Book Review: Le Great British Tour de Cake
Me: Do we do book reviews? Clarion editor: Errr… Me: It’s about bike rides. Editor: Hmm… Me: And cake, lots of cake. Editor: Mmm…
This is a chatty book. (Possibly more chatty than our editor.) You will often feel that Heth Miller, the author, is right there nattering to you, excited to tell you about her last ride, and her last cake, but also going off down side roads.
She invents, for example, a toiletometer to grade café facilities, awarding points for warmth and having somewhere to stash your bike helmet. She describes the responsibilities of wearing lycra. Not with a rule about sharp tan lines, but with a song ‘Is my lycra way too tight?’ to the tune of ‘Can you feel the love tonight?’
This, then, is a book for people who enjoy cycling, but don’t take it, or themselves, too seriously. You won’t find a discussion of gear ratios, famous racing cyclists or alpine passes here.
What you will find is 14 well-researched routes around Oxfordshire, and dipping in to West Berkshire and Wiltshire. 13 of them are between 25 and 33 miles long and so make a relaxed most-of-the-day jaunt. Some readers will be looking at that as a distance they could aim to cover in around a couple of hours, but if that’s you, this book is probably not for you – because each chapter describes the scenery on the way and gives locations and mouth-watering images of the cakes that await. There are at least two and sometimes four cafes on each route, and knowing many of them, I can tell you, dear reader, that the research has been thorough.
While the pace is intended to be gentle, the rides are not completely tame. Heth does not shy away from hills – the first ride starts up Streatley Hill – but she encourages you up them, with offers of the cake to come of course. Some routes have off-road sections, so it’s worth reading a route through before embarking on it, and prefer a touring or gravel bike to a skinny-tyred road bike.
Nine of the routes have ‘Little Legs’ versions, between 4 and 10 miles. These routes are flatter and quieter as well as shorter, but still chosen with cake in mind.
And finally, there is the 232-mile ‘Mega Caker’ giant loop, with up to 39 cafes, that she suggests savouring over six days. She also provides helpful and humourous advice about the ‘hoppy trains’ and the SATs (stupidly annoying trains) by which you can connect your journeys. All the routes have GPX files you can download.
By now, you’ll have got the idea. Heth describes cyclists as breeds of dog. If you are a speedy whippet, this is not for you. If you are more of a happy labrador, loving the outdoors but also interested in the next snack, then it could be just right. You can find it in many of Oxfordshire’s independent bookshops or on Heth’s own website.