The interactive map below shows The Ridgeway, Thames Path and bike routes to Reading, Henley and Wallingford. Zoom in to see local services, zoom out to see details of the routes outside the village.

For details of dozens of other on- or off-road bike rides in the local area, go to the Map page of goringgapcycling.co.uk.

For details of local walks, go to the Local Walks section of visitgoringandstreatley.co.uk.

The Ridgeway

The Ridgeway is widely held to be Britain’s oldest road, having been used since prehistoric times. The official National Trail runs for 87 miles (140 km) from Overton Hill near Avebury to Ivinghoe.

West of the Thames (Streatley to Avebury), The Ridgeway Trail is open to cyclists and horse riders as well as walkers. The trail is quite rutted in places – a legacy of use by motor vehicles before the were prohibited – and the chalk surface can be extremely slippery in wet conditions. National Trails’ Ridgeway website has a special webpage with information for cyclists. You can download a GPX of the Streatley to Avebury section below.

The western section of The Ridgeway and the off-road route to Reading form part of King Alfred’s Way (KAW), a 220 mile (350 km) circular off-road adventure route that connects the Goring Gap to Avebury, Stonehenge, Salisbury and Winchester. The KAW was devised by Cycling UK and launched in 2021. It is not waymarked , but has its own dedicated website from which the GPX route file can be downloaded.

East of the Thames (Goring to Ivinghoe) parts of the trail are designated as footpaths, so cycling on these is not legally permitted (riding a bike on a footpath is a civil trespass). This includes part of the section from Goring to North Stoke, where it is necessary for cyclists to make a diversion along the B4009 instead. In 2020 The Ridgeway Partnership (Cycling UK and the British Horse Society) launched the Ridgeway Riding Route Project to enable cyclists and riders to travel the route from Goring to Dunstable.

The Thames Path

The Thames Path is a 185 mile (300 km) walking route from the source of the river in the Cotswolds to the Thames Barrier. In the Goring Gap area, it runs on the west bank of the river from Wallingford to Streatley and on the east bank from Goring to Whitchurch (where it crosses the river to Pangbourne). The part of the path from Gatehampton (just south of Goring) to Whitchurch is co-incident with the King Alfred’s Way route and is open to cyclists, but the rest of the path in the local area is not.