C&M Easter Tour 2026 - Pete's Saturday ride

This year there were two organised rides on offer each day.  Pete B led a ride in the general north-west direction: details were scant but he promised that his ride would be completely flat, although the route seemed to show quite a few hills.

Outside the New Inn

After a group photo outside the hotel we set off towards the Windrush valley which houses several beautiful villages including Windrush itself.   We stopped for coffee at the village shop at Sherborne, sitting outside in the sunshine.   Pete advised us that lunch was "flexible" and so we should buy provisions to take with us.   

Elevenses at Sherborne

Duly refreshed, we continued on our way.  Pete decided to short-cut a planned detour to Bourton-on-the-Water because it would have been very busy.  Later on we saw what he meant.   Instead we found some different hills, quite a few in fact, winding our way through open countryside, blossom filled hedges and a few sheep here & there.  The views were fabulous and every village or even just a house was a picture postcard.

Lunch was taken at a roadside junction in a beautiful valley in the middle of nowhere.   We were quite close to a Roman villa, which we never saw, but we continued to see signs to it for the next five or so miles.   It seemed that all roads led to the Roman villa, except the ones that we were on.

In the afternoon the wind got stronger and became quite strong in places as we approached Withington.  At that point we turned round and headed back home down the Coln valley.   If it sounds like a gentle downhill ride, that's only partly true, but it was very beautiful and peaceful... until...

...Until we arrived at Bibury, which was heaving with tourists  - like us.  Except these ones were clogging up the narrow roads by walking two abreast along the road (dreadful), parking their cars on the verge (awful), and trying to drive through in both directions (disgraceful).  It was not fun to cycle through, and we were pleased to get away up a hill out of town.  After that we had about five miles of flat, straight road leading us directly back to Lechlade.   A lovely day out - thank you to Pete for a memorable and enjoyable ride.

C&M Easter Tour 2026 - riding to Lechlade

This year's Cheam & Morden Easter Tour is to Lechlade, in the Costwolds just west of Oxford.   Since at least 1951, group of intrepid C&M riders has sallied forth in variable weather for a weekend of good riding and good company.

Greenham Common

This year a group of us rode to Lechlade over two days: seven set out from Walton to ride to Newbury, and Peter S and Keith joined us for the second day to ride to Lechlade.

An early and cold start on Thursday saw us leaving Walton on familiar leafy roads at first, heading towards Farnborough and stopping for a canal-side lunch just before in the Mytchett canal centre.

 

Mytchett canal centre

The sun came out and it was quite warm as we headed north on the Hawley valley, dodging Camberley and up to Eversley, where we turned left and rode all the way to Newbury on mostly quiet roads.  We had tea at the Wellington Farm Shop sitting in the sun with views over the open countryside.

 

After Aldermaston  we detoured across Greenham Common, site of many protests against US nuclear missiles.  It has since closed as an air base, the concrete runway has been removed and it has returned to nature, just leaving the control tower as a relic of its previous use.

 

Friday started with a bit of drizzle, but it never came to much.   It was a shorter ride today so we stopped in Hungerford for coffee, at a garden centre selling ornaments for thousands of pounds, but we were about to go up a hill so we decided not to buy any. 

Over a hill of lovely open Wiltshire downs and we were in Lambourn for lunch.  Unfortunately so was everyone else, as it was Lambourn Open Day, with many of the racing stables open to the public.   It was so busy that we bumped into Keith there.   He had ridden from Reading.  There was very little room at the cafe, so half of us lunched in the comfort of the cafe, and half of us bought samosas and hummus salad in the market, and lunched outside in the drizzle.   

Lambourn

A few more gentle hills took us to Faringdon and then a few miles of A road took us to our first sight of the baby river Thames, and then Lechlade shortly afterwards.

Autumn tour day 2 - Milton Keynes? Bucks and Northants

I was up early and on the road by 8am.  I thought I was coming into Milton Keynes, but surprisingly it was Newport Pagnell, overshadowed by its famous M1 service station.  In fact, I was only half wrong: Newport Pagnell is conjoined with the much bigger Milton Keynes.   

Newport Pagnell is a regular little town with shops, roads, people and so on, but I couldn't tell you about Milton Keynes.  I went through the north of it on 'the Railway Path', maybe five miles of  old railway, lined with trees and slightly uphill all the way.  Of Milton Keynes I saw nothing - no cars, a few backs of houses, and a few cryptic signs to places like Wolvercote and CMK (central Milton Keynes?).  Emerging out the other side, I also dodged Stony Stratford and followed a few more miles of cycle path alongside various roads, with occasional subways to change sides.  The highlight of Milton Keynes was passing one of those little delivery robots rolling along the pavement towards an unseen destination.  Easy, safe cycling, but soulless.   

Buckingham University, The Radcliffe Centre

Back on the lanes, I was now in Buckinghamshire, somewhat more rolling than yesterday, and heading to the bustling town of Buckingham itself for elevenses.   The way out of town was along a grand avenue leasing to Stowe - I went through the first grand entrance, and saw the second, even grander, entrance, but turned off & never saw Stowe itself.

One of a pair of entrance houses to Stowe

The Avenue, Stowe (2nd entrance in the distance)

Weston

Definitely hilly now, nothing huge but continuous ups and downs.  The little villages were pretty, with a lot of Cotswold style stone and a bit of thatch here and there.  Veering north into Northamptonshire, I stopped at Canons Ashby for late lunch at the National Trust cafe for the Tudor Manor house.  There seem to be quite a few big estates around.

Church at Canons Ashby

After lunch, the hills got serious as I headed north towards Daventry and Rugby.  At the top of the hill, I would be greeted by a vast plain ahead of me - great!  But the route seemed to find another big hill, and another.  Daventry was a mix of old fashioned High Street with a lot of modern surroundings, and some nice cycle paths.

Grand house

Grand house

Eventually I found the plain and picked up a bit of speed, but I needed food.  Stopped at the Co-op in Crick and couldn't resist a four-pack of jam doughnuts, reduced to 75p.  It felt good, but also bad, so I gave two of them to a couple of workmen.  In return, they offered to do me a new roof.

It was plain sailing for the last ten miles, crossing the M1, the grand Union canal, and getting almost to Rugby, but I stopped in a farm campsite in Catthorpe, where I found the only flat pitch and had time to shower before walking to the excellent pub.  Luxury.

Back at the tent, it was another clear night, but the moon wasn't up, so I could see millions of stars.  It was already very cold, so I put every item of clothing on, and settled into a deep sleep.

It got down to 3 degrees overnight, but I was wrapped up warmly.  In the morning, the tent was dripping with dew, and it was a chilly 7 degrees.  Outside, it was thick fog.  I spent an age trying to wipe the tent as the dew was still settling.  It wasn't very appealing to go for a bike ride, so I went to the farm shop to consider my options over breakfast.  To make matters worse, my overnight warm hat had given me a hairstyle like 1970s David Bowie.

Setting off from the campsite

I'd had a hilly 65 mile route planned, into the Cotswolds, but the forecast was for mist all day, so there would be nothing to see, and it might be dangerous on the roads.  If I was going to abandon the ride, I could either ride to  Rugby (2 miles), or carry on to Banbury (20 miles).  The ride to Rugby settled it, and I got a train home to Watford from there.  £11 to Watford Junction, and then free on the Lioness & Mildmay lines to Richmond.  Not bad.

So that was the rather abrupt end of my planned four day trip.  I would have persevered if I'd been trying to get somewhere - but this trip was all about enjoying the countryside.   It will still be there another time.

In hindsight, I wouldn't use the tiny, lightweight tent for a multi-day trip again.  It's OK on a dry day with no overnight dew.  But if there's dew, it's hard to manoeuvre inside it without the inner touching the wet outer.   And it would be extremely difficult to pack up camp in the rain.  Worth the extra kilogram for a two-man tent.

Day 2 Emberton-Catthorpe

< Day 1

Mini autumn tour day 1 - Bedfordshire

A week of fine weather, and a few free days, so it's time to go camping!  I scratched around for somewhere new and nearby,  came up with a blank stripe of the map north of Bedford, Buckingham and Oxford.  Not quite the midlands; maybe northern south England?

A train to Bedford saved a day's ride out, so I took the Elizabeth Line to Farringdon & then Thameslink to Bedford.  Gosh, Farringdon is a busy station!  I was only there ten minutes, and four trains came through the sole Northbound platform, trains to Peterborough, St Albans, Cambridge and Bedford, and from all over the south of England.  I'd packed light, banking on dry and not-too-cold nights, with my tiny lightweight coffin-sized tent.

Bedford

My plan was to do a loop eastwards first, to visit the village of Sandy, before turning back westwards.  Bedford is situated on the river Great Ouse, with smart old houses along its grassy bank.  I rode out along the river, a delightful  cycle path meandering around several lakes and different waterways.  It was warm enough while riding, with the sun trying but generally not managing to shine through the flat clouds. Then across flat, open countryside with a few lovely villages, beautiful autumn foliage and berries and picture-perfect thatched cottages.

Autumn riding

Sandy was a nice village despite its proximity to the thundering A1.  I turned north and east to loop back to Great Barford for lunch at the local convenience store.

After lunch, the hills started.  Straight after lunch, very cruel, a stiff 18 metre climb, and immediately followed by the other hill of the day, even worse at 25 metres!  To be a bit more serious it was rolling countryside,  almost never flat but no big or steep hills either.  There weren't many notable villages, just open countryside and big views, and the remaining 30 miles passed pleasantly and uneventfully. 

Riseley

I arrived at the village of Emberton, which is in the "County" of Milton Keynes but still well in the countryside.  I ended up at a farm campsite with one other camper van in the field, pitched up and went straight to the pub, which was packed at 6pm.  A good choice.  They had no food but a speciality German hot dog van was parked outside.  It was the wurst.  They offered up to four free toppings, so I had them all, resulting in a delicious hot dog that was impossible to eat politely.

No photos of me eating it.

By 8pm I was back at the campsite.  A huge globe of a moon hung low in the sky, blotting out most of the stars, and I went to sleep to the soft sound of the emus(!) in the next field.

Day 1. Bedford to Emberton

Day 2 >

Cycling in mid-Wales

By Brian & Simon.   Brian has also added quite a bit of info to “Simon’s” paragraphs. And the wonder that is Google AI offered to add links to various places referenced in the text, so as an experiment they are included.

B: When my wife, Cheryl, booked a week on a singing course at Malvern my thoughts turned to potential cycling opportunities. Mid Wales was an obvious choice because it’s an easy drive from Malvern and an attractive area. 

I also have a long but intermittent association with the area. It was en route by train or car from South Wales to my mother’s parents in Cheshire and in the 1950s we had a holiday on a hill farm without electricity near Llanwrtyd Wells when the Devil’s Staircase road above Abergwesyn was still gravel and the adventurous who continued to Nantyrhwch were warned that road to Llandovery was “unsuitable for motors”. My dad was not deterred. In addition my Dad had a job that took him as far from Swansea as Llandovery and Builth Wells. Given his love of exploring remote countryside I’m fairly sure that some of the beautiful remote spots he took us to were not originally explored with a justifiable “business purpose”. But Google wasn’t tracking you in those far off days. Some of this area I later explored by bike though even that was nearly 60 years ago. My knowledge was rekindled when my elder son went to uni in Aberystwyth and we revisited some favourite spots.

A bit of research suggested that Rhayader could be a good base. It’s a small town which bills itself as the “Outdoor Capital of Wales”. Situated at the junction of several valleys and on NCN 8 and NCN 825 it has the potential for rides in various directions including areas that I had never visited. 

I remembered that, after completing his ride round the coast of Wales, Simon had suggested that the interior was unfinished business and asked if he was interested. Silly question! Just the slight logistical issue that I couldn’t get Simon and his bike into the car until after I had dropped Cheryl in Malvern. 

S: When Brian raised the possibility of a trip to mid-Wales, I was immediately interested.  I asked if he had ideas for rides.   His response contained a lot of unfamiliar words, place names with lots of the letters L, D, W, Y but not many vowels.  It was like a foreign language!  Eventually he had to show me on a map what he had in mind:  a few days in Rhayader with loops out in all directions.   

B: We quickly fixed the travel logistics and I had been looking at accommodation. A suitable modern apartment was available conveniently close to the town centre with good reviews, friendly hosts and a bike shed. What more could we want?

It turned out (perhaps unsurprisingly) that the biggest issue on all the potential rides, apart from the hills, was food and drink. The larger towns were fine but, as we found, smaller ones had limited options, unpublished hours and very few of the rare country pubs opened on weekday lunchtimes. Last minute research and sometimes a Plan B were essential.

Day 1: the Elan Valley

S: After a 3 am start, I caught a train to Great Malvern and met Brian for the drive to Rhayader in light rain. We found a delightful cafe which as a bonus offered the potential for an interesting evening meal later in the week. The rain stopped after lunch for a half-day ride to the Elan Valley, a few miles away and one of the few places I’d heard of in Brian’s itinerary.  It’s a huge reservoir in a deep valley with tarmac or gravel roads snaking up the various tributaries. 

The sun was out and the views were superb as we rode first up one valley on a tarmac road to the Claerwen dam, then returned to the lower dam (and ice cream van) to tackle the second, longer Elan valley choosing the gravel trail.  We saw a handful of people as we passed another two dams further up the valley, before crossing to the road and out into a wide open expanse of remote upland countryside. A final climb led to a joyful five-mile descent back to Rhayader.   I was a little sad that we seemed to have done the best day first, and nothing could match up to this - but I was wrong.

28 miles, 663 metres of ascent

Day 2: Llanidloes and Llyn Clywedog

S:  Brian promised me a lumpy ride to elevenses, and he wasn’t wrong.  Our enthusiasm yesterday gave us tired legs to tackle the continuous short hills on the way north to Llanidloes.  In the process we climbed out of the Wye valley and over into the Severn valley.   After coffee, we followed a small lane up, continuously climbing which seemed easier than the short intermittent efforts earlier, before a long descent through the Hafren forest to another picturesque reservoir, Llyn Clywedog, which seemed rather more intimate because it had twists and turns so you could only see a few miles at a time.  We enjoyed a rare bit of straight road, slightly downhill before a couple of vicious climbs returned us to Llanidloes for a pub lunch. We tucked into desserts too, having established that the cafe in Llangurig has Tuesday off. One last climb to the watershed before a rather smoother way down the Wye valley back home, including detouring to a former youth hostel where Brian had stayed in his younger days.

Nant Y Dernol, former Youth Hostel

Llyn Clywedog

48 miles, 1432 metres

Day 3: Towards Hay on Wye

S: Our ride down the river valley suggested flat riding to me, but that was only partly true.   To avoid the main A470, we went on the other side of the valley using NCN 8, a gorgeous wooded lane with virtually no traffic, but it was again rather lumpy in that same leg-sapping way.  An added bonus was a few miles of gated forest track, some of which was lovely but other parts provided the usual Sustrans special effects and were too stony or too steep to ride confidently on our road bikes.  Thus our 300ft “down” the valley to Builth Wells had involved 1300ft of ascent. Elevenses was in the lovely Cwtch Cafe (Cwtch means a hug or cosy), where I had an Ed Miliband moment with a generous bacon sandwich (no photos luckily), before a rather flatter ride in the sunshine to Glasbury, a few miles short of Hay.

We returned more or less the same way with a few detours devised by Brian to see interesting sights, and finally we arrived at the most “interesting” of short-cuts, a footbridge across the river which avoided the last hill into Rhayader.  It was true Indiana Jones stuff:  just wide enough for our handlebars, large gaps between the floor planks large enough for a tyre to fit through, and very wobbly as you walked carefully across it.

Dodgy track

Dodgy bridge (4mph speed limit)

Extremely dodgy bridge

63 miles, 1332 metres

Day 4: Llandrindod Wells

S: Our legs decided that we needed a recovery day after three days of serious climbs, so we had a look around Rhayader before heading out for a shorter loop round to the west and south.  It started with a four-mile climb (was this really a recovery day?) over to Abbey Cwmhir but after that was more gentle as we followed a lane down the Clywedog (no relation to Tuesday!) Brook to Crossgates (lunch at a petrol station cafe).   Then over several hills to Llandrindod, which was quite exciting, first because we were hit by a very heavy shower as we came into town, so we rushed to shelter at the station, and second because there were not one but two trains present. The Heart of Wales line from Swansea to Shrewsbury has only four trains a day.   After tea Brian joined up a few more lanes with some short sections of quiet main road to get us easily back to Rhayader for a special Thali evening at the community hall - a monthly Indian meal event organised by our Monday cafe which was very well attended and the food was delicious.

32 miles, 749 metres

Day 5: Llanwrtyd Wells & Llyn Brianne

S: In fact, Brian had saved the best ride till last.   We jumped in the car for a short drive to the “town” (it claims to be the smallest in the UK!) of Llanwrtyd Wells, which was a whole adventure in itself.   We arrived to a reception committee of four elderly locals sitting, unsmiling, surveying the tiny village square.  They had disappeared by the time we reappeared with our bikes, and so had our planned elevenses cafe, which had closed “some time ago” despite the somewhat dubious promises on their website.   Instead, we tried the hotel, which could have been straight out of the 1950s.  An ancient retainer confirmed that coffee was indeed available, before shuffling off into the interior.   We waited in the drawing room until he appeared with coffee, somewhat reminiscent of Julie Walters in the famous Two Soups sketch.   Llanwrtyd Wells is the UK capital of bog-snorkelling and the drawing room was decorated with various bog-snorkelling memorabilia, plus a wall of photos devoted to the Monster Raving Loony Party and Screaming Lord Sutch.  It turns out that the party held its annual conference in Llanwrtyd Wells in 2023.

Mountain bike Bog snorkelling

But, I digress. Our ride went southwards to a ridge, then east down through mixed forest into a tributary of the Tywi valley.  At some point we left Powys for Carmarthenshire, and turned back towards Llyn Brianne, passing under the railway viaduct at Cynghordy.

A short, sharp climb took us over the hill to the main Tywi valley and lunch at a lovely pub in Rhandirmwyn (see what I mean about the names?).  We continued up, a lot more up.   A short detour into Brian’s memory lane to an old picnic spot in a delightful valley, and then, guess what, more climbing to the dam (the UK’s tallest so no wonder it was up), with a glorious view over Brian’s personal lake, Llyn Brianne.

As with the other reservoirs, the water level was very low after our dry spring and summer, exposing acres of shoreline and an old bridge, but no shipwrecks or drowned villages that I saw.  The ride around the shore of the lake seemed never-ending, curling round this valley or that, up and down a bit but mostly just beautiful riding with spectacular views along the lake.

Surveying the road in the distance

Somewhere, buried under the water is the old “unsuitable” road.  At the top, we had to descend the Devil’s Staircase, a very steep descent which required full brakes and a bit of walking.  Once safely down the steep bit, we had a gorgeous ride back to Llanwrtyd along the river Irfon valley, ten miles of bliss.   The scenery was reminiscent of the Lake District without the crowds.  In fact we only saw a handful of cars all day.   Tea and cake at a dress shop(!) in Llanwrtyd set the seal on a great day.

B: I had originally planned this route in an anticlockwise direction to get the Devil’s Staircase out of the way first. However Simon wisely suggested that we might reverse it which we realised had several advantages but one was decisive. We were almost certain to reach the only pub in time for lunch! Thank you, Simon.

41 miles, 1172 metres

Day 6: East from Hay-on-Wye

S: We had a deadline to be back in Great Malvern so it was a shorter ride.  Pack up, say goodbye to our lovely hosts, drive to Hay, a quick look around (although you could spend a lot longer visiting Hay - it was a bustling, modern place quite unlike anywhere else we’d visited), elevenses, and then on our bikes again.   We headed out east and south, into the Golden Valley of the River Dore, a tributary of the Wye, pub lunch at Peterchurch, and then back over the single significant hill of the day, into Hay to finish our trip.

20 miles, 472 metres

It was a superb week of riding, mostly good weather, great company of course, and Rhayader was a good base with a decent choice of places to eat and excellent rides in every direction.   It was a pleasure to get to know that part of Wales, and I began to understand why it’s called the heart of Wales.  You could do a lot of it from the maps and the NCN routes, but Brian’s personal knowledge and detailed planning meant that we found a lot of little extras that made it really special.  Thank you Brian!

B: I can only endorse Simon’s comments about the week. Parts were a bit of a trip down memory lane but most of it was about the remote grandeur of much of this area. It was great to share it, much more relaxed to ride it with company and share decisions about what was realistic rather than feeling the need to do everything. The hills took their toll on the legs and I think we both knew when we had done enough. It was a wonderful week. Thank you Simon for joining me and helping to make it work.