Finished doing this yesterday. The short version is that it is quite tough. It is difficult to navigate, especially between Reading and East Meon. You could easily spend a week on it, and if you wanted to visit all the sites, you would have to. Finding accommodation can be a problem. There are a lot of hills to lug camping equipment up if you want to camp. Finding cheap accommodation in the Oxfordshire area is particularly difficult.
I started doing this with a friend. We set off from Reading, aiming to reach the Eco Lodge in East Meon. This was a very difficult day. We were looking at the map half the time trying to work out where we were. It was particularly difficult past Farnham. We kept taking wrong turns. We got drenched by heavy rainfall. We could not find the Shipwright’s Way. I had an issue with my gear lever. The forest route was not signposted very well. We had some tough climbs. We had to push our bikes up Butser Hill. We had phoned up the Eco Lodge about 3pm when we reckoned we would not get there by 5pm. The bloke said no problem. We made some short cuts but did not get there until 8pm and it was all closed. We rang up an emergency number and got a door code, but it was a code to the hostel not the B+B, and the letter we were told to expect was not there. We rang the number again and a woman came out to let us in. The nearest place to eat was the Bat and Ball two miles away, so we had to cycle down there without showering before they closed the kitchen. The next day we set off towards Amesbury. Things were going alright until a bolt sheared off my saddle and the saddle came off. Another cyclist recommended I push the seatpost down, but when I tried to loosen the seatpost collar, the bolt snapped. However the seatpost had seized and would not move. Stood on the pedals for another ten or fifteen miles until we reached Winchester. I took my bike to a cycle cafe called Bespoke Biking. The bicycle mechanic said he did not have the bolts to put the saddle back. In addition, he said the brake pads were worn, the headset was loose, the hubs were loose, and that he did not recommend I continue the journey. My friend said it was game over, but I did not want to give up. I tried to buy a 2nd hand bike, but they did not have anything suitable. I went to Bike X, but their bikes were rather expensive. I set off to
Halfords to see what they had. They had something that looked suitable, which might have taken a rack, but time was pressing. I went back to Bike X, who had offered me £75 for my bike (I think) in part exchange. However, plans had changed. They put the saddle back on and did not charge me anything. Meanwhile, my friend had phoned another friend to take us back, but I told him I wanted to continue. I had suggested he continue on his own, and I would have tried to catch up, but he did not want to. Later he texted me he was not enjoying the journey, expecially all the map reading. So he went home and I cycled onto Salisbury Youth Hostel in Cholderton near Amesbury, via a busy A road to Stockbridge and then country lanes. I got there at 7:30 very tired. I tailgated some other guests into the hostel, but there was nobody in reception. I waited there for about half an hour before anyone showed up. It turned out there was a buzzer by the entrance I had missed. I had booked a group room, for myself and my friend, but now it was only me in a room with eight beds. The other odd thing was that they used another downstairs dorm room to store bicycles because the receptionist said a lot of cyclists were doing the King Alfred Way on expensive bikes and their cycle shed was not secure enough. The only place to get food was the pub down the road, because the nearest shop was on a dual carriageway. I set off the next day without breakfast, decided against crossing the A303, worked my way towards Amesbury and back onto the route. Had to cycle along a very busy road out of Larkhill, then started going through all these roads and paths adorned with MOD signs. I was not sure which paths we were actually allowed to cycle on and on which we might be shelled by mistake. Eventually I got onto this MOD gravel road which went on for miles and miles without barely seeing anyone, getting soaked by the rain. I missed my turn off, but worked my way back to Avebury where the standing stones are. There I rejoined the route where it became the Ridgeway. I followed that until Barbury Castle, then joined the Old Ridgeway to Chiseldon, where the hotel was. The next day I followed the Ridgeway and the Thames Path back Reading. I am familiar with much of this route and it was fairly straightforward. The biggest incident was that a motorcylist had witnessed a smash and grab from a car parked on the Ridgeway and asked me whether he should call the police. I advised him to phone 111, but I was not very helpful at working out exactly where we were. I stopped a bunch of other cyclists and through a combination of GPS and other phone apps, we were able to give a location.
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