The Spectacular Cantii Way | coastal gravel and cycle touring paradise around the garden of England

In May 2022 Cycling UK officially launch their latest route creation the Cantii Way. I was lucky enough to get out on the route to check it out and this film features my one day ride from the official start almost to the Southern section. The route is mainly off main roads and mixes up forest trails, gravel tracks, byways, bridleways, quiet lanes and cycle paths and utilises a fair bit of existing National Cycle Network and the existing North Downs Way.

Cycling UK recommends it as s 3-4 day route, which allows time to really take in the local area and sample the many delights on offer such as Harbourside oyster shacks, craft breweries, vineyards, castles and tonnes of local sights and historical stuff not to mention loads of beaches with amazing wild swimming opportunities. I had the idea I might get round in a day, but fairly early on realised that was not going to be possible with the average speeds you can expect along with my photography and faffing! An in any case there’s just too many nice places to stop and enjoy. This is not a route for FKTs. It’s a route to enjoy the countryside and savour the sunsets!

Unfortunately, I suffered from two issues on the ride that I should also explain. My GoPro was playing up badly overheating and the stabilisation managed to turn itself off in one of these meltdowns so you’ll have to excuse the bumpiness in parts. Then in the faffing trying to bring the GoPro back to life I accidentally knocked up the sensitivity on the Rode mic so the audio is a bit clipped towards the second half. Some days the tech just doesn’t play ball!

That being said I was pretty happy that I captured a bit of the vibe of the ride and the area.

The people are super friendly and Kent is an absolute hidden gem. I clocked up 175km and short cut back to the start from Lydd-on-Sea so the film is the route until that point. What’s great about Kent is there are plenty of quiet lanes if you do fancy cutting short the route and heading back to the start at Wye. There’s also a few train station options that make it fairly easy to get back to the start too if you want a shorter route.

As a said in the intro the route mixes up forest tracks, gravel, cycle tracks, national cycle networks, bridleways, promenades and quiet roads on what is largely a flat route. There are a couple of ‘large’ bumps to get over first at the beginning and then near Dover. Don’t expect high speeds though as you much of it is shared with pedestrians (and some horses) – you’ll need to cycle with courtesy towards the other users and this will keep the average speeds down. I’d say expect to average around 15 kph.

Highlights for me included Reculver Fort, Whistable (great spot for lunch), with towns such as Deal and Sandwich offering good places to stop too. There’s lots of accommodation options and sights and Cycling UK will be releasing a full GPX and route guide on 26th May alongwith their own short introduction film on youtube here https://youtu.be/NCPqTfZ3N8w.

The official guide and route are available here:
https://www.cyclinguk.org/cantii-way

My Route is here:
https://www.strava.com/activities/7142949832

Further details can be found here: https://www.cyclinguk.org/press-release/new-long-distance-cycling-route-kent-launched

Thanks to Cycling UK, Stohk, Universal Colours and Apidura as always for their support.

GEAR
Condor Odyssey with Campagnolo Ekar
Apidura backcountry top tube and small frame bags
Clothing – Universal Colours

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