Places to go an hour's ride from Cardiff…

Inspired by a similarly titled WalesOnline article aimed at drivers, we though we’d take a look at places you could go that were no more than an hour or so’s ride (ok, sometimes closer to two…) from Cardiff.

As our starting point, we’ll use Sophia Gardens. Most trails lead here, so it seems like the best place to start. However, some routes to these places will vary in difficulty, but where there are links, you’ll find a route article with more detail.

1. St Fagans
2. Penarth Pier
3. Roath Park Lake
4. Castle Coch
5. Cosmeston Lakes
6. Caerphilly Castle
7. Cafe Velo, Llantwit Major
8. Hengoed Viaduct
9. The Blue Anchor
10. Cardiff Wales Airport
11. Porthkerry Park
12. Cowbridge
13. Tredegar House & Country Park
14. Goldcliff
15. The Wenallt (beware, very steep hill)
16. Barry Island
17. Celtic Manor
18. Peterston Super-Ely
19. Caerphilly Mountain Snack Bar
20. Welsh Hawking Centre
21. Hensol Castle

Aside from having a bit of fun trying to work out points of interest that were accessible by bike within a reasonable timeframe, there was another motivation for doing this.

A number of the entries in this list are interesting places to go that we often ignore, simply because we live here. However, Cardiff & the wider region can be surprisingly good fun if you try to get into the mind of a tourist.

These are also places that we often pass on our rides and, some of the entries in the list are covered by routes we’ve already done.

The summer is coming, so we’ll continue to work on turning all of these into links. If there are any that you think we should have included, let us know in the comments!