Cycling in the Cotswolds. Chiz Dakin

Route 10 Batheaston Sting

       Route 11 Stratford Greenway Loop via Mickleton

       Route 12 Cirencester Loop via Ampney Crucis

       Route 13 Filkins Loop via Bibury

       Route 14 Fairford Loop via Bibury

       Route 15 Frampton Cotterell Loop via Wickwar

       Route 16 Stonehouse Loop via Slimbridge

       Route 17 Stow Loop via Blockley

       Route 18 Burford Loop via Northleach

       Route 19 Stroud Loop via Chavenage House

       Route 20 Cheltenham Loop via Cleeve Hill

       Route 21 Malmesbury Loop via Tetbury

       Route 22 Around the Cotswolds

       Day 1 Stroud to Winchcombe

       Day 2 Winchcombe to Stow-on-the-Wold

       Day 3 Stow-on-the-Wold to Cirencester

       Day 4 Cirencester to Stroud

       Appendix A Route summary table

       Appendix B Cycle hire and cycle shops

       Appendix C Cycles and trains

       Appendix D First aid for bike and rider

       Appendix E Other useful information

      In spring, apple blossom lines part of the bridleway near Furze Ground (Route 13)

      INTRODUCTION

      A typical eastern Cotswold view over ripening corn and rolling hills – near Chadlington (Route 9)

      The track in front of me was smooth, dry and flat and there wasn’t another soul in sight. To my right the mirror-calm water reflected the blue skies overhead, with a few fluffy white clouds adding extra interest. Splashes of colour from brightly-painted canal boats and tall, motionless green spikes of bankside vegetation added to the tranquil scene. I was on the Stroudwater Canal near Slimbridge (Route 16) and had stopped to take some photos of the peaceful early-morning scene. A moment later I was particularly glad I hadn’t just hurtled by at speed...

      A swan was snoozing quietly in the shade of tall reeds, all curled up with her sinuous head buried beneath a wing, now and again raising it drowsily at some gentle background noise. As I was about to edge past her, another early-morning cyclist arrived rather abruptly, seeing the swan (and me waving my arms) only at the last minute. He then rode carefully past this sleepy queen of the canal, keeping as far away as he could. But we needn’t have worried: she was far more concerned about catching up on her beauty sleep than hissing territorially at either of us.

      On another occasion I was pedalling as fast as I could up a steep but short slope; that day I was on an off-road section of Akeman Street (Route 18), grinning from ear to ear as I overcame a challenge that looked more difficult than it was in practice.

      Such is the variety of terrain in the Cotswolds, from quiet lanes and challenging tracks to thriving (and busy) villages and town centres. And unexpected wildlife encounters seem far more common when travelling by bicycle – the quiet but relatively fast approach on two wheels allowing you to get a bit closer than perhaps by any other means of transport, including feet.

      Cotswold stone houses beside the River Eye in Lower Slaughter (Route 4)

      The Cotswolds are deservedly one of the most popular Areas of Outstanding National Beauty (AONB) in the country, and its honeypot (and honey-coloured) limestone villages and wool towns such as Bourton-on-the-Water, Broadway and Bibury are the embodiment of ‘olde-worlde’ rural England. Although summer tourists can make these places very busy, the bustle can soon be left behind on the quiet lanes and tracks that criss-cross this wonderfully varied region, passing such delights as purple lavender fields and swathes of wildflowers peppering the unimproved limestone grassland.

      These, and the relatively gentle terrain, really lend the Cotswolds to cycling. But make no mistake: it’s not flat! There are plenty of hills here, often gentle and rolling in nature, although some are surprisingly steep – they just don’t ascend to such lofty heights as some of the more renowned hilly areas of the UK.

      The routes in this book cover between 14km (9 miles) and 64km (40 miles) in a day, leading up to a 208km (130 miles) four-day route that visits many Cotswold highlights.

Geology

      In the Jurassic Period (roughly 200–145 million years ago), the land that now forms the Cotswold Hills was in the tropics and completely underwater. The depth of these tropical seas varied over time, with the deeper waters producing thick clays and the shallower seas forming limestone from the shells of marine creatures living and dying in the waters.

      Rolling hillside east of the scarp edge near Snowshill (Route 22, Day 2)

      More recently (geologically speaking) the land has tilted, leading to a steep scarp slope on the northwest edge of the region and rolling hills towards the south and east. This is illustrated in the steep slopes above Cheltenham (Route 20) and the gentler, plateau-like terrain above the Slaughters (Route 4).

      The clay rocks are known as ‘Lias’ – a term invented by 18th-century quarry workers to describe the layered rock, and adopted by William Smith, a canal-building engineer who went on to become the ‘Father of Geology’ (See Route 9 for more on William Smith). The limestone is Oolitic – where the regular structure of spherical crystals looks like a collection of eggs. This is divided into two groups: Inferior Oolites are the older of the two, and tend to be found on the scarp slopes of the northwest Cotswolds; Greater Oolites are more typically found on the gentler slopes outside the north west, and form the region’s traditional honey-coloured building limestone, the colour being typically more pronounced towards the north of the region. Its evenness of grain (enabling it to be cut in any direction) and durability made it the preferred building stone for many prestigious buildings, such as St Paul’s Cathedral.

      Glacial and post-glacial meltwater rivers have also contributed to the sometimes surprisingly hilly nature of the Cotswolds – with the Stroud valleys (Routes 19 and