mend than it should have done due to general incompetence.
The big climb of the day was up to the Devil's Punch Bowl, a kind of natural amphitheatre near Hindhead, which also has a National Trust café at the top (a lunch win). After that there was more up and down, a really nice short section on an old railway track to Liss, the longest wait at a railway crossing ever, and a short detour from the route to Clarefield Copse Wild Camping for the night - a big open field, with a great shower that I thoroughly appreciated after two nights without showering.
Day 5: Nyewood > Winchester (56.4km/35 miles, 913m/2,995ft elevation gain)
It rained overnight, and kept going into the morning. I lay in my tent listening to it until I forced myself to get up and make breakfast under the shelter which also housed the campsite loos - glam - while checking and rechecking rain radar, and asking route advice on the KAW Facebook group. Then I spent another hour or so in the tent until, around 11, the rain finally eased off (and stayed away for the rest of the day).
I'm glad it was a short day as it was still hard-going. The paths - predominantly the South Downs Way - were actually surprisingly good given the rain, and I only detoured off the route once to avoid what is described as a technical, slippery descent which I wouldn't have enjoyed in the dry. I had to walk up a couple of hills: Butser Hill, which is a really steep grassy slope; and another couple where it was chunky and loose under the tyres and I failed to find the right traction to keep moving! A lot of gates on the SDW also slowed things down.
Had a truly excellent lunch at the veggie Beech Café at the South Downs Sustainability Centre, a walk around the old fort site at Old Winchester Hill, and finally, with tired legs, rolled into Winchester just before 5pm. Had it not been for the rain I'd have spent more time in the city, including going into the cathedral, but as it was I just took a couple of pictures and headed for the train home.
Conclusion
I rode my trusty Dolan GXA with 35mm Schwalbe G-One tyres. Something slightly better on mud would probably be beneficial and a lot of people do this route on mountain bikes. As I was camping, I had a reasonable amount of gear, and B&Bing would certainly require less stuff and less weight.
I was mostly really happy with my equipment: my 35mm tyres were generally fine; my Garmin 1040 Solar paid for its very expensive self by not needing to be charged at all really (I gave it a quick top-up to 50% on the last night, when it was at 34%, and it was back down to 34% at the end of the last day); my Alpkit Soloist tent remains dinky but almost perfect save for the tiny porch.
The route is great, but it's important not to underestimate how long it might take you. On tarmac, with the gear I was carrying, I can average 20kph easily. Off-road, my average speed dropped significantly and even the last day took more than four hours' riding time - not counting stops for food, photos, gates and so on.
KAW is a superb way to see this bit of England though, and makes you appreciate the beauty of the landscape and the history of the country from the unique perspective of a bike. Highly recommended.
