Bikepacking 2023 - Cranbrook to Banstead

Day #

43

State of Legs

:-)

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	Distance (miles)	Distance (km)	Ascent (feet)	Ascent (metres)	Punctures
Today	51.1 miles	km	3383 feet	metres	0
Trip Totals	1494.8 miles	km	53629 feet	metres	0

Today's Route

Route So Far

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Travelogue

Our final day on this 2023 European Bikepacking Adventure (tm) has finally arrived.

We were up quite early this morning and on the road by about 7:30. We knew that today would be relatively physical and we might have the added issue of rush hour traffic to contend with as we passed through Royal Tunbridge Wells, so it seemed prudent to get an early start.

Much of the first part of our route followed National Cycle Network Route 18. This was great as it kept us on fairly low traffic country roads.

At around the halfway mark, we entered the town of Edenbridge in Kent and headed straight for the bakery we'd stopped at on day #1 of this crazy trip. We had coffees of course but no PaC or PaR and most sad of all, no totally amazing Almond Squares (for which a pastry code has yet to be assigned). Instead, M1 had a Bakewell tart and M2 had a chocolate muffin.

We followed a different route home than the one we'd taken on day #1. Today's route was suggested by the cycle.travel web site and we thought we'd give it a try, if only for the variety. It was very pleasant and included some nice woodland, but may have been a little hillier than the day #1 route which it converged with at about 10 miles from home. 

Our legs held out remarkably well. Just before Farthings Down, there's a short section of road that is easily the steepest climb of the whole of our trip, with the one exception of the 22% hill on the way to Luxembourg City that we'd had to push our bikes up. It's about 18% at its steepest, on a sharp bend. Happily it's not that steep for long, but it's tough nevertheless. M1 has cycled up it many times on his road bike and once before on The Mule. It was uncertain how M2 would handle the gradient but there was no need for any such uncertainty because M2 was an absolute KOTM hero and nailed it without any apparent problem at all!

In fact remarkably, today was the day with the greatest total ascent of the whole trip!

With the tough climb behind us, we cycled onwards to Farthing Downs, one of our favourite places and only 6 miles from home.

On arrival in our little village of Banstead, we stopped to pick up provisions, as we had pretty much every other day on this trip. But this time, we were not shopping in Proxi or LIDL or ALDI or Match or Intermarche. No, we were shopping in good old Marks and Spencer!

And that's it. We're home! This has been one heck of a trip and hopefully not the last of its kind. For now though, it's time for showers, clean clothes and lots and lots of sitting on the sofa!

The End