C&M Easter Tour 2026 - John and Carolyn's Saturday ride

The Windrush Valley ride

John and Carolyn had 10 riders with them for their Saturday ride from Lechlade. No sooner out of the hotel we were on quiet rural roads. However one reason for their apparent lack of popularity for the motoring public became evident after we turned up a nameless lane towards Little Faringdon and found ourselves navigating a safe route through a minefield of potholes. There were so many potholes in this road that some agency had painted a line around each one and given it a number, no doubt to record the details in a spreadsheet for the local authority’s Pothole Department. By the time we turned off towards Kencot the number had exceeded 100.

Despite dire warnings of stormy weather throughout the country for the Easter Weekend the rain held off for us all day but the wind didn’t. It was certainly a gusty one. We saw a few discombobulated crows overhead and an occasional red kite, presumably trying to ride the currents generated by our high performance peloton rushing past beneath them. 

We arrived in the Windrush Valley just south of Swinbrook and followed the river to Burford. We were initially taken aback by the vast numbers of parked cars and of people wandering up and down the high street and didn’t quite imagine that we could find somewhere for a Cake and Coffee break without having to join a long queue. However we navigated the parked cars and the crowds and the streetside scaffolding to lock our bikes and settled down in a splendid café called Huffkins for our refreshments. It was a little sad not to go exploring in the town which is a marvel of Cotswolds architecture but the ambience in the café held most of us captive until our agreed departure time.

a detour in Shilton

St Peters, Little Barrington in the Windrush Valley

St Peters, Windrush

Relaxing outside Huffkins in Burford

We rode on through Little Barrington and Windrush where the river itself decided to wander off in a northerly direction for the touristy attractions of Bourton on the Water. What we had mostly forgotten was that the beautiful Windrush River is a main point of focus for the Windrush Against Sewage Pollution campaign to highlight the illegal discharging of untreated sewage into the river by Thames Water. And we passed through Northleach whose Sewage Treatment Works came under detailed scrutiny in Channel 4’s recent documentary, ‘Dirty Business’.

A couple of miles south, after climbing the long ramp out from Northleach, we had become a little too spread out with a result that our paths diverged, some sticking with John and his original plan and others taking a different tack, but all reconverging at Ablington for our parade into Bibury. We were shocked to find this exquisite Cotswold village heaving with traffic and people, the main attraction evidently being the Bibury Trout Farm where they must have been having one of their ‘Catch your own Fish’ days. By the time we arrived it had become very cold and buying a fresh Rainbow or Brown trout at their fish counter would have been far more sensible.

a rare quiet corner in Bibury

At Bibury Helen felt that after 30 miles or so, after persevering with her regular old bike all day rather than her now preferred eBike, that she had had enough. So Paul valiantly rode with the rest of us back to Lechlade via Coln St Aldwyns and Hatherop then drove back to Bibury to pick Helen up.

Despite being buffeted around in the gusty and increasingly chilly wind we did have a marvellous day of cycling. The ride was superb for which we thank John and Carolyn who designed and recced the route, and then led us on Saturday. John, Carolyn, Helen, Paul, Daghni, Angela, Steph, Keith, Peter S, Lilian, Martina and I comprised the crew.

~ Tim C