About FatFace
be it MTB, gravel, road or motorbike.
5,666 km
344:08 h
Recent Activity
FatFace went gravel riding.
October 27, 2025
Some bits were a bit rough / steep for a gravel bike, so hike-a-bike it was. The Plain over this side was fun.
03:31
51.8km
14.8km/h
720m
730m
September 21, 2025
I did this stretch a few weeks back. Looks like the crossing over the M25 is open?
The is the final section of the St Peter's Way bikepacking route. The actual hiking route ends at the church, but you need to get home. The easier route would be the road to Southminster or Burnham-on-Crouch, but we opted for the more remote cycle along the coast. This isn't on an actual cycle path. For most of it you are riding on rough farm double-track or bumpy, grassy footpath. It's slow and draining. Some sections you can cycle on the concrete sea wall. You probably won't see another person for the duration of the ride down the coast: quite an unusual and enjoyable experience living in the south east. We ended at Burnham, but you could get the ferry boat over the river and continue down to Shoeburyness and Southend. This was our original plan, but we enjoyed stopping to see things so much on the way that we ran out of time and had to get back to London.
01:22
22.0km
16.1km/h
20m
20m
This is the more interesting section of the route. There are smooth, tree lined bridleways, coastal villages, old churches, fast road sections, a WW2 memorial, empty gravel tracks and grassy paths leading to the final church: the peaceful, solitary St Peter-on-the-Wall chapel where the hiking route culminates. There's also a religious community close by if you want to stay there. You now need to get home either by road (more sensible) or by the coastal paths through the nature reserve (slow, tiring and remote, which was my option).
02:16
41.8km
18.5km/h
190m
190m
After doing some of Cycling UK's routes, I decided to make one of my own with a nearby hiking trail. In a similar vein to how the North Downs Way cycle route was adapted from the hiking trail, I tried to stay as close to the original as possible, but detouring onto quiet roads where more suitable or I wasn't meant to be on a footpath. This didn't always work on when we actually got there, so use this as a framework to build on yourself. There's no public transport out to the start. You could park in Chipping Ongar or get someone to drop you off here. The hiking route starts at Chipping Ongar castle, but the oldest wooden church in the world nearby seemed a more interesting starting point. We rode out from north London which meant we needed an overnight stop off which worked out to be South Woodham Ferrers for us. There are several options along the route for camping, B&Bs etc. https://www.essexhighways.org/uploads/files/st_peters_way.pdf https://www.britishpilgrimage.org/portfolio/st-peters-way
02:42
46.4km
17.2km/h
300m
360m
We chose to ride out to the start of the route as public transport wasn't available and leaving a car wasn't practical. The ride out through Epping was nice and once you get to the other side of Epping you definitely feel you're out of the city and somewhere more rural.
01:32
30.1km
19.6km/h
280m
270m
FatFace went gravel riding.
August 15, 2025
There are some fantastic routes out here. This could be done on an MTB and the canal paths would be a lot nicer with some squish.
03:06
51.1km
16.5km/h
350m
340m
September 22, 2025
A lovely thing riding at this time of year is riding through the fallen acorns on the trails. The crunch is very similar to riding over frozen ground.