Sometimes, there’s nothing like the freedom from the busy roads and routes when you’re exploring a new place for the first time. Whether it be in the city or countryside, the bike is the way to go in my opinion.
In a city, it offers the perfect balance of speed and flexibility. Public transport misses all the good bits in between the stops, and exploring on foot is very slow. In the countryside, the repetition of parking a car to explore new places gets laborious very quickly.
With the glorious summer weather continuing into much of August, this meant no threat of rain and long warm days to enjoy!
The Build Up
We had been planning some more serious distances over the summer, but had a number of problems to solve. Firstly, how do we carry all of that flapjack!? For rides of up to 90 minutes, it is not necessary to take any food with you. For longer rides, however, replenishing glycogen stores is pretty essential to the sustainability of your fuel stores whilst riding. We both invested earlier in the summer in some top tube bags to help carry energy bars on longer rides, and this was a perfect opportunity to test them out!
We started with a few shorter rides, to give our legs (and buttocks) a bit of time in the saddle!
This one was particularly enjoyable, because we had the opportunity to take the foot ferry across the River Deben. We started near Ipswich and cycled the back roads to Felixstowe. Cycling through beautiful, quiet countryside we were able to get in to a good rhythm, drafting each other and switching who was at the front.
We had a brief stop in Felixstowe, before heading on to the ferry. We arrived at the jetty just in time, loading up our bikes with two other cyclists, and enjoyed a short journey across the water. The freedom cycling provides makes trips that include ferries and public transport that little bit more exciting. It also gives you a bit of a rest, and means you can travel a lot further!
The route back took us through some lovely little villages, and around Rendlesham Forest before stopping at Woodbridge for an obligatory coffee and cake stop!
Multi-day cycling
Over the last few months, we have been thinking and researching as much as we can about bike setups that would allow us to ride for multiple days. ‘Bikepacking’ is becoming a big industry term in the cycling world right now. The big players are finding ever more inventive ways to strap cargo onto parts of your bike.. and you don’t need much to be able to have a great adventure on your own two wheels!
Finding the right setup for us has been something we’ve talked about a lot, and I don’t think there is one right answer. As with all of these decisions, there are trade-offs to be considered:
Zoe’s bike frame is quite small, so the available space for saddle packs and frame bags is reduced. The other main consideration is weight distribution, as weight too high up or far back could make the bike unstable. Fortunately, her aluminium frame has ‘braze-on’ attachment points and we managed to find an adjustable pannier rack which would fit her frame.
Above almost anything else: start small, practice with the equipment you have, and add things on as you find you need them.
Here’s a video of our first bikepacking experience with minimal planning:
One night hotel booking in Great Yarmouth
One way train tickets: Ipswich to Norwich
One tray bake flapjack.
The plan was always to start from home near Ipswich and cycle as far as we felt able to, safe in the knowledge that we were never too far from a train station to take us back.
After checking the weather forecast the night before, we made a last minute decision to reverse the route to keep the wind behind us as much as possible. We booked the hotel so we knew we had somewhere to stay and booked the train to Norwich to give us a starting point.
Day 1 - Norwich to Great Yarmouth
Having prepped the bikes the previous day, we hopped on the train first thing, arriving in Norwich before 09:00am. The first 45 minutes of the ride was a main road out of the city, but before long we were in beautiful countryside and surrounded by the Norfolk Broads. We powered north-east into the wind for a few hours taking in the sights of Wroxham, Horning, Stalham (lunch stop) and Sea Palling before heading back down the coast to Great Yarmouth via Horsey Windpump and Winterton-On-Sea.
Distance: 76 km Time: 4h 18m Elev gain: 298 m
Day 2 - Great Yarmouth to Ipswich
After a good nights sleep, the legs felt far from fresh the following day. We had a cooked breakfast in the morning before packing up and hitting the road.
Once again, the first hour of the day was on busy roads and cycle paths before we could get into the countryside. However, once we passed Oulton Broad, the roads were beautiful. We had the wind behind us nearly all day, and we made good time. The legs were still feeling a little sluggish as we cycled the coast road into Southwold, home of Adnams breweries. We rested here for a while and enjoyed a mid-morning cookie in the sun!
After that little break, our legs miraculously felt like new and we flew along through the Suffolk Coast AONB, filled with forests, farmlands and many fields of pigs.
We had a couple more short breaks in Saxmundham and Woodbridge, and although the legs started to ache a little more with each stop, we made it home in good spirits and still energy left in the tank.
Distance: 93 km Time: 5h 11m Elev gain: 526 m
I think now we’ve discovered this new way to explore, we will find more opportunities to travel by bike. The world is out there to explore, and this is definitely a good way to see it! It’s minimal, and it’s hard work, but so rewarding and an exciting prospect to plan lots of adventures under our own steam.
Thanks for travelling with us - my YouTube channel is still very much in its infancy, but there is lots planned for Travel and Photography content in the coming months! Please Like and Subscribe to be the first to know about new adventures!
Harry and Zoe x