Buy the OS Route Map and instructions for this route

Cotswold villages always have a cosy, homely kind of a feeling — a kind of archetypal Englishness that usually involves nothing more energetic than sipping tea and buttering scones, preferably while listening to the sound of string quartets piped into the tearoom via speakers hidden behind the curtains.
The Cotswold hills are a different matter altogether though; in fact they’re damned steep in places, as this ride quickly reveals.
Wotton-under-Edge doesn’t quite fit the stereotype mentioned above, but it is tucked beneath some impressive wooded uplands, and it does have plentiful parking as well as a choice of teashops and pubs. The only way is up from here, though.
Early height is gained on tarmac, but that doesn’t ease the gradient, which will certainly have those quads burning painfully before you finally gain the Cotswold Way and the first of many good stony lanes. A non-eventful grassy descent follows and then a short road stretch leads eastwards to Tresham, where it’s back onto dirt for a rough, and often treacherous, drop to Ozleworth Bottom.
The track along the bottom seldom dries out completely, so expect to clean your bike when you get home tonight, and then click it back into a low gear for a steep pull onto Brock Hill, where tarmac takes over again. Bencombe marks the entrance to Dursley Woods, an oak-covered escarpment that towers over the town of the same name. There’s great riding through here pretty much any time of the year.
Then it’s up again, and this time there are points for a clean run — if the stones don’t get you, the drainage gullies probably will. Nibley Tower provides a fitting finale, with fantastic views over the Severn Vale to Wales; and then it’s a full-on fun run back through Westridge Woods.