Route Planning
There’s reassurance in following a route that other cyclists have tried and tested. Many websites provide routes that have been uploaded by users, but often it’s not clear what the route is really like and how difficult it is. Some of them have been plotted automatically and may use busy roads that you wouldn’t dream of taking your children on. All the routes in the Goring Gap Cycling Library have been ridden and recorded by members of the Goring Gromils, an informal group of friends who enjoy cycling together. Apart from the fitness, shopping and commuting routes, they all include cafe stops, something considered essential by many leisure cyclists. That said, it can also be fun to plan your own rides.
Guide Books
Cycling guide books generally contain a number of routes in the area covered by the book, with pictures and detailed descriptions. They are particularly useful when planning tours in an areas you’ve not been to before. The Lost Lanes series is beautifully produced, well written and makes great winter armchair reading to inspire you for future trips.
Modern editions frequently come with access to a website where you can download the routes in gpx format.
Paper Maps
The traditional way to plan cycling routes was with the aid of a paper map, using pins and a piece of string to measure distances. There’s still a lot to be said for spreading out a map to get the big picture, particularly when planning a multi-day tour.
The 1:50,000 Ordnance Survey Landranger maps are good for navigational use, although for a week’s touring you may need multiple sheets.
The 1:25,000 Ordnance Survey Explorer maps are great for walking, but show too much detail and cover too small an area for planning bike trips.
cycle.travel
One of the best electronic resources for planning your own routes is the cycle.travel website. This can suggest a route for you from A to B, or suggest circular day rides or multi-day tours from your chosen starting point. Once you have selected a route it will give you detailed turn-by-turn instructions. You can save the route and instructions to a cycle.travel account (free) and use the cycle.travel mobile app on your smartphone, or download the route via Garmin Connect or as a GPX track file.
Garmin Connect (GC) is a platform for storing routes, activities and health data across the Garmin product range. Tools within GC allow you to analyse and share this information with other users.
GPX is explained in more detail on the Going Digital page.
The Goring Gap Cycling Map
You can use the Map page to see all the mapped routes in the local area, including the following features:
- Categorised climbs – yellow, orange and red. Red means steeper than 10% and longer than a quarter of a mile, so we’re not talking Tour de France categories here!
- Bike shops
- Cafes (very important)
- Type of ride: Hybrid, Mountain Bike or Road
- Railway stations, with links to their facilities and timetables
Traffic-free Routes
When planning your own routes, it can be difficult to know in advance how busy a road is, or which bridleways are muddy or overgrown. The cycle.travel website/app and the Oxfordshire Online Cycling Map are both quite useful in this respect.
One of the great things about cycling in and around the Goring Gap is the number of traffic-free routes with a decent surface that makes them usable all-year. There may only be a few formal cycle paths, but there are a surprising number of other routes, typically where a bridleway has been surfaced to serve the local farm. In some cases, the farm road is actually on the course of a footpath, not a bridleway, but if the public has been using it freely for at least 20 years there is a presumed right-of-way (Section 30 of Highways Act 1980). Some of these useful links are highlighted in the Traffic-free Routes Map
Rights of Way
The law on public access is quite complicated, but Cycling UK has a useful summary and explanation (for England and Wales)
Note that a footpath in the countryside is not the same as a footway/pavement alongside a road. Cycling on a footpath is classed as a trespass against the landowner, which is normally a civil offence rather than a criminal one, unless specific byelaws apply. This means that the landowner can sue the trespasser for damages in the civil courts, but the police are not involved and there’s no criminal record for the offender.
Cycling on a footway or pavement is illegal under Section 72 of the 1835 Highway Act, which makes it an offence to ride on “any footpath or causeway by the side of any road.” Although the original act predates the bicycle, it is referred to in Rule 64 of the current Highway Code. The same section also prohibits the use of e-scooters on pavements (see Department of Transport Guidance on Powered transporters).
Trains
Taking a train for part of the way increases how far you can travel in a day, and opens up interesting possibilities. The trains on the local GWR services from London Paddington through Goring & Streatley to Didcot are relatively bike-friendly.
Examples of train-assist rides from Goring:
- Cycle along King Alfred’s Way through the woods to Whitchurch. Return by train from Pangbourne (4 mi)
- Cycle along The Ridgeway and National Cycling Network Route 544 to Didcot (12.1 mi). Return by train. From Rectory Road in Streatley to Didcot station this route is traffic-free, though not recommended in wet weather when the chalk surface of The Ridgeway can be very slippery. For a downloadable GPX file, see the first part of the Abingdon via The Ridgeway route, which goes right past the front of Didcot station