Lets start with the trip video:

Here’s the full 120 mile route we did:

View larger version with stats on the EveryTrail site

Day 1 Twickenham to Guildford – 25 miles

Setting off from Twickenham at lunch time we rode the Thames and river Wey towpaths to Guildford. Though these can be slow at times (sometimes narrow and quite a few pedestrians) they are flat and there are lots of options for pub and ice cream stops. The ride was pleasant and we even found time for a leisurely early beer stop about an hour from Guildford.

Day 2 Guildford to Brighton – 45 miles

The main day involved following the Wey towpath a bit further south for a few miles and then picking up the Downs Link which goes all the way to Shoreham on the coast. Being a disused railway route this is mostly flat and traffic free with just some small diversions into woods or onto roads (this trip actually turned out to be the flattest I’ve organised).

Incidents of the day included:

• Rob coming up behind a small child and surprising him into falling off his bike. (bell next time Robert!)
• Chris having a timely puncture as we pulled into the pub but then causing a loud inner tube blowout in the middle of an otherwise tranquil pub garden.
• Rob (again!) stopping suddenly noticing a rope swing, causing carnage behind him and Michelle ending up on the ground.

And for those those that didn’t stay the night in Hove, yes the B&B really did have free wine, chocolates and biscuits in the rooms!

Day 3 Brighton to Hayling Island – 50 miles

An optional day where 4 riders continued along the south coast (National Cycle route 2) back to Hayling Island. This was all road or cycle path and we made quick progress, eventually completing around 50 miles.

Incidentally, the Sustrans site indicates that much of this part of route 2 is still under development. We didn’t manage to follow it all the way (there are some quite big detours to avoid major roads) but there was enough useful signposting to be of help.

Finally, convenient as trains are it’s always nice to start or finish a bike trip actually at your bike shed after a 50 mile ride!

So, here are the obligatory nick names for people on the trip:

• Tim: Gentle Undulations (my description of hills)
• Liz: Speed Spurt (40 miles into the last day)
• Andy: In Training (for Wales this summer)
• Michelle: Emergency Stop (maybe her brakes are a little too good?)
• Tom: Nurse (performed the role admirably when Michelle came off)
• Jonno: The Crack (we saw too much of it!)
• Rob: Take Down (caused at least one small child to fall off their bike and Michelle to end up in the dirt)
• Chris: Part timer (showed up for just the Downs Link day)

Pictures from the trip

More Information

Further information (including maps) about cycling this route from:
West Sussex County Council
Guildford Borough Council
Sustrans National Cycle Route 2
Also read my Guide to Planning a weekend bike trip

1. The advanced mountain biking course at Queen Elizabeth Country Park
2. From there following the Southdowns Way to the A29, just west of Amberly.
3. On the road to Burnham (from where I took a train to Havant)
4. The Hayling Billy Trail back to south Hayling Island.

Total: 39 miles – most of it offroad, and a great 6 hours training. Here is the route (terrain view gives you more of an idea):

View larger version at EveryTrail

I also used the trip to try out my new Tachyon XC Micro helmet camera for the first time. The following is my first dabbling in the world of helmet mounted video (much better efforts hopefully to come in future posts). The video is all of the advanced mountain biking course at Queen Elizabeth Country park – so gives a flavour of the riding there:

In a side note – I learned with interest recently that if you upload something to YouTube that incorporates copyright material (such as say… the music you put your biking video to) it is quite possible that it can be actively permitted to remain there by the copyright owner for various reasons… see this fascinating talk on how YouTube manages copyright material.

I used the ride to try out a couple of route mapping apps on my iPhone. First up Trails Lite – this was working fine – but the free version stops after 5 minutes. So on to Everytrail for the rest of the route. It worked really well – I used it both to map my route and also to frequently stop and plan my next step as I was making it up as I went along. It’s easy to use – with all the features I needed easy to find.

The only major issue was with battery life (not the fault of EveryTrail!) – my phone died 2/3 of the way through – I’d expected this issue with iPhone trip mapping – as it stands it’ll be great for mapping training rides, but isn’t going to be up to anything longer. There are possible solutions to this (there are external extra battery devices, or upgrade to iPhone 4!) but that’s for another day.

Anyway – the EveryTrail route is below. I edited it on the web after to add the missing data. As you can see I totaled 42 miles – a good start to my training…

Hayling Island to Petersfield loop

Note that you can click on the red dots to see photos I took at those points. Or go to the EveryTrail site to see a larger/interactive version.

This ride had day long sea views, countless opportunities for ice cream and snack breaks, a brief spell of riding along a 15th century fortification, us crossing the path of the worlds longest running commercial hovercraft and even some clambering around a kiddies pirate ship. But the highlight for me was taking the bikes on the Hayling Ferry over to Eastney. There is something great about combining these two modes of transport – in this case not least because the total time to Southsea was less than it would have been to drive, but also – well it just looks cool having your bike on a ferry!

Next time – perhaps we’ll go a stage further and take the next ferry over to Gosport as well!