Thanks Toby 🙂 ‘Twas very spinny in places!!

excellent going pedalhead, rigid with one gear! madness!
let me ask you though, why did you choose to do it on a single speed? do you just prefer that kind of simple set up? For me I like to go as fast as possible, espicially on the downs as it’s more thrilling, so spinning out when you could be going faster with gears would incredibly frustrating.

Fantastic, well done. 😀

Good question :-). The easy answer is…I don’t own a geared mountain bike 😀 I do all my mtb riding & racing on singlespeeds. It’s not often that I feel the lack of gears holds me back…it was inevitable on this route however, which is why I chose to spin like a lunatic to post a half decent time. Anyway, I like the whole singlespeed/zen thing so I’m happy to go a bit slower if that’s the price to pay :-D.

Thanks Elaine! 🙂

Well done – have a lot of affection for the Ridgeway which I rode about a decade ago. Great to hear that the green lane rut pain has been fixed 🙂

So what gearing did you use?

Just caught this thread, well done OP…

Reading based here and I’ve done bits of the trail in either direction from Streatley but never the whole ridgeway, could be tempted to make an attempt on the double, perhaps next summer would be best, but heading out from/finishing up at the mid point, just to save me the extra miles/train journey at the start/finish…

Hmmmm.

Cheers guys :-). adsh – gearing is 29er with 33/19 (Goldtec Onekey chainring). Could have gone with an 18T tbh.

Well done mate, I ride parts of the Ridgeway weekly and that it is a very, very good pace for such a long ride.

Brilliant mate! Fantastic bar to set. The one segment I ride with any regularity is ‘Ridgeway Climb from Rectory Road’ which you annihilated after many many miles already under your wheels, so I have the upmost respect for the pace you rode at. Chapeau!
Looking forward to making time to join the fun now 🙂

Fantastic ride there from Mark.

I’ve just been shopping on Dash4it to get some OS maps of the route, hopefully I’ll get a chance to have a crack at it next year.
Looks difficult enough to be a really good challenge but not as hard as an SDW double.

Thanks guys! Really looking forward to getting some more names on the leaderboard. The route was absolutely designed as an easier alternative to the South Downs Double 🙂

Good work sir! Keen to do this but definitely won’t be troubling the leaderboard

Great ride. Not too far from me so it’s now on my to-do list for next year 🙂

any chance you could set up a one way leaderboard?

Good work Mark!

I’m really tempted to give this a go next time i’m home in the UK. I think Grims ditch was one of the first pieces of singletrack i ever rode after buying a mountainbike! Hmmm also an excuse to buy the solaris / sherpa I have been eyeing up.

I think I might be giving this a go next year, either as an adventure or training, can’t see me beating your time Mark 🙂

Good work setting it all up!

Thanks guys. James…fancy a go? 🙂

On the topic of a leaderboard for the Ridgeway single – it’s not the first time it’s been mentioned, but to be frank it’s not something I have a particular interest in setting up. I think a one way ITT of this sort becomes a very different type of challenge. For example, choose a nice windy day in the right direction and you have a huge advantage. For a multi-day ride that’s not a big deal as winds & weather shift, but for a route that could take as little as five or six hours I think it becomes less of a personal challenge and more of a Strava segment – there are enough of those around already ;-). I also wonder about the wisdom of encouraging the kind of pace you could do on a single ride on a shared trail like this. I’m on rather more dodgy ground there as clearly a double at a slightly slower pace has almost the same impact…but nevertheless it’s something to consider. I think there is a similar attitude out there with regards to the South Downs single.

So, whilst I’m really keen with this route to generate some interest around an entry-level ITT, I do think that level of entry should still be challenging – a real stretch for most of us. Of course, this is only my take on things as some random dude on the Internet. Anyone is free to set up a one-way leaderboard if they choose to :-).

Dave – excellent…you know there’s only a single faff between our respective speeds 🙂

Just a small point but it looks like you actually started in the car park at West Kennet, not Avebury itself. The Ridgeway doesn’t go to Avebury village. Maybe a bit confusing for anyone planning an attempt?

Dave – excellent…you know there’s only a single faff between our respective speeds

🙂

Maybe last year when I was fitter, and on my home turf – this year has been a different kettle of spanners!

Still got to get Trans-Cambrian done too!

Pete – yes fair point, I tend to mention Avebury as it’s lodged in my head as the most local place, but actually it’s not really correct. I’ll change Avebury references to Overton Hill as that’s what’s mentioned on the Ridgeway signs.

Next year then, Dave :-). I still want to do a Trans Cambrian double sometime…so much on the list!

Well done Pedalhead with the effort in setting this up. I’m another local, and it’s good to have a ITT challenge much closer to home and in the South.

I did the ridgeway earleir in the summer, and it’s great to have a legal route set out north east beyond Streatley.

Agree with you that the single leaderboard should remain with Strava, and ‘thanks’ for setting such a fast time to aim for! 😉

I’m going to have to look into this as I’ve got no actual idea where it goes once you pass Streatley. Does it turn into the Thames path at goring ? Or is there somewhere I’ve missed ?

Me.. No. (..Thanks)

I love the route but I’m not very quick or into time-trials. I kept an eye on the clock when I did it but only roughly and the route was never the same anyway. If something lights the fire like last year then would be a good aim as training but not so far. Motivation-source is a strange thing.

Nope, no Thames Path as that’s technically footpath (although you do see bikes on there all the time). From Goring this route mostly follows a mixture of Ridgeway, Swans Way and Icknield Way with the odd bit of road connector here & there.

James – understood on the motivation thing…very individual. Perhaps the new Highland Coast to Coast I’m working on might be one to light your fire… 🙂

I thought that you might have started in the stone circle over the road. Is there a marker post at the far end?

Thanks faustus – yes, the section onwards from Streatley has been a confusing mess for quite a long time, and was a big driver for my deciding to work out a proper, repeatable route. In many ways it does feel like a route of two halves…the north-eastern section is more wooded and with steeper hills whilst the south-western side is more “ridge”-like and exposed. I’ve had a soft spot for the Ridgeway for years but this whole exercise has made me fall for it even more as a route with a great variety of fairly un-daunting riding.

So, you come down into Goring, over the bridges… then ? Up out the other side, past the station, along the road and by the farms ?

akak – The photo posted on page 2 of this thread is me at the official start of the Ridgeway (opposite side of the road from the circle). There’s one of those signposts at either end of the route, so it feels nice & complete. In a happy coincidence, even though the signs refer to the *footpath* as being 87 miles end to end, this cycle route is also the same length. I’d like to say I planned that, but… 🙂

FWIW, here’s the sign at the Ivinghoe Beacon end:

[url=https://flic.kr/p/oYwi23]2014-09-13 16.00.06[/url] by pedalhead_Mark_Goldie, on Flickr

Ah, weeksy you’re thinking of Gatehampton up into Great Chalk Wood. Nice riding up there, but the Ridgeway doesn’t go that way. This one goes from Goring up through the Stokes to just south of Wallingford, where it heads east on Grims Ditch for a short way before turning north towards Watlington and picking up the Ridgeway along the western base of the Chilterns for quite some distance.

Once I’ve finished faffing with the GPS tracks I’ll get them loaded to the website so you can see what I mean…or you can take a look at the Strava upload: http://www.strava.com/activities/195171633

That’s tidy thanks!

PH – does it take 2-3 weeks? : )

haha…can’t help you there I’m afraid. The off road LEJOG I’m also looking at, on the other hand…a double? 🙂

F that 😀

Got anything in Nepal? That isn’t an ITT? 😀

haha…I hear the Australian outback is nice & warm this time of year…and big. Perth to Sydney should keep you busy for a while 🙂

Just picked up on thread. Well done chap!
Abingdon way, so know the Ridgeway well. Agree with the various comments about quality of (summer!) riding around Chilterns section of Ridgeway.

Real sad to hear about Ivor at Red Planet. Lovely guy. Lost touch when shop closed, but I’ll remember him every time I throw a leg over the P7.

Thanks skinnysteel. Yes such a terrible shame about Ivor, as you say he was a great guy.

The GPX files are now downloadable from the website… http://ridgewaydouble.net/

Download link is at the bottom of the page. The zip file contains two GPX tracks, one for each direction (other than that they are identical). They also contain waypoints for all the taps I’ve so far found along the route.

I hope they’re of use to people. Cheers!