I finally managed to find someone to accompany me on a long distance ride last weekend when a friend of mine visited, and this weekend we went for a wonderful ride all the way from Warlingham to Brighton (~50 miles).
We set out around lunchtime in beautiful sunshine, 20C temperatures and a mild easterly wind - As we were heading south, the wind provided a pleasant cooling breeze rather than being headwind to fight against.
My house is very close to the National Cycle Network route 21 (from Greenwich to Brighton and Eastbourne), so we picked up the route at the end of Marks Wood in Warlingham (20 miles from the Greenwich End) and meandered down into Woldingham by the side of the golf course. The route then crosses the main road, and follows the driveway for the very nice boarding school for about 4 miles before branching off through the woods to reach a bridge over the A22 just south of Caterham. The surroundings for the school, sitting in the middle of a beautiful valley with cows grazing at the side, the sun beating down on a scene of perfect tranquility. Once over the bridge, quiet roads lead you up steeply up to the Caterham viewpoint looking out from the North Downs over Oxted, Godstone and Bletchingly. (6 miles in - Time for a can of coke)
The route leads down the side of the North Downs through the woods and onto a minor farming road which cuts underneath the M25. Quiet country roads speed you downhill for a few miles until you're nearly on top of M25-J8. Fortunately there's a left turn and a gravelly path uphill which cuts under the A217 and leads you away from the noise, depositing you at the entrance to Mere Park Nature Reserve (on Nutfield Marsh). The cycle path through the nature reserve is a lovely hard packed super-fine gravel which makes a lovely noise as you roll along.
Once through the nature reserve a 1/2 mile stretch of road leads you to the entrance to The Moors where the path runs first alongside an old gravel quarry, and then through the woods alongside a babbling brook until you're abruptly deposited at the back of a housing estate. A short cut-through takes you to a school. The road from the school takes you past the post office depot to some traffic lights, and a right turn takes you to... Oh my goodness.. We're on the A23 - horrible busy road through the centre of Redhill. - Time to get off and walk. (13.5 miles cycled so far)
After a short stretch pushing the bikes along the pavement, the road quietens and a cycle lane appears. The path carries on alongside the main road taking you past a few warehouse-sized shops (B&Q & Halfords or something like that) until you head off left onto quiet suburban roads once again, under the railway, and south out of Redhill, and onto the next page on the Sustrans map.
The route down to Horley takes you along quiet roads once more, past Redhill Hospital, through a rough looking housing estate at Whitebushes and then down through fields and woods. The route through Horley itself involved mixing with cars for a while and a get-off-and-push through a railway underpass, but was generally OK. Once past Horley a surprisingly quiet stretch of path running in-between the dual carriageway and the railway lines lands you in the heart of Gatwick Airport. (20 miles so far)
Cycling through Gatwick Airport was amazing. Whenever I've flown from Gatwick I've always been restricted to the car parks and terminal buildings (figuring that the rest of the airport was off-limits), but the cycle path leads right through the heart of everything. It dives under the terminal buildings, and weaves in and out of spotlight towers. They seemed to have some amazing armoured bike racks there thick fold-down plastic covers which totally protected the whole bike - I've no idea if they're available to the public, but they looked like a great idea.
Once past Gatwick, a road through an industrial estate (apparently absent of traffic on Saturdays) takes you into Crawley and Three Bridges where the route splits (26 miles) into either 21 to Eastbourne, or 20 to Brighton. We followed route 20 out through Tilgate Forest and down a wonderfull hill to Pease Pottage. You might have noticed by now that there seem to be far more downhills in this journey than ups, and if you have, then you'd be right - Our journey started around 800ft above sea level.
Well past halfway now, and onto the last page of the map. From Pease Pottage to Handscross there's a quiet road which runs a few dozen feet away from the main A23 dual carriageway. We stopped at a pub Handscross for some refreshments and as they'd stopped selling food by then, we munched our way through a selection of crisps and peanuts to energise our tired muscles. The road out of Handscross is delicious 4 mile long downhill run taking you through Staplefield and down towards Warninglid where you have to cross a bridge over the top of the A23.
I'm still annoyed about the next bit. Once across the bridge there's a clear sign telling you that it's right to Brighton. We headed down the road which was a slip-road onto 70mph dual-carriageway. We couldn't believe it was right, so we went back and checked down the adjoining roads for more signs. We still couldn't believe it was right, so we rode around a field. We ventured carefully forwards and found a cycle path running alongside the dual carriageway, so we followed it. After about a mile and a half, the cycle path ran out. We were at the side of the busy dual carriageway with no where to go. We checked out maps.. We checked our satnav phones... We decided that we must have gone wrong way-back, but if we pushed our bikes along the verge for 1/2 mile, we'd reach the next junction where we could resume the route. We reached the next junction which told us we were 3/4 miles from Staplefield. We headed back to Staplefield and then down the same very pleasant road to Warninglid.. and back across the same bridge... and the same sign that we couldn't believe. This time however, I parked the bike and walked down the footpath on the right hand side of the slip lane, and lo-and behold found another cycle path, this time heading in the right direction. There was a sign pointing the way to Brighton, but it was impossible to see from the slip road as the sign pointing the way back to Crawley was in just the right place to obscure it. 4.5 miles of wasted effort, but at least we found the right way in the end.
I'm afraid the next 15 miles of the route are not much fun. A cycle path runs alongside the dual carriageway. Sometimes it is only seperated by a kerb, and sometimes there's a scattering of trees to shield you a little, but it's always noisey, and there's not a lot to look at. That section of the route is all a blur in my mind now and I the only noteworth detail I can remember is that about 8 miles outside of Brighton, cycling suddenly became a lot easier. Downhill all the way now, thanks to a 500ft descent all the way to the sea.
There's a good cycle path taking you through the outskirts of Brighton and into the town centre, and then an excellent segregated pedestrian/cycle parkway system taking you through tree-lined streets with numerous cycle/pedestrian crossings. Downhill at every turn for a couple of miles and finally we reached the pier. (52.2 miles so far). After snapping a few photos to prove we were there, we headed back up the hill to the train station for a train back to East Croydon.
Quite a ride - Here's what it looks like on the map.
( Click for Large image )
The train was non-stop to East Croydon, so didn't take long, but once we arrived we had another 7 miles to do back to my house. We stopped at the Harrow pub in Farleigh for a couple of very well deserved beers, and whilst mulling over our achievements, realised that by the time we made it back home, we'd have done 99.4KM. It seemed a shame not to break the 100km barrier, so we took an extra 1/2 mile detour at the end. Total distance cycled 62.2 miles (100.1km)
I feel that special mention must be made here for my willing victim. He's a pretty fit chap, but aside from last weekend's 5 mile jaunt, he hadn't cycled in 5 years. He made it all 52.2 miles to Brighton on my wife's Agattu and still had 2/5 lights showing on the battery at the end of it all - It wasn't until 61 miles that his battery ran out and I gave him mine as a replacement.
We set out around lunchtime in beautiful sunshine, 20C temperatures and a mild easterly wind - As we were heading south, the wind provided a pleasant cooling breeze rather than being headwind to fight against.
My house is very close to the National Cycle Network route 21 (from Greenwich to Brighton and Eastbourne), so we picked up the route at the end of Marks Wood in Warlingham (20 miles from the Greenwich End) and meandered down into Woldingham by the side of the golf course. The route then crosses the main road, and follows the driveway for the very nice boarding school for about 4 miles before branching off through the woods to reach a bridge over the A22 just south of Caterham. The surroundings for the school, sitting in the middle of a beautiful valley with cows grazing at the side, the sun beating down on a scene of perfect tranquility. Once over the bridge, quiet roads lead you up steeply up to the Caterham viewpoint looking out from the North Downs over Oxted, Godstone and Bletchingly. (6 miles in - Time for a can of coke)
The route leads down the side of the North Downs through the woods and onto a minor farming road which cuts underneath the M25. Quiet country roads speed you downhill for a few miles until you're nearly on top of M25-J8. Fortunately there's a left turn and a gravelly path uphill which cuts under the A217 and leads you away from the noise, depositing you at the entrance to Mere Park Nature Reserve (on Nutfield Marsh). The cycle path through the nature reserve is a lovely hard packed super-fine gravel which makes a lovely noise as you roll along.
Once through the nature reserve a 1/2 mile stretch of road leads you to the entrance to The Moors where the path runs first alongside an old gravel quarry, and then through the woods alongside a babbling brook until you're abruptly deposited at the back of a housing estate. A short cut-through takes you to a school. The road from the school takes you past the post office depot to some traffic lights, and a right turn takes you to... Oh my goodness.. We're on the A23 - horrible busy road through the centre of Redhill. - Time to get off and walk. (13.5 miles cycled so far)
After a short stretch pushing the bikes along the pavement, the road quietens and a cycle lane appears. The path carries on alongside the main road taking you past a few warehouse-sized shops (B&Q & Halfords or something like that) until you head off left onto quiet suburban roads once again, under the railway, and south out of Redhill, and onto the next page on the Sustrans map.
The route down to Horley takes you along quiet roads once more, past Redhill Hospital, through a rough looking housing estate at Whitebushes and then down through fields and woods. The route through Horley itself involved mixing with cars for a while and a get-off-and-push through a railway underpass, but was generally OK. Once past Horley a surprisingly quiet stretch of path running in-between the dual carriageway and the railway lines lands you in the heart of Gatwick Airport. (20 miles so far)
Cycling through Gatwick Airport was amazing. Whenever I've flown from Gatwick I've always been restricted to the car parks and terminal buildings (figuring that the rest of the airport was off-limits), but the cycle path leads right through the heart of everything. It dives under the terminal buildings, and weaves in and out of spotlight towers. They seemed to have some amazing armoured bike racks there thick fold-down plastic covers which totally protected the whole bike - I've no idea if they're available to the public, but they looked like a great idea.
Once past Gatwick, a road through an industrial estate (apparently absent of traffic on Saturdays) takes you into Crawley and Three Bridges where the route splits (26 miles) into either 21 to Eastbourne, or 20 to Brighton. We followed route 20 out through Tilgate Forest and down a wonderfull hill to Pease Pottage. You might have noticed by now that there seem to be far more downhills in this journey than ups, and if you have, then you'd be right - Our journey started around 800ft above sea level.
Well past halfway now, and onto the last page of the map. From Pease Pottage to Handscross there's a quiet road which runs a few dozen feet away from the main A23 dual carriageway. We stopped at a pub Handscross for some refreshments and as they'd stopped selling food by then, we munched our way through a selection of crisps and peanuts to energise our tired muscles. The road out of Handscross is delicious 4 mile long downhill run taking you through Staplefield and down towards Warninglid where you have to cross a bridge over the top of the A23.
I'm still annoyed about the next bit. Once across the bridge there's a clear sign telling you that it's right to Brighton. We headed down the road which was a slip-road onto 70mph dual-carriageway. We couldn't believe it was right, so we went back and checked down the adjoining roads for more signs. We still couldn't believe it was right, so we rode around a field. We ventured carefully forwards and found a cycle path running alongside the dual carriageway, so we followed it. After about a mile and a half, the cycle path ran out. We were at the side of the busy dual carriageway with no where to go. We checked out maps.. We checked our satnav phones... We decided that we must have gone wrong way-back, but if we pushed our bikes along the verge for 1/2 mile, we'd reach the next junction where we could resume the route. We reached the next junction which told us we were 3/4 miles from Staplefield. We headed back to Staplefield and then down the same very pleasant road to Warninglid.. and back across the same bridge... and the same sign that we couldn't believe. This time however, I parked the bike and walked down the footpath on the right hand side of the slip lane, and lo-and behold found another cycle path, this time heading in the right direction. There was a sign pointing the way to Brighton, but it was impossible to see from the slip road as the sign pointing the way back to Crawley was in just the right place to obscure it. 4.5 miles of wasted effort, but at least we found the right way in the end.
I'm afraid the next 15 miles of the route are not much fun. A cycle path runs alongside the dual carriageway. Sometimes it is only seperated by a kerb, and sometimes there's a scattering of trees to shield you a little, but it's always noisey, and there's not a lot to look at. That section of the route is all a blur in my mind now and I the only noteworth detail I can remember is that about 8 miles outside of Brighton, cycling suddenly became a lot easier. Downhill all the way now, thanks to a 500ft descent all the way to the sea.
There's a good cycle path taking you through the outskirts of Brighton and into the town centre, and then an excellent segregated pedestrian/cycle parkway system taking you through tree-lined streets with numerous cycle/pedestrian crossings. Downhill at every turn for a couple of miles and finally we reached the pier. (52.2 miles so far). After snapping a few photos to prove we were there, we headed back up the hill to the train station for a train back to East Croydon.
Quite a ride - Here's what it looks like on the map.
( Click for Large image )
The train was non-stop to East Croydon, so didn't take long, but once we arrived we had another 7 miles to do back to my house. We stopped at the Harrow pub in Farleigh for a couple of very well deserved beers, and whilst mulling over our achievements, realised that by the time we made it back home, we'd have done 99.4KM. It seemed a shame not to break the 100km barrier, so we took an extra 1/2 mile detour at the end. Total distance cycled 62.2 miles (100.1km)
I feel that special mention must be made here for my willing victim. He's a pretty fit chap, but aside from last weekend's 5 mile jaunt, he hadn't cycled in 5 years. He made it all 52.2 miles to Brighton on my wife's Agattu and still had 2/5 lights showing on the battery at the end of it all - It wasn't until 61 miles that his battery ran out and I gave him mine as a replacement.
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