As above, I’m in Gloucester for an interview tomorrow and fancy a little ride after. Are there any woods that are worth exploring nearby?

How are you travelling and in which direction home? Forest of Dean is the obvious, 15 miles to the West. Malvern Hills to the North. Around Wotton-under-Edge to the South. Cranham to the East (though I’m not sure what the current legal/moral status is there).

I’m coming from near Heathrow, and I won’t be finished till around 2, so sadly FOD isnt really an option I don’t think.

FoD would be a good 30mins drive in the wrong direction for you. Only area heading East that springs to mind would be to pick up the ridgeway just south of the Swindon M4 interchange but that’s open byways/bridleways, not woods. Wrong direction for me (I’m FoD) so hopefully someone will be along soon to tell you about the trails behind the Building Society in Swindon (or whatever it is)! 😆

Cleeve Hill to the north-east of Cheltenham could be an option. Park near the golf club.

Drive to painswick beacon (the big hill behind glos, very close)then roll NE towards cranham or birdlip good for a spin. I’m sure there’s some maps about with some loops on.

Leckhampton will be on the way back too, more dh but some xc. Cranham was still quite boggy yesterday.

If you want dry, the only place that will be reasonable will be cleeve, but with the forecast most of the non wooded tracks should start drying out quite quickly.

If you fancy a pootle as opposed to a Singletrack blast how about heading down the canal towpath?

By no means challenging but interesting and you will see some of our industrial landscape. Go far enough and you will get to the graveyard of the boats and the site of and old Severn bridge.

If the sun is out it will make a pleasant jaunt. The views across the estuary can be spectacular.

Cheltenham and Cleeve could be busy for the next four days as it’s Cheltenham Gold Cup week

Cheltenham sounds like your best bet. Head for Leckhampton rather than Cleeve, it’s the right side for your journey home and the fun stuff will be drier. Park at Daisybank road (Google maps)and head up hill, and just explore, there are lots of good tracks. Check out Strava for loads of route ideas.
Get to Daisybank via the A417 and Birdlip hill from Gloucester, not the A40 and then you’re back onto the A417 for the way home. You’ll avoid any race traffic this way (and Tuesday is never that busy anyway)

Croft trail in Swindon is 5 mins off M4 (behind Nationwide Building society offices as mentioned earlier) and is great fun
Only short but means can do a couple of laps, I really enjoyed it when I did it about 15 months ago in similar circumstances (meeting in Cardiff and heading to London, I stoppped at Ashton Court in Bristol and Croft on way across) loads of variety and amazing what they have done in the space available