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@Alex_B
I went out and rode a good chunk of NCN21 this Sunday, picked it up near Crystal Palace and rode down as far as Eridge before running out of time and having to bail onto the train to get home.
I was riding my Audax bike, so skinny 700x28c road tyres, full length mudguards, Carradice Barley, Campagnolo triple with a lowest gear ratio of 30x29, the works.
A lot of the route is off-road and pretty hilly (Strava says up to 38%, but I can only imagine that was a very short section), but even so it was rideable and had drained well after the recent rain. The flatter sections were a complete blast, I was able to cruise at 25-30kph easily. It would be a lot of fun on a hard tail MTB or gravel bike.
In terms of access, There's a lot of fiddling around on back roads until you get up to the brilliantly named Skid's Hill Lane and from there to Redhill it was an absolute blast - if I did it again, I'd just straight line it on main roads to that point. Between Redhill and Crawley it's a bit of a chore through industrial estates and urban back roads and then you pick up The Worth Way (an old railway line converted into a rail trail and finally at East Grinstead, The Forest Way (another Rail Trail). These were a bit dull if I'm honest, fast, flat and not very interesting, but they'd be great with kids in tow.
I met a lot of French families coming the other way on fairly heavily laden mountain and euro-style touring bikes. What they made of steep gravel climbs on heavily laden touring bikes I can't imagine.
I'll be back later in the month to try to finish it off, but the bit up to Redhill would be a good spot to try backpacking and sleeping out.
The route is on cycle.travel: http://cycle.travel/map/journey/479
Maybe a good forum ride for the future as well?