Kent Weald and Rye Marsh Roads

A 224 km loop

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Why this ride

Built for flow, views and useful stops rather than navigation busywork. A 224 km loop that starts and ends near London, about 4 h 04 of riding. The plan has 1 food stop marked.

Roadbook

1. London start

   London is the one place on the map where the best advice is to leave the bike at the edge. The centre around Charing Cross and Trafalgar Square is a maze of one-way streets, bus lanes, taxis and tourists, and parking is limited and expensive. The city also has a congestion charge and a low-emission zone, whose rules for motorcycles have changed over the years, so check the current conditions for your own machine before you ride in. For a start and finish, a quiet side street or a secure garage on the outskirts is a better plan.

   What you are stopping for here is history on a large scale. St Martin-in-the-Fields, a handsome eighteenth-century church with a tall steeple and a classical portico, stands at the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square, and its crypt hosts a café, a gallery and a brass-rubbing centre. It is famous for its lunchtime concerts and for its work with homeless people. Across the road, Nelson's Column rises over the square, with its bronze lions, and the National Gallery stretches along the north side.

   The city has some 7.5 million people, and it is never quite finished with itself. Roman Londinium was a muddy trading post on the Thames, and the medieval city grew into a great port, burning down in 1666 and rebuilding in brick and stone. Westminster, a short walk south, holds the Palace of Parliament and the Abbey, where English monarchs have been crowned for nearly a thousand years. The riding here is entirely about getting out: the A3, A4 and A40 lead to quiet lanes in Surrey, the Chilterns and Kent, and a very early start on a Sunday morning makes it easy.

   Fuel is available, but it is among the most expensive in the country, so top up on the outskirts. For a drink, a pub in the side streets off Whitehall, with its brass and etched glass, is as London as it gets. And when the light fades, the square is full of buskers, pigeons and people, and the lamps along the Mall glow.

2. Rye food

   Rye sits on a small hill that was once almost an island, surrounded by the sea and marshes, and the town still looks the part: a tight cluster of red roofs, a church tower, a stone fort, all perched above the flat expanse of Romney Marsh. It was one of the Cinque Ports, the confederation of Channel towns that supplied ships to the medieval crown in return for privileges, and it was a busy harbour until the sea retreated and the channels silted up. Today the coast is a couple of miles away.

   The old town is a delight on foot. Mermaid Street, steep and cobbled, is lined with timber-framed houses and the ancient Mermaid Inn, and Lamb House, once home to the novelist Henry James and later to E. F. Benson, author of the Mapp and Lucia books set in a thinly disguised Rye, is just around the corner. The Ypres Tower, a thirteenth-century fortification, looks out over the marsh. The cobbles are not friendly to bikes, so park at the bottom of the hill and walk up.

   The landscape around Rye is distinctive. To the east, Romney Marsh is a flat land of sheep, drainage ditches and isolated medieval churches, under huge skies. To the south-east lie Camber Sands, one of the few large sandy beaches on this part of the coast, and further on Dungeness, a shingle headland with a nuclear power station, lighthouses and fishermen's huts. To the west and north, the land rises into the High Weald, with steep, wooded hills and narrow lanes.

   The riding is a pleasing mix. The marsh roads are flat and often straight, but they can have sharp right-angle bends where they follow the field boundaries and ditches, and the wind can be strong. The Weald roads are more challenging, narrow and twisting, sometimes muddy. Rye has cafés, pubs and restaurants serving local fish and lamb from the marsh. Fuel is available in town, but options are limited, so plan ahead if you are heading out onto the marsh in the evening.

3. London finish

Where this sits

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