The South Downs Way

The South Downs Way is a very popular walking and cycling route, it starts in Winchester and finishes in Eastbourne or vice versa, its is nearly all off-road and is very well sign posted and what’s even better, and I’m not sure many other trails have this, but this trail has water taps along the way. Click HERE for the map of the tap locations.

I think the south downs was one of the first actual bikepacking videos I posted on my channel, and have some history with it, including a failed double and a hard thought successful double after my brakes stopped working. You don’t want that on the south downs, trust me.

It’s always a challenge when ever you ride the south downs there is very little in the way of flat terrain. If you are not going up you are going down. And that down is fast and sometimes rough, so you need to be concentrating. And them ups are nearly always steep. It is all ridable if you have the legs, but sometimes it’s a little technical and rutty in places. I wouldn’t ride the south downs as a complete beginner because it just is pretty tiring, but it is definitely something to work towards. Besides, the slower you take it, the easier and nicer it is. And that is how I recommend riding it slow and steady, at least for your first trip along it because the views are absolutely stunning on a good day. You can see for miles on end, one side you can see the coast and on the other all the rolling hills.

It’s hard to say which bike is actually better because I have done it on both, I think I prefer the MTB, but I did complete the double on the gravel bike because when doing that the weight does start to play a part. So either can be used but get pretty big tyres on the gravel bike, 45 or bigger. And easy gearing, you will need it. When I first did the south downs way, the Sonder had a 46/42 easy gear ratio at the time. That was sore.

I have included both directions for download, but I think it’s slightly better to start in Winchester. Only slightly though.