i hope to attempt to do the ridgeway double for summer solstice 2025

following on from the bucket list thread (i replied in it that i would love to try to ride the ridgeway both ways). i thought that i would start this thread to make a progress report etc about my plans and training as to trying to get fit enough to try the route.

due to things like depression/laziness/anxiety i have not ridden my bike regularly for a long time and have been in a bad place mentally and unfit etc. well after commenting on the above thread i got some kind replies from people who were willing to join us on the ride if i wanted.

also looking at the new chisel fs bike reviews around the same time, a plan has formed.

i will be 50 next year and i wanted to mark it with doing something that i really have wanted to do for a long time.

i live in devizes so the ridgeway has always been 9  miles away but i have barely ridden much of it.

one way is about 85 miles not including getting to start which is 9 miles as the crow flies from my house.

i want to ride both ways non stop and  prove to myself that i can do a big ride as well as just being on the bike amongst nature.

i have started to save towards the chisel fs bike.

i will start to train up towards the ride whist saving.

if all goes to plan money wise i have worked out i will have saved up the cash by june 2025. which also happens to be summer solstice month (can you see where this is going 😉

summer solstice falls on saturday june 21st 2025 (d day!)

am going to try to record my rides/training etc here partly as a mental health thing (get it out on paper) as a record of how my fitness is progressing etc.

apologies for the droning on just typing it out as i think it.

my plan is to go out on saturday and do a loop of the marlbrough downs that i used to do (haven’t done it for over a year) it’s about 38 miles. but a real nice ride.

onwards and upwards as they say and i wish anyone else who is also planning something big for their bucket list the best of luck also.

Sounds like a great plan- nothing like planning a big ride to get you focussed and back into regular fitness.
Good luck!

I did that half of the King Alfred’s Way the day after summer solstice. Was a great ride, so many druid types near Avebury and the remnants of a rave further up the Ridgeway.

I rode it on an XC FS bike, not too different from the Chisel. At first I wondered if I was overbiked but in the end was very glad I used it due to all the bumps and ruts, and getting to fully enjoy the descents. At one point I dropped into a deep rut hidden by grass that ate most of my suspension travel, which would not have been fun on a gravel bike.

Logistically would you plan to camp somewhere, or ride the whole thing in one shot?

Which end would you start? I would imagine finishing with a tail wind would be best and the wind is usually west to east, so starting at Avebury would finish into the wind.

I did the SDW in a day 2 years ago when I was 57 on a fully rigid bike which was fine but I’ve now got an epic Evo which I’m planning to do it again on next summer. I hadn’t ridden much at all for a couple of years before I started training but I’d been running on the downs so I was reasonably fit. I just started with a 20 mile ride in April and built up from there. I think my longest ride before doing it was 75 miles or so. I’m only a couple of miles from it at the eastern end so did most of my training on it. Id say the thing I had to work on most was eating enough, don’t underestimate what you need and don’t wait till you feel hungry to eat.

One other thing that could give you a potential problem is shifting to a new bike so close to doing it. If you could get the chisel a month earlier than you plan then you’d have more time to get it set right for you and iron out any niggles

If you want to get some regular miles in. We leave from the Crammer (In Devizes for those who were wondering) at 1815 sharp every Thursday. Social ride, about 20-25km, sometimes a little longer in the summer. Always finish in the British for a beer or 3 and some salty snacks.

Similar age group, varying abilities, varying levels of bike, nobody gets dropped. Let me know if you’re interested.

Marlborough downs, N Wessex downs and the Ridgeway are a beautiful area to ride, you’re lucky having that on your doorstep. I used to live a few miles from the east end point of the Ridgeway so I rode it many times. Great plan, the double is a really good big ride – it’s long but not a ‘killer ride’ as such.

Have you seen the ‘official’ Ridgeway Double ITT route that cuts out some of the faffy footpaths on the eastern end? I have a few GPX files I can look up if it’s helpful planning nearer the time.

One challenge will be to get enough training miles in during the winter. I used to live the other side of Marlborough from you (hence the username) and always found the offroad on the downs unrideable in winter due to the clay and chalk combo making the stickiest mud I have ever seen. You’ll probably have to get some road riding done then. Anyway good luck with your plan.

a good training run will be to get the train from Chippenham to Goring and then ride back home from there. We have done it a fair few times in reverse and it’s a good day out

Over winter put some gravel tyres on your current bike and ride the lanes & roads, it’ll help you build up stamina.

And waiting until June to buy the Chisel, look for an interest free deal instead – same money as saving.

Good luck OP.

Keep at it during the winter months no matter how hard it will seem to drag yourself out when it’s minging.

waiting until June to buy the Chisel, look for an interest free deal instead

Good advice. I’d be wanting to be feeling very familiar with the bike I was planning to do a large ride on.

thank you for the kind words everyone:-) @wimpsworth thank you that sounds great i would definitely be interested in joining you on thursday rides if ok with you all (i am not fast i will say that right off the bat lol). i had no idea that there were group rides from the crammer (i live at stockwell road so not far from crammer at all).

i plan on starting and finishing at devizes as no car and going to try to do it in one go (with short breaks for toilet stops/food refuelling bottles etc.

am lucky that i have a road bike and ht mtb atm so am planning on building up the distance on the road bike first then ride the ridgeway for longer distances (also have the k & a canal so will be riding that a lot also especially want to ride towards reading way on it as i never ride that way on towpath).

atm the longest ride i have done has been 41 miles 9i do a route on salisbury plain to westbury white horse then back via steeple ashton/keevil/poulshot then back home.

i know for a fact that winter is going to be very hard to get motivation to go out the front door into the weather and ride my bike (as uponthedowns said the ridgeway can be an absolute quagmire when it has been raining heavily). my plan will be to do a lot of road riding through these periods (and give the depression a good slap and stop it from stopping us riding my bike). it won’t be easy at all but i REALLY want to do this and once out in it usually it isn’t so bad (right clothing helps too).

in regards to the chisel i go the a bike shop in melksham and the guys there are fantastic and have been extremely kind to us over the years. they are a specialized dealership also. i may be able to pay off the bike before june actually so def will try for that (def a good idea to check bike beforehand and get it sorted before the ride).

apologies for my waffling on i am very much looking forward to this i have to say.

I’ve done this in one push (West-East-West) and it took me under 16 hours in good conditions. I can’t stress enough how important good conditions are as it is a very long ride and you need dry conditions. If it has rained recently or is going to rain hard then forget it. I went after a week of no rain and still fought a section of bog in the woods at the Chilterns end.

You’re going to need to be a good climber as the hills add up along the way. You also need to be comfortable riding rutted ground as you will not escape them.  This is integral to being efficient, it also looks easy enough on the map but each rut switch buys a bit more fatigue.

Research your stops as there are long sections without resupply and also make sure you know where the taps are.

If you can, do it on a weekday as you never know what is happening weekends, an ultra, a horsey day out, a trailquest or a load of landrovers. All of these will slow you down or make you more tired as you have to change your line. Get to the start before dawn and go as soon as you feel comfortable, maximise your light.

Finally make sure you have sorted out your quit monster. You are going to want to quit at many points, sat at your desk now you think you won’t feel like that but you will. You need to be able to deal with yourself when you enter this state. This is the number one reason why almost everyone quits an ultra. They find excuses, mechanicals, injuries etc… and lack the motivation to deal with them because their head has gone. These rides are 100% about the head. The legs will follow. So train all you want on the bike but know that a less fit rider with a better head will finish when you won’t.

As you have made this post you have to do it now.

Nice challenge.  Tough but realistic.

well i didn’t end up riding the marlbrough downs route that i planned (it had tipped it down on saturday).

i ended up riding to bath and back on my road bike at 1 am took us 4 h 6 mins which also was probably the slowest ride in history. was 46 miles in all and 2400 +ft of climbing  so was happy with that, but i was completely farked at the end of it.

i have a long ways to go before even thinking about one way on the ridgeway never mind both ways.

Good luck with the project

My only tip is about winter. I find that in winter i feel tired and think that riding will bmake that worse. But the tiredness is often mild SAD ane the riding helps. The change in mindset has been crucial for me

im going to suggest minimising the training that you do on the ridgeway itself, to try and leave some of the trail as a new experience

dont do it if its been wet.

Nice one OP. I really should get out more myself and join you on a training ride! Good luck with the training.

Great plan OP. Really hope you manage it

Can I also suggest buying the bike earlier.  You may well find they are all sold out by next year.

Also, if this threads going to be open all year, do you think you might be able to change the setting on your phone to capitalise the first  letter in each sentence automatically ?  Smiley face. Pretty please

Could get the chisel afterwards – as a reward for success. Definitely do not attempt a whopping ride like this on a brand new bike! Best of luck – the training itself will get you loads stronger.

Much as I hate the **** things a smart turbo connected to Swift ( or whichever is the free version du jour) really help with winter training.

I did it in September a few years back, took about 18 hrs. There was a thread on here, but due to forum usability I can’t search for it.

The most important thing on rides like this is don’t stop. And if you have to stop, make it quick. I had I think 5 stops: Goring village shop, a Budgens in I think Wendover (?), the ice cream van at the end, then the same in reverse. I also had to ride 5 miles to and from the camp site 🙂

I’d echo the above though: if it’s wet, reschedule!

i have pre ordered a new chisel fs bike from my local bike shop the sram version in red (thanks to the manager dave for doing that for us). due in feb 2025.

cannot bloody wait 😀 it’s all down to me training for it now (i did a 30 mile ride yesterday part on and offroad very slowly lol).

As said it won’t come down to speed, or absolute fitness, but will come down to dogged determination mostly.. There’s a couple/some decent hills though for sure. But nothing longer than a 15 mins climb i can think of. (Even that one has a respite in the middle). It’s just going to be a case of cracking on.

New Chisel FS .. great pic, I’d quite like one of those.

it won’t come down to speed, or absolute fitness, but will come down to dogged determination mostly..

It will be about determination, and good fitness / conditioning will make balancing what you’re determined to do and what you’re physically able to do match up better.

For getting fitter for something like this it’s mainly about lots of base pace miles (2-4hr Z2 rides) and then one really hard, short session a week (HI hill reps or turbo work) after the first couple of months of just getting the longer easy miles in. Some will cope with 2 HI sessions a week but I’m not convinced you need it for this kind of long distance riding. 10% time at HI, 90% time at Z2 (or at ‘just mucking about’ pace for 1 ride a week) seems like a lot of easy miles for a training plan but keep it simple, have faith in the plan and the adaptations will come.