Читать книгу Cycling in the Cotswolds. 21 half and full-day cycle routes, and a 4-day 200km Tour of the Cotswolds онлайн

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These, and the relatively gentle terrain, really lend the Cotswolds to cycling. But make no mistake: it’s not flat! There are plenty of hills here, often gentle and rolling in nature, although some are surprisingly steep – they just don’t ascend to such lofty heights as some of the more renowned hilly areas of the UK.

The routes in this book cover between 14km (9 miles) and 64km (40 miles) in a day, leading up to a 208km (130 miles) four-day route that visits many Cotswold highlights.

Geology

In the Jurassic Period (roughly 200–145 million years ago), the land that now forms the Cotswold Hills was in the tropics and completely underwater. The depth of these tropical seas varied over time, with the deeper waters producing thick clays and the shallower seas forming limestone from the shells of marine creatures living and dying in the waters.

Rolling hillside east of the scarp edge near Snowshill (Route 22, Day 2)

More recently (geologically speaking) the land has tilted, leading to a steep scarp slope on the northwest edge of the region and rolling hills towards the south and east. This is illustrated in the steep slopes above Cheltenham (Route 20) and the gentler, plateau-like terrain above the Slaughters (Route 4).