SNCF

All aboard!

Rumours abound about getting bicycles around France. The TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse) from Lille to Lyon and beyond to the South of France is a no-no unless your bike folds up and fits in the luggage rack or your pocket. There is some instant availability on Eurostar if you can shrink the bike to 85cm by 120cm long. For a solid bicyle built in this dimension rather some sci-fi paradise, this is quite difficult to achieve if you have mudguards, fairly de-rigueur on a touring steed. But, pick the right fare and take your fully assembled beast of burden to St Pancras two days before your Eurostar departure and you can both be enjoying the delights of the Gare du Nord for just £61.00. Well, you're in the middle of Paris - now what? You can take any number of regional TER services to the Massif Central, west, east. These  services are quite slow compared to the out-of-bounds TGV  ; there are the Intercitié night trains too but there is also the TGV Lyria service to Geneva, doorway, gateway, side entrance to the Alps. This train takes a fully assembled bike for a small fee.
I've opted for an overnight Intercitié service: £25.00 + £10 for the bike and sleeping in the lower bunk of a six berth compartment. Alléz!

NCR4

National Cycle Route 4

This cycle path connects Greenwich with Fishguard and is 432 miles in length. A fair sized chunk of the path will get you to London to Bristol, and if you’re really on the top of your game, you could manage this in a day. Full details of the entire path are available at: NCR4

I wanted to knock off 110 miles and so I chose to take on the slice of Route 4 from Maidenhead to Bristol. This section is approx 108 miles on Google maps, and, starting well west of London, means less of the intricate navigation needed further east. 
Trains leave Paddington from the crack of dawn, are very frequent and some take just 25 minutes. NCR4 passes right by Maidenhead station’s front door and before you know you are twisting and wriggling through sleeping estates, cul-de-sacs, closes, crescents, and play- parks as you follow the blue, white and red signs. The NCR4 is very well sign-posted (apart from a couple of spots) and needs to be to get you out of nooks and crannies of Cox’s Green. I think it may have even gone through someone's kitchen. Out in the country, the path is smooth and traffic free for a few miles before it joins quiet backroads to reach the A4. At 6.30am, the A4 is reasonably empty and you avail of it as a short cut away from and rejoin the NCR4 just prior to Reading. 

Reading - Venice of the M4 corridor

Once in Reading, the path picks up the Kennet and Avon Canal Path. In the early morning gloom, I looked the wrong way for a split second and missed the turn to the right that would have taken me onto that path. Either that or I’d seen another blue, white, and red sign and, confusing it with NCR4, headed south instead. Somewhat bewildered, I found myself at Junction 11 of the M4 – not a pretty sight. However, there has been a great deal of thought and work put into bicycle provision at this spot as bridges carry you safely over this huge junction. It was at this point that I realised that I had left one of my maps at home. I could find the route to Aldermaston but didn’t know if that was en-route or a deviation. There were other concerns to add to the pot as the heavy rain I’d been promised was lurking and rolling up its sleeves to the southwest.
Heading west, there is a curious area featuring Burghfield Common and several other woods before you pass the AWE. By this time, it was hammering down and I missed another right and so added on a nearly four miles. Had I found the correct path in Reading I would have gotten a right soaking cycling by the exposed canal; by the time did join the canal, as it passed under the A340, the rain was petering out. The surface here and for much of the way is compacted earth mixed in with pebbly aggregate. This was OK until the path narrowed to a six-inch wide groove that was below the grass on either side. Once in the groove, it was difficult to get out without stopping. I got into a bit of a funk in the groove and was thrown off the steed twice into patches of hungry-looking nettle things.
At Thatcham, or thereabouts, NCR4 hops off the path and joins the side of the A4 for a while. A couple of service stations are ready and waiting with coffee injections. Just before Newbury, you’re back on the canal that takes you right through the town to its cute bridge where the path briefly diverts over the high street. I stopped at a cafe to dry out and warm up.

It was 10am, and my earlier detour had added an hour onto my journey. By now, the path was now busy with runners, dog-walkers, cyclists, people on stilts, plate spinners, insurance salesmen, and miscellaneous loiterers. 

At Hungerford, the path runs off briefly to chase after a few sharp hills. The going gets decidedly cute down here as you pass from Berkshire in to Wiltshire. Little Bedwyn is quaint; Crofton Beam Engine pops out of nowhere. 

All along the canal, there is traffic. I have cycled canals in Belgium and France but they are deserted in comparison. Narrow boats are in abundance but, given the number of locks, especially in Devizes, I couldn’t see the attraction with all the graft of opening and shutting lock gates and the rest. The canals and the narrow boats were components of the industrial machine of the late 18th and early 19th century; the locks were all part of the job, not prettification.
Just north of Burbage, NCR4 leaves the canal for some country roads. After winding around to Pewsey, the route cuts up to Coates where it rejoins the canal, as it heads west to Devizes. To the west of the town is one of the industrial wonders of the world. OK, it’s not the Panama or Suez canals, or the Hoover Dam, but the Caen Hill Locks are extraordinary. 

There are, in total, 29 locks along a two-mile stretch to raise the canal 237ft but within that, there are 16 in a straight, descending line in the space of just half a mile. It takes a boat 5-6 hours to pass through these. I’d have called a taxi and left the boat’s keys under the mat at the sight of the watery escalator. More on the locks: Caen Hill Locks

Beyond Devizes, you are in the last third and the going is pretty much of a muchness until the valley closes in as you approach Bradford-upon Avon. The canal rises above the river here with several aqueducts carrying the canal back and forth in the narrow valley it shares with the river and a railway below. If you have time, the Cross Guns at Avoncliff is one of many nice looking cafes along the canal. I didn’t have time and hurtled on. The path is well used by everyone and so progress can be stop-start. There are some quite treacherous places on the path as a whole. The track can be just a metre wide and have occasional coves eating into it that you don’t see until you’re almost right on top of them - hit one and you’ll be all over the place. Then there are the numerous bridges with blind corners and low arches. 

Once into Bath the path takes to the streets and in doing so presents you with two abruptly sign-posted and nasty right turns. The route does a jolly by passing the very photogenic Crescent. I stopped to take a photo. 
Once back down to the canal, you have a choice. The mileage signs didn’t do it for me as they understated the remaining distance. That may have had something to do with the Avon path and the NCR4 diverging. The former continues westwards, wriggling along its valley, while the Bristol Railway Path veers to the north east of the city, a longer route of 17 miles, although it is faster. The path way is a recycled railways route that fell under Beeching’s HB1 pencil in the 60s.

However, a railway line still exists as part of the heritage Avon Valley Railway.
Currently, the path is closed for a short stretch in Bristol’s suburbs, but a signposted diversion gets you back on it a few miles on and takes you all the way into Temple Meads at platform 28 ½.

If you stick to the route you probably would not want to use a road bike a the canal path is, for the most part, earthand aggregate. Trains back from Bristol are half-hourly except on Sundays and usually take 1¾ hours. If the going gets tough you can bail out and return from Bedwyn, Pewsey or Bath.

117.8 Miles (with slight navigation issue)