The Ridgeway + Kennet & Avon Canal
I was on the Ridgeway – again. This time it was to ride a 240km car-free, off-road overnighter using the Kennet & Avon Canal to create a loop.
Two years previously I’d cycled the Ridgeway from Overton Hill in Wiltshire to Streatley on the River Thames in Berkshire. And back. That made for a day packed with 140km of glorious, almost continuous off-road riding. I wanted to repeat the experience, and this time I wanted to do it without any assistance from a car.
On my previous trip, bookending the day with a long drive through heavy traffic had detracted from the feeling of freedom on the trail. Today I had arrived at the Ridgeway via train to Bradford-on-Avon, followed by a ride along the Kennet and Avon Canal to Devizes and up the linking tracks of the Wessex Ridgeway through Avebury. It was mid-summer and this was my birthday present to myself – two days free from my responsibilities to cycle what’s said to be Britain’s oldest road, and to return to Bradford-on-Avon via Reading and the towpaths of the Kennet and Avon.