I see how it compares when I get home

Vaguely Similar, but boy o boy the person that designed it really hates roads. Any bit of dodgy track rather than a quiet country road. A couple of thee bits are crazy for the sake of it. If anybody can dl it would be a great help otherwise I'll have to spend a couple more hours amending mine to match.

When this says it’s a 220 mile off road route do the mean proper off road or just on board a cycle path ? Just wondered what their idea of off road is

Leerowe76 wrote: ↑Sun Feb 16, 2020 8:38 pm When this says it’s a 220 mile off road route do the mean proper off road or just on board a cycle path ? Just wondered what their idea of off road is

If dry, it runs very quick. 15 kmh+ easy to maintain. Probs more for you. If wet can be a bit claggy and slippy in places.
Runs pretty close to my house so think I will have a bimble round this one weekend in April/May when its dried out a bit.

Here is a link to the Official GPX

dlovett wrote: ↑Fri Feb 14, 2020 1:59 pm I present my knock off version of it.

https://ridewithgps.com/trips/44699666

Avebury Stone Circle to Stonehenge 42.6km
Stonehenge to Salisbury 14.2km
Salisbury to Winchester 42km
Winchester to South Down's Way/Ship Wright's Way Junction 41.8km
South Down's Way/Ship Wright's Way Junction to Devil's Punch Bowl 35.6km
Devil's Punch Bowl to Farnham Castle 23.2km
Farnham Castle to Reading 40.7KM

Trust me, that route, and any other published routes you might find online based on the consultation document are wrong in a number of places, some quite significant, including also the absence of several built in route options, and I would prefer, and politely ask, that you pulled the file in order to prevent people thinking it had been launched.

Going off half-cocked on this will help nobody.

The formal route will be out this summer, wait for it, it will be excellent, and there will be a full guide book to accompany it. I’ll speak to people here to try and offer bear-bones a proper preview in due course.

I work with Cycling UK on a few things and tried to get a cheeky look in advance at the route, no luck - understandably! Labrat is right so much work goes into this stuff so best to wait for the final result.

Sounds like the inaugural ride will be a good one :)

@labrat is there a date for route release please?

I am looking forward to this route being released as it passes my house and these are my backyard trails I have been riding for years. I have had something similar in the back of my mind to do for years. Should be a cracker.
Hopefully there will be a route option that goes north of Reading and takes in some of the Chilterns singletrack and maybe a lap of Swinley as well

wriggles wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2020 11:27 am @labrat is there a date for route release please?

I am looking forward to this route being released as it passes my house and these are my backyard trails I have been riding for years. I have had something similar in the back of my mind to do for years. Should be a cracker.
Hopefully there will be a route option that goes north of Reading and takes in some of the Chilterns singletrack and maybe a lap of Swinley as well

Funnily enough I have been working on some ‘taster’ loops - PM me and we can discuss.

This looks great to me - I can ride from home to QECP and follow a new trail. Certainly its too slippy out on the downs for me to do much on the chalk at the moment and lapping gravel trails is getting old.

Its certainly going to be fun planning where to get food and drink along the way - I do hope the Reading zone gets a tweek though.

Thanks for putting it together.

I’m also very interested in the new route. I live near the ridgeway and a circular is a lot more appealing than out and back. Hopefully they will have it up together for when / if it ever dries out.

Thinking of giving this a whirl over the weekend.

Can any locals advise on likely conditions presuming the fair forecast is correct?

The ridgeway was in fine condition on weekend just gone. Not sure where the rest of the trail goes around there, but most of the tow paths around Marlborough/Devizes were all good, so imagine it'd be similar?

2p’s worth from bits local to me:
Aside from two climbs (Old Winchester Hill and Salt Hill) going east on the SDW to QECP is mostly gravel so should ride fine.
Those two climbs can get a bit greasy but should be ok I’d have thought even after the rain today and tomorrow.
Can’t comment on Salisbury to Winchester as I’m not sure of the exact route but it’s forecast to be windy on Friday night so that should help dry things out a bit higher up.

Looking forward to hearing how it goes!

Edit: the current rain is quite impressive!

Looks like the official GPX has finally been released... -> https://www.cyclinguk.org/route/king-al ... -gpx-route

I've just replotted the route starting from Winchester, looks like there are a fair number of lanes involved on the route, chucking the route in Komoot suggests:

Natural: 59.0 km
Unpaved: 103 km
Gravel: 24.1 km
Paved: 51.8 km
Asphalt: 106 km
Unknown: 10.9 km

Winchester to Salisbury - is mostly lanes to Kings Somborne then slightly chalky clay and more lanes.
Personally I would have headed out of Winch the same way, but headed up over Weeke Down from Teg Down and then onto Farley Mount before dropping down into Kings Somborne.

Also I prefer to drop into Winchester from Cheesefoot Head a slightly different way - From Cheesefoot north-west past Telegraph Hill across to Deacon Hill, over Morestead road to pick up the route again past the golf course to the M3.

Handlebar Cafe bottom of St Catherine's Hill, Winchester is great.
Beech Cafe at The Sustainability Centre, west of Butser Hill is good.
The Boot Inn at Houghton (a few hundred metres of route) food is great and you can sit by the river. Clientele maybe a dit snobby for some!

Cafe at QECP has recently reopened, so needs testing may do that this weekend - always been good in the past.

I really like the look of this route. I ride the Ridgeway fairly often and have often looked south from the western end, as well as having ridden in the Winchester area on audax routes. Might be off along this on the next nice weekend I get. Not been to Winchester cathedral yet either.

Someone online wondered who'd be the first to ITT the route. I might have had a beer already (been an all-time sub standard working week) but I did reply wondering if publicly ITTing a historical interest, Cycling UK style route was poor taste. Is it daft to think it's nice if some things might escape the whole time-chasing, online listings thing? It is isn't it... but maybe it's OK too

chucking the route in Komoot suggests:

Komoot can be odd sometimes

Try chucking it through as a hiking route rather than a cycle route...

There are a few dicreet issues there, eg. The route west from Larkhill runs alongside the road on an MOD perimeter track Bridleway, but Komoot seems to identify it as the tarmac road nearby. There’s also a few odd bits like the climb from gore cross which is tarmac but so little traffic as to be virtually unused, and then, similarly, runs alongside gravel tracks.

The result of all that also means that anyone who does try to ITT it may well be cheating by following the Tarmac.

The paper version of the guide also includes a number of ‘bonus options’ that are not on the published GPX, so really if you just hammer it out on an ITT via the GPX you’ll actually miss out on some of the best stuff, and won’t have ridden the ‘purist’ KAW route.

Guy Kesteven, the guidebook author, took a GoPro with him - so there’s a good series of detailed
Videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne4LbLl0qM8&t=955s

Think I'm going to ride this next weekend if anyone's about and we might overlap. I'll ride from home towards Streatley/Goring on Friday morning then start anticlockwise once I get there around lunchtime. Aim to be back in Goring late Sunday maybe early Monday. Will be nice to finish up along the Ridgeway, haven't ridden it much so far this year.

Guy Kesteven has just released three youtube films where he rides this trail.

It looks like an excellent route, and great resources for riders. Several sections appear in various routes in my Lost Lanes books. I hope it will be a success, and it’s great for a long distance challenge route to be a loop rather than a point to point like the South Downs Way, which always presents the problem of how to get back.

One improvement, subject to checking SPTA / MOD website on firing times: the old Salisbury-Devizes coaching road from just S of Urchfont to Larkhill is a great gravel track through the Westdown range ‘impact zone’ (and there’s another equally good track from just SW of Market Lavington, if you want to make more of the perimeter path). As well as being more remote and more interesting, both are more direct than the official route which jinks about through Tilshead.

And up on the Ridgeway just west of Goring, the Bell Inn at Aldworth is a peach of a country pub. Pints, pies and pickled eggs, no frills.

Cheers Jack

We agreed with MOD not to heavily publicise the old coaching road so didn’t include it as an option. (Guy mentions it briefly in the day 1 video) they are really keen to maintain a clear and consistent message regards safety, and we all feared that the ‘temptation’ for people to chance it when the red flag was up might be just too much - better to be consistent with our message. Same goes for the tarmac road straight into Tilshead round the back of the camp, or Gravel tank roads along the southern transit route that gives a nice easy link crossing the main road direct at ‘November’ - really fast and easier than the drop into Orcheston, but all potentially subject to red flag so we excluded them from the route. You’d be surprised how quickly a 60-75 tonne Chally2 can sneak up on you enexpectedlt, and how limited the drivers vision is - we actually went up and tested this.

The IRPP is now complete for bikes and horses, thanks to the work of Nigel Linge, the former Range Safety Officer, so that’s a really nice loop on its own, or an extension, but not good in parts if it’s wet.

Imber village itself remains a really interesting diversion from the route around Easter, when the church is open for visitors, would thoroughly recommend it.

Enjoying this so far this weekend well, once clear of Reading anyway.. anyone ITTing this will have fun if they get there at a busy time..
Started in Goring as it's a good ride from home to there. Very glad I didn't bring the gravel bike - it's nothing technical but there's some fast stuff where it's fun to let it go. Seen a few riders descending very carefully on loaded gravel bikes.
A little ashamed to say today was my first time on the SDW. Gorgeous isn't it? Will be back there next summer for sure.

jameso wrote: ↑Sat Sep 05, 2020 9:46 pm A little ashamed to say today was my first time on the SDW. Gorgeous isn't it? Will be back there next summer for sure.

It helps that the weather's good? I assume it's as sunny there as it was here.

With a bit of local knowledge there's also loads of great riding just off the SDW including lots of singletrack.