Le Great British Tour de Cake by Heth Miller

Le Great British Tour de Cake is a very useful guide to some of the best cafe rides in Oxfordshire, West Berkshire, and Wiltshire. Written by Heth Miller – a cyclist, cafe enthusiast, writer, and proud Bikeability instructor – this book is a really fun read and a genuinely useful resource for finding new rides and cafes in the beautiful rolling lanes of this part of the world.

Who is this book for? Well, Heth herself says this book is, “ideal for gifting to friends you don’t really like for Christmas or propping open doors on a windy day,” but aside from that I’d say if you’re a cyclist of pretty much any type who lives in one of the areas covered, this is worth checking out. And even if you don’t live in the counties of Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, or Berkshire, I’d say some of these rides are worth travelling for. This book is written for literally everyone – from experienced riders to beginners and total non-cyclists looking for a cake-fuelled adventure. It even includes extra routes for “little legs” to be inclusive for families and young children – genuinely heartwarming stuff.

Heth isn’t a writer I was familiar with before reading this book, but I’m pleased to have found her. Her tone of voice throughout is really fun: lighthearted and playful, you can really get absorbed in her words as she dives down rabbit holes filled with cycling and cake adjacent facts. It’s clear that a lot of time and effort has been put into these routes and cafe recommendations, and reading it lets you absorb that kind of lived experience as it just oozes passion and excitement for cycling in a way that AI will never be able to replace.

I’m a bit of a sucker for books like this. The kind of book that you’d find on a coffee table in a cafe or bike shop and accidentally spend hours flicking through, this would be a perfect gift for the cyclist in your life (who lives in Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, or Berkshire) – I only wish Heth had the time to explore more parts of the UK and write a sequel.

This book doesn’t take itself too seriously, and the rides are all quite accessible. They range from four or five miles right up to 33 or so, plus the ‘Mega Caker’ route at the end that totals 232.4 miles (but is split up into a six-day circular route to be completed at leisure). Terrain is a mix of road and gravel (think towpaths more than Traka), and the Little Legs rides are all about 10 miles or shorter.

On a practical level, my Euro-centric roadie brain had a bit of a hard time converting miles and feet into kilometers and metres when I was reading it, but all of the routes are available to download on Heth’s website to upload to your navigation app of choice, which will automatically convert them into your preferred unit of measurement.

In summary, this is a book that you can dip in and out of, again and again, and always pick up a new route, cafe recommendation, or helpful information about things like navigating SATs (stupidly annoying trains). Hopefully, if enough people read this review and Heth sells enough copies, she can find the budget to write another one… ideally around Bristol, Somerset, and Gloucestershire (please!).