It’s good to talk.
Fill in the form and we’ll get in touch.
Follow Goring Gap Cycling on social media
Goring Gap Cycling
Encouraging and supporting cycling and cyclists in the Goring Gap, where the River Thames sneaks between the North Wessex Downs and the Chiltern Hills
😊 Great to get out for a ride after being imprisoned by cold and ice since the week before Christmas. Everyone raring to go, just like farm animals when they’re first let out to pasture for the first time. Never mind the state of the roads (for now) or the likelihood that winter will return soon.
☕️🍰 Where better to stop in winter than @stokerowstore? Friendly, cosy and downhill nearly all the way home.
❄️Winter won’t last for ever. Meanwhile, enjoy the snowdrops.
#gromils
#goringgapcycling
#Chilterns
😊
Great to see the impact a short permissive path can make on the lives of local people when there’s an enlightened landowner.
👩🦼🛴🏃♀️🚶♂️**
This unobtrusive path along the edge of an arable field provides a useful traffic-free link between Cholsey village and the housing development at Fairmile. Ideal for mobility scooters, joggers and baby buggies as well as walkers. No cycles out today, as the temperature was about 2C
📷
No special posing – these pictures were all taken within 5 minutes. Build it and they will come!
(**Why is there no emoji for baby buggy/stroller? Big Tech ignoring the powerless?)
#ActiveTravel
#LivingStreets
#Oxfordshire
❄️ The days may be getting longer already, but it’s too cold for safe cycling, so what do you do? A gentle walk through the Great Chalk Wood to commune with nature and celebrate the festive season with the animals(?), so as to be able to appreciate the cosiness of @vivs_cafes_ Village Cafe (and appreciate the company of course).
#gromils
#goringgapcycling
#Chilterns
☕️🍰
Where better to go for our last ride before Christmas than the wonderful @the.maker.space in Nuffield, having done a couple of hills to get an appetite?.
Already pleasantly full when we got there, but Kay and John were happy to Maker Space for us upstairs.
Always a pleasure to visit. Merry Christmas all
🌲🎅🎁
#gromils
#goringgapcycling
#Chilterns
What do you think?
🤔 How can the historic town of Wallingford be made better for walking and cycling?
👥 Oxfordshire County Council wants your views on the Wallingford Area Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan.
📆 The consultation is open for comments until 7 January 2026.
📸 Scan the QR code on slide 2, or follow the link on the Active Travel page of the GoringGapCycling.co.uk website.
#wallingford
#Oxfordshire
#ActiveTravel
🌳Just because “quiet” country lanes do not have the same volumes of vehicle traffic as major roads is not a reason why they should not be maintained properly. Cyclists will choose them in preference to major roads for safety reasons. They are also essential for those who happen to live along them.
🕳 The size of an individual pothole should not be the sole factor determining whether a stretch of road gets fixed. It’s the combination of patchwork repairs, poor drainage, mud and grit that makes it hazardous to pedestrians and cyclists.
These video clips were all taken the day BEFORE the heavy rain of Storm Claudia.
🚴♂️The cyclist said “It’s not really much of a road, is it?”
👼 The woman with a baby in a stroller said “I live near here, so I have to use it”.
🚘The guys in the car just smiled and waved.
👎You can hear what I thought of it.
🤔 What do you think? Do we need a Mess of the Month competition, with as many different users as possible posting the winner on Fix My Street? Any other ideas, or candidates?
#goringgapcycling
#Chilterns
#wearecyclinguk
#ActiveTravel
#FixMyStreet
#roadmaintenance
#Oxfordshire
@ctc_wallingford
☕️🚵♀️🚵♂️🚵♀️🚵♂️🚵♀️🚵♂️
At the Goring Gromils, we’re always keen to explore new routes to cafes we haven’t tried before. We were quite excited when @stuntbutt came up with a route that included a traffic-free path through Caversham Park, as decent cycle infrastructure is at a premium in Reading.
😲 Imagine our surprise while we were enjoying coffee at the lovely The Bite Cafe in Emmer Green and a couple of dozen other cyclists turned up, accompanied by some local councillors and @FreddieVanMierloMP. It turned out they were a group campaigning for a safe cycleway as an alternative to the busy B481 between Sonning Common and Emmer Green (https://sonningcommoncycleway.uk), supported by some others from the Haddenham and Thame Greenway campaign group.
😊 Great to see our local MP taking such an active interest in Active Travel in this neck of the woods. Making people happier, healthier and greener – what’s not to like? For every £1 spent on so-called Active Travel, there is an average return on investment of £5.62, compared with just £2.50 for roads(📖), so why is the government not investing more in it?
🤔 Imagine a world in which cycling journeys such as Goring to Wallingford, Sonning Common to Emmer Green and Thame to Haddenham could be made quickly and easily by bike, and how may cars that would remove from the roads, making the roads safer for everyone.
📖 The Institute for Public Policy Research @ippr_uk Stride and ride: England’s path from laggard to leader in walking, wheeling, and cycling. 6 February 2024
#gromils
#goringgapcycling
#Chilterns
#wearecyclinguk
#ActiveTravel
#Sustrans
#NationalCycleNetwork
🚃 First the Training bit. For our Monday ride, 11 Goring Gromils took the train from Goring to Reading, where we changed for another train to Martins Heron (on the outskirts of Bracknell). This was a record for us – the most bikes we had ever had on a train at once.
All went very smoothly: both trains on time, lots of room for the bikes and happy Gromils at Martins Heron
🚴 Next the Ride bit. A major difficulty in planning a route back from Bracknell is Nine Mile Ride, which slices through this part of Berkshire carrying a lot of traffic, without much room for bikes. Bracknell’s bike paths were delightfully traffic-free, and our route managed to avoid most of Nine Mile Ride, except for a short length which had a shared-use footway (and roadwork traffic lights that made it easy to cross the road.
☕Coffee @jacksonscalifornialake, then on to lunch @wellingtonfarmshop. We’ve been there before, so knew the way home from there. All in all, not a Nine Mile Ride but a very enjoyable 37 mile ride, with appreciation to @great.western.railway and @SW_Railway.
📆 Apparently Monday was World Car-free Day (who invents these things?) If only we’d known, we could have celebrated… by going for a Training Ride perhaps.
#goringgapcycling
#gromils
#ActiveTravel
#firstgreatwestern
#southwesternrailway
#worldcarfreeday