53km Dunstable's Ups and Downs
Sunset from Ivinghoe Beacon
Ride Overview
You’ve left what you need to do earlier than usual and have set off for a mini-overnight adventure with your bike packed with a sleeping bag and a set of warm clothes. You’ve taken a pre-1600 train from Euston (no bikes on commuting lines between 1600-1900). Within 40 minutes you’re on the bike and heading up onto a chalk ridge ready for a wonderful early evening glow. Once you’ve completed your standing and marvelling at the beauties laid out before you, you ride quickly before it becomes truly dark along wide and easy gravel tracks to the church on the hill. It stands very conspicuous, illuminated by late evening light, on a hill surrounded by fields. (If you’re really late spot lights shine upon the 13th century limestone walls making it the brightest star in the firmanent).
Champing is camping. In a church. Book ahead and everything is laid out for you, the camp bed (bedding too if you wish), battery operated night lights, a kettle, tea and coffee. Lying under the old tower whilst the clock quietly ticks away like a partner’s heartbeat, you spend a magically peaceful night before watching the sun stream through the windows and illuminate the wall paintings and medieval wood carvings. The village has a bakery for an essential pre-ride bacon roll and coffee and then off you go on some fabulous green roads. Up on the Dunstable Downs, Eastern England’s highest point, it’s you, the sky and the gliders spiralling in the thermals above you. Continue past Whipsnade zoo where exotic growls, roars and shrieks whip across the grassy enclosures, then its bridleways through woods (carpeted in bluebells in the spring) and around field margins. If you don’t need to rush back to work on an early train, stay for lunch in one of the two country pubs which come near the end of the ride.
The route is only 50km, with many views and woods and country along the way with nothing too testing. (There’s a couple of short hike-a-bike sections) With fast and regular trains back to the city, the route can be ridden as a morning ride, followed by lunch, pre-booked at one of the pubs in Frithsden or Aldbury. But the thrill of this route, is to combine it with very special night away.
Ride Practicalities
DISTANCE: 53km TOTAL ASCENT: 672m TERRAIN AND SURFACES: The whole route uses bridleways, by-ways and quiet country lanes. A gravel bike is recommended. In winter some of the paths can be muddy and chalk is never good to ride on when wet RECOMMENDED CAFÈS/PUBS/: Edlesborough; Heirloom Café, Dunstable Downs; View Café (NT) Stoke Row; Stoke Row Store, The Crooked Billet, Goring; The Goring Grocer, Ewelme; The Village Store, Princes Risborough; Godwin’s Bakery, Aldbury; Church Farm Café, The Greyhound, Ashridge Estate; Ashridge Monument Café, Ashridge House; The Bakehouse; Frithsden (near Berkhamstead); The Alford Arms, CAMPING/CHAMPING/ACCOMODATION: Edlesborough; St. Mary the Virgin (Champing) Camping in a church NEARBY MAINLINE TRAIN SERVICES: Tring, Berkhamstead, PLACES TO VISIT; Edlesborough: St. Mary the Virgin church, Ashridge Estate; Ashridge House and bluebell woods LINKS TO OTHER RIDES: The Chiltern Explorer
Ride Notes
Trains from Euston to Tring are regular and fast. There’s space for bikes, which are free and don’t need pre-booking. Within forty minutes you’re standing, probably alone, on a long platform looking at chalk hills rising from behind the huge multi-story car park, where the cars are layered like apples on a tarte Normande.
A smooth bridleway, a mere handful of metres from the station, takes you steadily through a tunnel of trees, and after a short push up the scarp slope, you’re onto the ridge of downs. The whole of the Vale of Aylesbury lies below you like some toy panorama. In the dusk, trees resemble the soft lichens that doubled for bushes and trees on the old Hornby train sets. There’s a house or two, and the stark profile of the downs. Expect a dog walker, a retired couple and a jogger or two as you ride on the waves which make up the ridge. Any hope of pootling along wrapped by the gentleness of the landscape goes quickly, for the path seems to encourage bike-surfing on the chalky-waves. On arriving at Stock’s Road, a quiet lane, you take a farm track up onto the next chalky crest. There’ll be some walking here, on the very steepest section unless you are very strong and/or have improbable gearing.
The blue carpet of Dockey Wood
The Ashridge Estate, variously owned by the Bonhommes, (what a name for a group of monks - ‘good men’), and later by the Tudor monarchs who apparently loved the place. The first Duke of Bridgewater bought the estate from the Crown and successive Dukes used it as their private playground until Lloyd George’s Death Duties made the passing of huge estates onto the next generation all but impossible. In the early years of the twentieth century, the House became a Conservative (party) college before coming under the on-going control of the Hult International Business School. The Estate is managed by the National Trust. The wide, shared path is well maintained and you ride through the woods, which in spring are bursting with blue and green. (The woods are famed for their bluebells). If you are riding the route in late April/early May, turn right once you arrive at the road in order to see Dockey Wood. It is one of the most spectacular places in England to see Hyacinthoides non-scripta, the English bluebell.
If you’re up for a short walk, the second short diversion takes you onto Ivinghoe Beacon. Stay for a while and gaze at the soft-hued view of the Vale of Aylesbury. Watch the dusk deepen, the trees shadow, the day still. You sit on billions of exoskeletons formed 65 millions years ago, when the Beacon was part of a warm tropical sea. From the top, you’ll see Edlesborough Church a couple of miles away. Once ready, head down the steep road into Ivinghoe. You’ll have to endure a few metres of busy road before you turn off onto a good-to-ride bridleway which takes you the door of the church.
Stay the night. (£55 for sole occupancy of the church. Book ahead). Lie in darkness amidst the stillness of ancient stones. You will rarely have had, if ever, a grander place in which to sleep. As dawn illuminates the walls, you’ll see the ‘treasure house of delights.’ A dragon. A mermaid suckling a lion, an image of a medieval mason. A pre-Raphaelite God on his throne surrounded by Saints. Stained glass, a slender pulpit. A Medieval carved rood screen.
Breakfast at the Heirloom café in the village before heading onto the green roads surrounding Totternhoe which take you up onto the Dunstable Downs, the highest point in Eastern England. Here, Bronze Age chiefs were buried, Saxons executed their enemies, highwaymen were hung and oranges rolled down the hill on Good Friday. If the wind is right you’ll have The London Gliding club spiralling on the thermals above you.
The Alford Arms, Frithsden
Fabulous riding along the edge of the Downs takes you to Whipsnade Zoo from where you may hear the odd exotic screach/roar/grunt. There may even be zebras grazing in the enclosure close to the path. The route continues alongside fields, through woods, up and over waves of hills. You pass the Alford Arms, a real country pub serving food worth stopping for, then its up another hill to Berkhamstead Common. If time or energy has run out, head down the road into Berkhamstead for the train home, or else continue along a memorable track which takes you back to the Ashridge Estate and finally down to Aldbury. Here, The Greyhound or the Church Farm Café will refresh you before riding the last few metres back to Tring station.
All the details given on this route are given in good faith. However, situations on the ground can change, so if you know of any access issues, closures, or have any thoughts and feedback on the route, please include them in the comments section below.
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