South Downs and Beachy Head Day

A 245 km loop

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Why this ride

A proper escape from London motorcycle escapes with roads worth waking up for. 245 km round from Waltham Cross - plan on about 5 h 07 of riding. The stops in between: Scenic stretch near Collier Row, near Stone, near Oxted and Croydon. The line favours views over speed.

Roadbook

1. Fuel stop in Waltham Cross fuel

   Fuel at 0 km.

2. Scenic stretch near Collier Row swim

   Scenic stretch near Collier Row comes up 35 km in.

3. High point near Stone swim
4. Photo stop near Oxted swim

   Photo stop near Oxted, about halfway.

5. Near Croydon finish

   Croydon is where the South Downs ride comes home to London, and it is honest about it: a big, busy town of glass office towers, flyovers, trams and shopping centres, sitting at the southern edge of the capital where the chalk hills of the North Downs fade into suburbs. It has a population larger than many British cities and its own strong identity, and for a rider it is the last stretch before the metropolis takes over.

   It has a surprising history. Croydon Airport, a few kilometres south-west on the Purley Way, was London's main airport between the wars, the first in the world with a proper air-traffic control tower, and the departure point for many early flights to Europe and the Empire. Amy Johnson took off from here in 1930 on her solo flight to Australia. The old terminal building still stands, with a small museum, and it is a nice detour if you are interested in aviation. Croydon was also an ancient market town and the home of the Archbishops of Canterbury for centuries, whose old palace survives in the old town.

   Getting here from the south means one of a few corridors. The A23 runs up through Coulsdon and Purley, and the A22 brings you in through Caterham and Whyteleafe, and both drop off the North Downs in a series of bends before turning into long suburban roads lined with shops and traffic lights. The downs themselves, just south of here, are still lovely, with steep lanes around Woldingham and Chaldon and views back over the Weald, so if time allows, a last loop up there before descending is a good farewell.

   Urban riding is the end of the story. Expect buses, trams, busy junctions and drivers in a hurry, and the area is covered by the London Ultra Low Emission Zone, which applies to older motorcycles, so check your bike's status. Speed cameras are common on the main roads.

   Everything practical is here: fuel, food from every cuisine, bike shops and dealers, and fast trains into central London. It is not a place to linger in your gear, but it is a perfectly good place to put the bike down, take a deep breath and remember that only a couple of hours ago you were looking at the sea from Beachy Head.

6. Food stop near Knaphill food
7. Near Berkhamsted, on the way back swim

   Berkhamsted lies in a narrow chalk valley cut through the Chilterns, with the Grand Union Canal, the River Bulbourne, the railway and the old main road all squeezed into the bottom together, and beech woods rising on both sides. It is a prosperous market town of around twenty thousand people, with a long high street of old coaching inns and shops, and it makes a fine last stop before the run back into the outskirts of London.

   The castle is the history lesson. Only grassy earthworks and fragments of flint wall remain, but the moat is still there, and the site matters: after the Battle of Hastings in 1066, the English leaders came here to submit to William the Conqueror before he went on to be crowned in London. Later the castle passed through the hands of royal favourites and was the seat of the Black Prince. Graham Greene grew up in the town, where his father was headmaster of the school, and he wrote about the canal and the common in his memoirs.

   A word of honesty about the water. This is not swimming country in the way the label might suggest: the canal is for boats and towpath strolls, not for a dip, and the Bulbourne is a small chalk stream. What the valley offers instead is cool shade and green, and on a warm evening the canal path, with narrowboats tied up and moorhens fussing in the reeds, is a calm place to sit for half an hour.

   The riding around here is good in a very English way. Up on the ridge to the north, the Ashridge Estate is a great sweep of National Trust beech woods and commons, with the Bridgewater Monument rising above the trees and herds of fallow deer that wander across the lanes, especially at dawn and dusk. The roads twist through the woods with blind bends, steep dips and sometimes leaves and mud in autumn, and they are full of cyclists and walkers at weekends, so ride with patience. On a sunny late October afternoon, when the beeches turn copper and the light comes through sideways, it is as good as any woodland in the country.

   Berkhamsted has fuel, pubs, cafés and everything else, and Chesham and Bovingdon are close if you need more. From here, the A41 is the quick way back towards the M25.

8. Back to South Downs finish

   Waltham Cross takes its name from one of the most moving things a medieval king ever built. When Queen Eleanor of Castile died in 1290, her husband Edward I had her body carried from Lincolnshire to London, and at each place the funeral procession stopped overnight he put up a stone cross. Only three of the twelve survive, and the one at Waltham Cross, with its carved figures of the queen and its pinnacles, is the most complete. It stands in the middle of the high street, among bus stops and cafés, and most people walk past it.

   The town sits on the River Lea and the old Roman road, Ermine Street, on the line where Hertfordshire meets Essex and Greater London. Close by, in Waltham Abbey, are the ruins of a church said to have been where King Harold was buried after Hastings, and the Royal Gunpowder Mills, which for centuries produced explosives for the Navy and the army and are now open as a museum and nature reserve. The M25 crosses overhead at a busy junction, so the noise is constant. Further north the Lea Valley has reservoirs and wide marshes, with herons and kingfishers.

   For a rider this is an edge place. It is where the suburbs finish and you can head north into the Hertfordshire lanes or east into the quiet Essex farmland around Epping, and equally the point where the fast roads, the A10 and the M25, take over for the journey home. The streets in the centre are mostly one-way, often congested, and not much fun. The reward is behind you: the cut-through lanes toward Cheshunt, Goffs Oak and Theobalds Park are short and shady, and on a weekday morning they are good practice for a slow, steady pace.

   A couple of kilometres away you are in Enfield, with about a hundred thousand people, so fuel and food are everywhere. In Waltham Cross itself there are a number of cafés, takeaways and a big supermarket with a fuel station, and the pubs along the high street serve a Sunday lunch to bikers and cyclists alike. It is not a place for contemplation, but the cross is worth thirty seconds and a photo.

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