Cycling UK Forum

If you are looking to keep things simple I also would suggest Coast and Castles, tagging North and South together would make a good long ride.
Also as someone who has done a few of the coasts to coasts down here (sustrans challenge rides) Way of the roses, Trans penine trail and Walney to Whitby.
So i am looking at doing C2C and Hadrians cycleway by combining them into a loop from Newcastle. You could nicely fit that into a week.

So a couple of quick solutions that are mapped out arleady for you, sorry i can't suggest anything further south.

Scottish Borders. The ride over from Berwick to Moffat via Selkirk, St Mary's Loch and Tweedsmuir passing Talla and Megget water. Gives you more variety and beautiful scenery than just about anywhere else in the UK. Too tough for me to do now but a brilliant ride.

Thanks for the many suggestions.

My wife has spoken and she is keen on a Cotswolds tour. The main reason is she wants to visit Bath and Oxford and has always wanted to visit the Cotswolds . So we could start in Bath, maybe even spend a weekend, head to bourton-on-the-water then Oxford before going back to Bath and possibly Bristol.

Can anyone recommend any must see village's and Towns in this area.?

We will probably cover 45-60 miles daily so I'm thinking we could easily do this with 7 days cycling

I've had a quick look at routing and it looks quiet hilly.

Looking forward hearing some recommendations

Therealsouthstander wrote:Thanks for the many suggestions.

My wife has spoken and she is keen on a Cotswolds tour. The main reason is she wants to visit Bath and Oxford and has always wanted to visit the Cotswolds . So we could start in Bath, maybe even spend a weekend, head to bourton-on-the-water then Oxford before going back to Bath and possibly Bristol.

Can anyone recommend any must see village's and Towns in this area.?

We will probably cover 45-60 miles daily so I'm thinking we could easily do this with 7 days cycling

I've had a quick look at routing and it looks quiet hilly.

Looking forward hearing some recommendations

I suggest keeping your daily mileage down if possible as you'll have more time to actually stop and see stuff. Boughton is lovely but a bit of a victim of its own success. Upper and Lower Slaughter are just as picturesque and a lot quieter. The small market towns are all nice and you're likely to come across a "chocolate box" scene almost anywhere as the local honey-coloured stone has been widely used for centuries. The terrain is very up and down. The climbs may not be big but they're often steep and there's a lot of them. I actually find that sort of terrain really hard as before you've recovered from one climb you're onto the next one - another reason you might want to be conservative in your daily mileage.

If you wanted a signposted route that is frankly the most amazing one in the whole of England, I'd go for the Pennine Cycleway. At 300 ish miles its a good 6 or 7 day route and given it starts/ends in Berwick on Tweed is probably easier for you to get to. Also starting/ending in either Derby or Burton on Trent means you get to go to a mainline train station with direct trains back up to Glasgow/Edinburgh as well.

Unlike other people I like cycling in Cornwall. The Cornish Way route, is quite wobbly, but is a lovely ride with good views, and if you take in the Padstow arm you get to go up the Camel trail, which is really nice rail trail as well.

Devon gives you 2 fantastic routes, the Devon Coast to Coast and the West Country Way. Both brilliant rides.

Finally the Lon Las Cymru is an absolute stunner and probably my favourite cycle route.

My choice would be do the Devon Coast to Coast from Plymouth, but not all the way to Ilfracombe, I'd pick up the West Country Way at Barnstaple and follow that all the way to Bristol (theres a slightly better route from Taunton to Bristol, but the WCW does go through so fantastic areas and given your aims is probably a better idea as you get to go through Wells and Glastonbury, etc.) then continue up through Wales following the Lon Las Cymru from Cheptow to Bangor. At 50 miles a day that should be about 8 days riding.

Or The Pennine Cycleway.

Therealsouthstander wrote:Thanks for the many suggestions.

My wife has spoken and she is keen on a Cotswolds tour. The main reason is she wants to visit Bath and Oxford and has always wanted to visit the Cotswolds . So we could start in Bath, maybe even spend a weekend, head to bourton-on-the-water then Oxford before going back to Bath and possibly Bristol.

Can anyone recommend any must see village's and Towns in this area.?

We will probably cover 45-60 miles daily so I'm thinking we could easily do this with 7 days cycling

I've had a quick look at routing and it looks quiet hilly.

Looking forward hearing some recommendations

As a resident of Bath, I can confirm that it is hilly around here. And would agree that I would aim to do lesser mileages and spend time in some of the places en route.

Some thoughts on Cotswolds tours in general:

a) Until we moved here, I hadn't realised that the Cotswolds (or at least its AONB) doesn't stop at Bath but also includes the area immediately south of the city. This is an especially attractive area, and can easily be reached by bike on the Two Tunnels route and also along the Kennet & Avon canal towpath (and the two can be linked into a circular short ride from the city, which I would certainly recommend).

b) Definitely worth spending a weekend in Bath to explore the city and some of its immediate environs.

c) The Cotswolds isn't just the 'chocolate box' type of villages, though there are plenty of those. It has a steep and often wooded western escarpment, with many older working villages in its deep valleys; the much more open landscape of its main plateau; and the much gentler eastern valleys, which is where the villages that the Cotswolds are most famous for are. Personally I really like the western side, which is very attractive and quieter, and it would be a shame to completely miss this area out, even if heading for Oxford.

d) There are miles of quiet lanes through attractive country on the main plateau, and while most of the more famous villages can get very busy, there are lots of small villages all around the area which are very pretty but not visited that often just because they can only be reached by small lanes.

e) If heading from Bath for the main Cotswold plateau and eastern villages, I would choose to go up Bannerdown Hill from Batheaston, as that has the easiest climb - it is long but less steep than alternatives, though note that it is still fairly steep. A steeper but generally very quiet route out is to go up the St Catherines valley from Batheaston, and then head off towards Marshfield. Both of these lead to many miles of very quiet lanes and then towards the more touristy places. The closest of these to Bath is Castle Combe, which can be exceedingly busy.

Therealsouthstander wrote:My wife has spoken and she is keen on a Cotswolds tour. The main reason is she wants to visit Bath and Oxford and has always wanted to visit the Cotswolds . So we could start in Bath, maybe even spend a weekend, head to bourton-on-the-water then Oxford before going back to Bath and possibly Bristol.

Can anyone recommend any must see village's and Towns in this area.?

Great responses above.

What do you enjoy on cycling tours other than cycling... high places, museums, galleries, architecture, eating, drinking... ?

I'd check very carefully what's open, especially in Oxford. If you can't get into Colleges etc you might be left in city streets with rather unimpressive traffic management...

Jonathan

If you like history, then Chedworth Roman villa is worth a visit (NT, so you may have to book ahead). Not sure if it's open (due to Covid) but the Roman museum in Cirencester is also worth seeing. Bourton on the Water is very pretty, but tends to get crowded. However, as has already been said most of the smaller Cotswold villages are 'picturesque' to varying degrees so easy to get your fill of honey-coloured cottages without the crowds. Winchcombe, Sudeley Castle, Belas Knap and Snowshill/Broadway are worth visiting, but may be too far West if you are heading for Oxford.

So we are heading down for a weekend in Bath on Friday before we jump on our bikes for a week.
Think we'll head from Bath to Cirencester on Day one. Does anyone have a GPX file of a route avoiding the busy roads for this?

I've never cycled or infact been to this area before so hopefully we can find quiet roads or paths.

Many thanks

Therealsouthstander wrote:So we are heading down for a weekend in Bath on Friday before we jump on our bikes for a week.
Think we'll head from Bath to Cirencester on Day one. Does anyone have a GPX file of a route avoiding the busy roads for this?

I've never cycled or infact been to this area before so hopefully we can find quiet roads or paths.

Many thanks

Go to the cycle.travel website and use it to plan a route then download it as GPX file

richardfm wrote:

Therealsouthstander wrote:So we are heading down for a weekend in Bath on Friday before we jump on our bikes for a week.
Think we'll head from Bath to Cirencester on Day one. Does anyone have a GPX file of a route avoiding the busy roads for this?

I've never cycled or infact been to this area before so hopefully we can find quiet roads or paths.

Many thanks

Go to the cycle.travel website and use it to plan a route then download it as GPX file

+1
problem solved.

Does tha6 site take you away from busy roads?

Therealsouthstander wrote:Does tha6 site take you away from busy roads?

Yes, though you can drag the suggested route onto a busy road if, for example, you have overnight accommodation that requires you to use half a mile of busy road. But yes, cycle.travel does put you on quiet roads generally. Try playing with it on roads local to you, that you know in detail to see how it works. I think you will like it.

If you need help getting a route you make onto your phone / device, just come back here and ask. Someone will know.

Not too late to go to Devon and Cornwall
Did this last month. Mix of wild camping (wc) and hotels (h). Lots of swimming in rivers and sea. Lots of great views over the three moors; Dartmoor, Exmoor & Bodmin Moor.
Bristol/Bridgwater wc
Bridgewater/Okehampton wc
Okehampton/Cawsands wc
Cawsands/Hay Torr wc
Hay Torr/Exeter h
Exeter/Lynton h
Lynton/Bodmin wc
Bodmin/ St Ives
St Ives/ Exeter h
Exeter/ Bristol

https://cycle.travel/map/journey/178823

pwa wrote:

Therealsouthstander wrote:Does tha6 site take you away from busy roads?

Yes, though you can drag the suggested route onto a busy road if, for example, you have overnight accommodation that requires you to use half a mile of busy road. But yes, cycle.travel does put you on quiet roads generally. Try playing with it on roads local to you, that you know in detail to see how it works. I think you will like it.

If you need help getting a route you make onto your phone / device, just come back here and ask. Someone will know.

For route planning I quite like opencyclemap.org mapping -- see http://www.opencyclemap.org/?zoom=10&la ... yers=B0000

as it shows local, regional and national cycle routes.

Then I turn to an OS 1:50000 map for fine-tuning the route, seeking out which might be quieter roads (roads less than 4m width ideally, which are shown by the OS--see https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/docume ... legend.pdf), which are checked out further 'on the ground' using Google street-view, all part of the fun.

all the best,

Keith