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 and close to the Chilterns.   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.  The main event is from Friday night to Monday morning, with two days of rides.

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, not quite following the Basingstoke canal and stopping for a canal-side lunch just before in the Mytchett canal centre, near Farnborough.

 

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 to the west and rode all the way to Newbury on mostly quiet roads.  We had tea at the Wellington Farm Shop basking 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.  As we rode along by the old runway, we were entertained by a biplane doing loops and other aerobatics for our personal entertainment.   Then it was only a short hop to Newbury and our Premier Inn.

 

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.

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