The Old Chalk Way: Trains, Tanks, and a Chalk Man With His Bits Out

Some context before I get into it: I've been meaning to do a proper bikepacking trip for years, and I finally ran out of excuses. The Old Chalk Way, Lyme Regis to Norfolk, 358 miles of gravel bike route, most of it off-road, all of it carried on the bike. My mate Rob and I did it over four days plus a ride home. Here's how it actually went, not the polished version.

Getting there was half the adventure

It started before we'd even turned a pedal. Early start from Norwich station, so early there wasn't even a coffee going, which for a station that feels like it hasn't been updated since about 1987 anyway, felt about right. Then it was straight into Rob's first ever bike ride across London. If you've seen Caleb from Clarkson's Farm arrive in London for the first time, wide-eyed and slightly alarmed by the whole thing, that was Rob. Except Rob doesn't have a mobile phone, which made the whole crossing considerably more of an event than it needed to be.

Then the train south, which should have had seven carriages and turned up with four, because apparently you can just lose three carriages somewhere along the way and nobody's especially bothered. One poor bloke ended up wedging his bike in wherever it would fit and then guarding it like his life depended on it, refusing to let anyone near it, which as it turned out worked in our favour too, since nobody was getting near ours either. I'll never fully understand how train travel works in this country. You book a ticket, and then discover the ticket was more of a suggestion. I think we're the envy of nobody.

We finally rolled into Lyme Regis and set ourselves up at Kiosk, right on the seafront, for lunch before setting off. Great little spot, sandwiches, toast, drinks, deckchairs on the beach right outside. I was tempted by an Aperol spritz to send us off in style. Went for a ginger beer instead. Could genuinely have sat there for another few hours, but the Old Chalk Way wasn't going to ride itself.

Day 1: the Chalk Man has his bits out

First proper miles of the trip, and Dorset didn't ease us in gently. Steep climbing, on and off road, some sections so rocky I ended up walking rather than pretending I could ride them with a fully loaded bike. Worth it, though, because you get a view of the Cerne Abbas Giant on the way through, who is, by any measure, extremely well endowed and completely unbothered about it. Nobody seems entirely sure who put him there or why, but he's become one of my favourite things about this route purely for how unexpected he is.

Small lesson from earlier in the day, filed here because it fits: I'd packed the wrong towel. Pulled it out at the first campsite and it was closer to a flannel. You want to save space when you're bikepacking, but there is a limit, and that limit is "does it actually cover the essentials." Traditional Dorset knob biscuits were also involved at some point on this stretch, which felt like the correct regional snack for a day that started with a giant's anatomy and ended with a towel crisis.

We'd planned to wild camp that first night, but stopped for a pint and a bit of food at a pub in Lower Ansty first, still turning the idea over. While we were sat there, we noticed a campsite sign just across the way. Wandered over, and there was nobody around to pay, just a note saying pitch up and settle up in the morning. So we did, a bank transfer over breakfast the next day. Turned out to be Brewery Farm, and it had everything we needed right there, a shower and a working plug socket to charge the power bank included. Wild camping could wait for another night. This one, we didn't need to.

Day 2: Narnia, Stonehenge, and our first night in a field we didn't ask permission for

This was the best day of the whole trip, and also the most eventful. We rolled into Shaftesbury for Gold Hill, the steep cobbled climb from the Hovis advert, and somehow got up it with fully loaded bikes, which felt like a genuine achievement. There's a café at the top, so we sat and had breakfast looking out over the view, thoroughly pleased with ourselves.

Then we walked round the back of the café and the entire scene changed. One side, quaint cobbled village straight off a biscuit tin. The other side, Shaftesbury High Street, fully modern, like someone had opened a portal. It was the most Narnia moment of my life, wardrobe and everything, and if you ride this route I'd genuinely recommend going and standing in that exact spot just to feel the whiplash for yourself.

From there it was more rocky gravel, a good look at Stonehenge (crowded, but you still get a proper view from the road), and then onto Salisbury Plain, which might be the strangest stretch of the entire route. Bleak, empty, the occasional tank rumbling about, firing range signs everywhere. We genuinely weren't sure how we were going to get round it if the red flags were up and the route was closed. We didn't get shot. We didn't get run over by a tank. Both outcomes I'm counting as wins.

By the time we hit the Ridgeway, we were properly committed to finding somewhere to wild camp for our first time. While we were scouting around for water and somewhere to stop, we stumbled on a mirage-like public water tap in the middle of absolutely nowhere, genuinely one of the best sights of the trip at that point, and topped up before pushing on to find a pitch. We found what looked like the perfect spot just below Wantage, tucked behind some hay bales with a pile of chalk hardcore on the other side, and thought we were geniuses. Then the farmer turned up to keep working the field. He didn't see us. We spent the next hour or so lying very still and hoping. Not the best night's sleep of my life, but a properly memorable one. Up at 4am and packed away not long after.

Day 3: no breakfast, a lot of golf clubs saying no, and a pint that put me to sleep

Rough start. Turned away from a golf club because it was apparently too early in the day for coffee (a sentence I still don't fully understand), before we stumbled onto a proper hotel at Goring-on-Thames with decking right over the water. We sat there with coffee and breakfast feeling, briefly, like we were on a holiday rather than day three of an increasingly ambitious cycling trip. They wouldn't let us use a room to wash, which, fair enough, but we asked.

More steep climbs through the Chilterns, lunch at a proper farm kitchen café, and then on to Beacon Hill, which has some of the best views of the whole route. We camped at Kensworth, just south of Dunstable, at a site with an outside shower that had, thankfully, a door. Wasn't totally showering in front of the whole campsite, small mercies. We went to the pub for a proper meal, "five minutes away" turned into a very believable ten, and I settled in with a Hawkstone (courtesy of Jeremy Clarkson, since apparently he's involved in beer now too) while Rob fell asleep at the table. Not sure if it was my conversation or three days of riding finally catching up with him. Possibly both.

Also lost my flip-flops somewhere on the trail that day. Had a proper look on the bike when we stopped and they'd simply vanished. Left me with a choice between walking to the pub barefoot or in cycling shoes. I went with the cycling shoes. Somehow still felt like the more dignified option.

Day 4: Jack Duckworth, several McDonald's, and a very sandy finish

Woke up, reached for my glasses, and discovered the arm had snapped clean off. Fixed it with a plaster, which left me looking exactly like Jack Duckworth from Coronation Street for the rest of the day. Not the start I was hoping for.

The riding matched the mood, if I'm honest. Straight through the centre of Luton to begin with, which is not the Old Chalk Way at its most scenic, though there was at least a decent cycle track to soften the blow. We stopped at a McDonald's near Letchworth Garden City for the full order, an egg McMuffin meal with hash brown, a much-needed double espresso, and a porridge pot each, which felt like exactly the right level of ceremony for the occasion.

Lunch was at a café in Great Chesterford that Rob wasn't a fan of, made worse by getting charged £5 for a pistachio and dark chocolate cookie, something he has not, to this day, let go. By Thetford, the ground turned properly sandy, catching me out after days of chalk and gravel. I stopped for fish and chips in Thetford Square, watching the local Wetherspoons do a roaring trade on a Thursday afternoon, which felt like a fitting way to mark the unofficial end of the trip. Rob peeled off from there towards Dereham, and I carried on alone riding the last stretch back to Norwich into a headwind the whole way, nursing a sidewall split I'd been plugging bigger and bigger patches into since day two.

Would I do it again?

Without question. Four days, 358 miles of route (we covered most of it, minus the final stretch up to Hunstanton, which is next on the list), a giant's anatomy, a portal to modern Britain, several near-tank-related incidents, one destroyed pair of glasses, one missing pair of flip-flops, and a genuinely brilliant few days on the bike with a mate.

There's a bigger point in there too. We live in a pretty relentless, always-on digital world these days, and for four days the only signal I was tracking was whether Rob was still upright. Properly switching off like that, even half by accident given the signal out there, was one of the best parts of the whole trip, and I think it's exactly why this kind of thing is only going to get more popular. I'll definitely be doing it again.

If you're thinking about doing something similar, the practical stuff, route breakdown, lessons learned, and exactly what I packed, is all written up separately so you can actually plan it properly rather than working it out the hard way like we did. Blogs coming soon! 

6 Bikepacking Lessons I Learned the Hard Way

The Old Chalk Way: A Full Route Guide

My Bikepacking Setup: Tent, Sleeping Bag and Mat