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is there a specific route you would take?
I am trying to establish the feasibility of riding from my home in Cardiff to my place in Belgium, as I may have the time to do it this summer, as opposed to taking the car. The thing is, looking at RideWithGPS, trying to navigate all the windy, twisty roads to create a route roughly parallel to the M4, could take me longer than it takes to ride them.
Surely someone has done the same journey before. Any suggestions?
Cross bike and do the kennet and avon or a chunk of the ridgeway then onto the south downs way.
Have a look at cycle.travel that is free. It will plot you routes using quiet roads / cycle tracks that you can then download as gpx files. You can also drag points if you want to go through a particular place for food / sleep etc.
Maybe try breaking it down into a number of stages so that the gpx file does not get too big ?
Just head to the south coast ASAP from Cardiff, then take NCN2 to Dover...
DrP
Coach from CF to Gatwick, cycle from there
Can you put your bike on a coach?
Get the ferry to France as far west as possible then ride to Belgium through France. It'll be much nicer than riding through the UK to Dover.
As above, ride to Newhaven, ferry to Dieppe, ride from there, far nicer than having to navigate through the mess that is south east England
if you're planning on following the M4 you're staying too far north, skirt Bristol -> Bath -> Winchester -> shadow the South Downs to Steyning, cut down into Brighton, along the coast to Newhaven
+1 for Jo's advice. There are a few decent enough routes from Bristol to Winchester (well, you want to pass a bit to the north of Winchester: go through Itchen Abbas just north of Winchester or North Waltham just south of Basingstoke; IME the latter gives you a slightly preferable route) and then from there to Newhaven it's lovely, and I'd definitely rather ride from Dieppe than ride to Dover. Happy to send you some routes if you want to PM.
The Portsmouth-Le Havre ferry is another option, although to be honest that misses out the best bit of the UK part of the route (my local bit, so I may be biased). But it may fit in better logistically: eg if you're doing Cardiff to the ferry in a day you can get a good kip on the Portsmouth ferry whereas you'll only get a couple of hours on the Newhaven one. I like the overnighters as they're "free" travel time 🙂 but the (summer only) catamaran to Le Havre is pretty quick.
From Steyning I'd stay to the north of the downs. It's a nice ride from there through Fulking and Poynings, up to Hurstpierpoint then on to Ditchling and Plumpton. Then head down through Lewes to Newhaven. Riding through Brighton in the summer is a pain, either endless traffic and traffic lights or a cycle path full of pedestrians.
Many years ago I rode from Cardiff to Reading. Some sections of the the A4 are relatively quiet as the M4 takes the brunt of the traffic. The stretch between Chippenham and Newbury isn't too bad. Making use of some of the quieter A and B roads gets you across country quicker where diverting to the minor roads and Sustrans routes would take a very long time, unless of course you have lots of time to spare.
My suggestion: From the Severn Bridge take the minor and B roads to Yate then Chippenham. Then A4 to Newbury. This is the route I took. You could work out a few detours on parallel minor roads.
The south east of England is densely populated and seemingly full of drivers rushing about. If you can get over to Guilford from Newbury avoiding the busy roads you can join the Downs Link trail which is a disused railway line that will take you all the way to the south coast at Shoreham-by-Sea. I've not ridden this but it will get you through a lot of otherwise heavily traffic roads.
If you take the Downs Link all the way to the coast it is just a matter of picking the quieter routes either along or near to the coast. This would be quite hilly. Alternatively you could come off in the Low Weald near Henfield. From here you could head east along the northern edge of the South Downs National Park, which is a bit flatter and maybe quieter.
Also from Guildford - if you are feeling adventurous - you could take the on- and off-road North Downs Way cycle route all the way to Dover. https://www.cyclinguk.org/article/north-downs-way-new-gpx-route . Parts of this would be very slow going.
I've also used the A20 between Maidstone and Folkestone. Because it is parallel to the M20 it is relatively quiet. Then there is a B road between Folkestone and Dover which isn't too bad.
I would absolutely stay south of Guildford. Admittedly it depends what time you're passing through, but going that far north takes you through some really unpleasant areas for riding.
If you're coming from the west and heading for the Downs Link I would skirt south of Farnham and head across to join the Link between Cranleigh and Rudgwick. FWIW if you're skinny road tyres you'll find some parts near the southern end skittish in the dry and some other parts a bit slippy in the wet. Doable, but much more tolerable with some lightly treaded 32s.
If you ever find yourself wondering about the A36 from Bristol towards Salisbury, STOP