Hi, a tandem rider from Oxford here:-)

My stoker is 11 y.o., so for us 40 mi is a limit nowadays, and we are probably too slow to show you around on a bike.

Few remarks - you can take a train to Swindon or, even better, to Stroud, and take a taxi from there to your 1st stop.

A taxi there from Oxford wouldn't be that easy to get - it's too far for a regular taxi, I think, and will cost a foot and a leg.

From Stow-on-the-Wold, a bit closer station is Kingham (unless you take direct A429, which I don't recommend - in general, avoid Axy and Axyz roads - some of them might have a cycle lane, or just be wide enough - but some Axy are plain dangerous for cycling), and the ride to there is quite pleasant, mostly long downhill.

Regarding rides, the area around Stroud and Nailsworth is quite nice, if you are into climbing in particular.

From Stow, you can think of doing a ride to Charlbury and back.

Please shout if you need anything in Oxford, e.g. storage, a college visit, etc :-)

Cheers

Dmitrii

Hi, tandem pilot from Swindon. I don't have any pre-made routes from Oakridge Lynch specifically but I can definitely recommend some great nearby cafes and areas to visit. It's a hilly area there - some steep climbs with pretty views at the top. Pretty much every road up to Minchinhampton Common is like this. As a cafe stop, the Jolly Nice is quite nearby and a favourite of ours. Also the Knead bakery in Elkstone is great.

Finally, I strongly advise avoiding this road in the screenshot! Very poor surface and steep. Going a longer way round will be more pleasant

Hi, tandem pilot from Swindon. I don't have any pre-made routes from Oakridge Lynch specifically but I can definitely recommend some great nearby cafes and areas to visit. It's a hilly area there - some steep climbs with pretty views at the top. Pretty much every road up to Minchinhampton Common is like this. As a cafe stop, the Jolly Nice is quite nearby and a favourite of ours. Also the Knead bakery in Elkstone is great.

Finally, I strongly advise avoiding this road in the screenshot! Very poor surface and steep. Going a longer way round will be more pleasant

There is an organisation in the UK called Sustrans who facilitate the National Cycle Route.If you look on their website you can search routes by keywords eg Cirencester and you will see parts of the network in that area, they also have maps etc. You can filter routes by traffic free etc.

Hope this helps

You might find some good routes here:

https://www.cotswolds-nl.org.uk/visiting-and-exploring/cycling-and-riding/cycle-routes/

https://www.cicerone.co.uk/cycling-in-the-cotswolds

https://slowcycling.net/uk-circular-routes/cotswolds/

We live near Stow on the Wold but we don’t tandem there very often as Stow is at the top of a hill and we are in Broadway which is at the bottom of the hill. 

Here are some routes which might be of interest:

 Stow -> Lower Swell -> towards Harford Br -> Snowshill -> Chipping Campden ->Moreton in Marsh -> Evenlode ->Broadwell -> Stow.  We have done this route on our tandem and it was tough but manageable.  From this loop you can drop down to Broadway or Toddington to see the steam trains in action but it will mean a big climb back up the hill to join the loop.

Stow -> Broadwell -> Adlestrop -> Kingham -> Chadlington -> Charlbury -> Leafield -> Shipston-under-Wychwood -> Kingham and return.  I have done the Kingham to Charlbury sections on a tandem with daughter on the back.

You can extend the above route from Chadlington to include Finstock and Long Hanborough to Woodstock.  Woodstock has Blenheim palace which is the ancestral home of Winston Churchill.  This runs in part along the busy A4095 but the last time I did it there was a cycle path along most of this road.

From Stow -> Evenlode -> Moreton in Marsh -> then various loops taking in the villages of Todenham, Cherington, Stourton, Whichford, Great Wolford, Long Compton, Barton on the Heath, and even Hook Norton. Avoid long stretches on the A3400 as it can be busy with fast traffic.  Hook Norton is the home of Hook Norton Ales and the brewery has a visitors centre and does guided tours.  The brewery still has shire horses to deliver the beer locally and these can be seen on the guided tours.  https://www.hooky.co.uk/visit-us/book-a-brewery-tour/

There is a Roman villa at Chedworth which you should be able to get to via quiet roads.  Stow -> Lower Swell -> Lower Slaughter -> Bourton on the Water -> North Leach (avoid A429) -> Chedworth.  There are some steep climbs on this route.

The villages of Lower Slaughter, Upper Slaughter and Bourton on the Water are often visited by trips to the Cotswolds and are reachable from Stow.

 I find Ordnance Survey maps the best to use for planning, these are available on bing maps. I also use https://cycle.travel this has a useful feature of being able to suggest circular rides of a user selectable distance.  The routes are routed to prefer low traffic roads and are usually very cycle friendly.

Here are some roads I would avoid as they are busy with traffic.  A429, A424, A44, A3400

Hope this is useful.

Please get in touch if you need anything further.  Depending on your dates we would be happy to come for a ride with you.

Neil & Anna

The Cotswolds are greener and more lovely than we had envisioned. The hills are steeper. In Colorado we're used to 7% for 16 miles, not 16% for .7 km. These hills are like the hills in Vermont. Killer.

But, we're here. We arrived at tiny Oakridge on Saturday, and took a walk to even tinier Frampton Mansell, to get to a market to obtain some provisions. We have no car with us. It's either ride or walk, and on Saturday we hadn't yet assembled our tandem. On the way to Frampton, as we walked down the road from Oakridge to the River Frome -- the very road that James has, in this thread, advised us to avoid -- we encountered Mark and Louise (I'm guessing at the spellings; apologies for any mistake), portaging their tandem *up* the road. "We knew the Americans were coming today and we wondered if we would see them," Louise said. Small tandem world!

Thanks to all who responded with route suggestions. Between your suggestions and others I've pulled together from Lost Lanes and other sources, I've mapped out a dozen or so possible day routes that can be accomplished, in whole or part, form our current base of Oakridge (through May 8), and our later base of Stow-on-the-Wold (May 10-14). You can find them here,

To that collection of routes I've added a few maps to the Kemble Station routes featured at the Road Cycling Routes page at the Cotswolds National Landscape site. The site doesn't provide GPX files for those routes, so we have them on paper only.

We don't plan to ride every day, or every one one of those routes; I assembled them to have a variety of options to suit our ambition -- and weather -- for the day. (We plan to ride from Oakridge to Stow on May 9, while a taxi ferries our bags.)

The bike is now assembled, and the current forecast for Monday is about 50-50 for rain between 2 and 6 p.m. If we do ride, a simple out-and-back -- either west to poke around Stroud, or east to Cirencester to explore that city, or one of the CNL routes -- appears to be our agenda for now. The weather looks more favorable starting Tuesday, so we are saving anything more ambitious for that part of the week.

Before we left the States, our lodging service gave us notice that the day of our arrival in Stow corresponds with the start of the semi-annual Gypsy horse fair. We're not exactly sure what to expect, but all in for adventure, I guess.

There are conflicting reports about levels of petty crime increasing or decreasing when these horse fairs are on. But to be safe I would take a little extra care over locking the bike when un attended.  But also enjoy the adventure.

On a separate point, the bluebells are in bloom at the moment. The local woods should be carpeted in blue flowers.