An idyllic ride from Reading in England along the Kennet & Avon Canal to Newbury and ending in Hungerford taking in the North Wessex Countryside.

This is a trail idea I'd written down last year that I planned to do during the summer. While I did this ride in May it had that dusty hot summer feel about it, though with plenty of humidity off the flourishing nettles along the canal tow path.

Could this be one of the most idyllic rides I've done to date? It was certainly very beautiful and peaceful, especially around half way through the later trail between Newbury and Hungerford. The trail feels much quieter with less people, calm and with birds of prey over head. It was very special.

Some of the trail has quite rough surfaces where its basically grass with hard-packed dry mud, some which is quite bumpy so it's worth keeping this in mind though it wasn't for a particularly long time.

Newbury was a nice Market Town and certainly makes a good place to stop for a few hours with plenty to do and places to grab a coffee. Hungerford is a quiet town and much less tourist orientated but there are things to see and do though its much smaller than Newbury.

I really enjoyed this trail and got a bit of a tan despite using factor 50.

I hope you enjoy this ride.

The route can be found on Strava along with most other rides.
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