I’m planning a 130km road ride on Saturday in an area I don’t know. Is there a site that will show me bike-friendly cafes on or near the route?

I am trawling through Google maps with the route on another screen but it’s not ideal.

If nothing better comes up, the Refill app (which shows places happy to provide tap water) might give a good clue.

You’d think CyclingUK would have some sort of resource, but not that I know of. Let me ask on their forum…

https://www.bikefriendlycafes.com/

https://www.cakerider.uk/

I tend to just find a likely location and search Google Maps – quite often on the move.

For a while I had an app for London coffee shops but that seemed to get out of date and then died a death anyway. It’s a lot of work updating those sorts of resources and there’s little point when Google Maps does it all for free.

Tell us roughly where you’re riding and I reckon someone on here will be able to point out a good cafe in fairly short order.

Updated cyclinguk (ex. CTC) list:

https://www.cyclinguk.org/group/page/cafes-cyclists

Thanks for those links.

It’s Beaconsfield, Berkhamsted, Tring, Princes Risborough, Beaconsfield if anyone knows any.

I found a lovely looking one near Tring called Church Farm Cafe, though it’s slightly too far for a 1-stop strategy.

Strava seems to list many cafes as does komoot

Cafe Map works for me –

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.cyclingmaps.cafes.cafemap

Might be worth looking up rwrd – they have a few coffee stops on board in Sussex, and listings of indie coffee shops

Definitely bike friendly: https://www.chilternvelo.co.uk/cafe/

Isn’t there some way of open sourcing a Google Map of this (which won’t help the OP on Saturday)?

I use cafe map as per the link above. There’s a Facebook group for adding new cafes.

Cafe map looks ideal, and Chiltern Velo is on there

I use this group – the map is apparently set up so that you can overlay a route, but I haven’t tried it yet

Double check the cafes are still open, seem to be a lot closing

https://www.facebook.com/share/m77s6LmgYa68sNRZ/

The spire and Spoke in Watlington is bike friendly. If its on your route

These are our usual cafes in the Tring/berko area. I’d recommend routing through ashridge estate as it looks glorious at this time of year.

Tring: expresso lounge. Excellent, top cakes

Tring: black goo. Excellent. Massive cakes.

Hawridge: cafe velo. Very good. Very bike friendly.

Ashridge estate cafe: excellent but pricey.

Aldbury: church farm cafe. Good and bike friendly.

Thanks @jonwe – some local recommendations are much appreciated.

I might tweak the route to take in several.

Google maps, as you will also get a reviews.

Interesting question. I’ve just tried the two “cycling cafe-stop” apps I found on the Apple Store: Cycling Café Finder and Café Finder, and TBH both are a bit lacking. I’m looking at my local area – where I know there are cafes which have cycle lock up and neither app lists them (nor does Refill for that matter), The nearest both have for me is the Rapha clubhouse in town and they moved last year, and neither has the correct address listed, if you followed to app, you’d end up at an empty shop.

Not massively inspiring.  Perhaps there’s a gap in the market? Or I’m thinking @Drac has the right idea, Google maps.

Genuine question; what makes a cafe bike friendly? If I’m planning a ride I’ll likely check out Google Maps to see what’s on the route, but I’m not looking for any special features. I guess there might be an issue in some (urban?) locations regarding security? The only time I can recall going past a couple of cafes when I’d have liked to have stopped was touring through Fife and giving a hard pass to a potential stop in Methil.

Genuine question; what makes a cafe bike friendly?

Whole range of things – imo the basic is a designated and appropriate space to leave bikes, but then some have a pump/selection of tools available or even a workshop, Cinnamons in Windsor tops it off with discount for cyclists

Yeah I’m thinking about security predominantly or places that don’t mind you bringing the bike into the shop while you order. I don’t take a lock with me and I’m slightly paranoid about leaving the bike unattended.

I guess I’m also looking for something nicer than a greasy spoon on an industrial estate.

Not massively inspiring. Perhaps there’s a gap in the market? Or I’m thinking @Drac has the right idea, Google maps.

As I mentioned up thread, I used to have a London Coffee Shop app designed to show the independent places and actually it did have some nice quirky cafes but quite quickly got out of date – it’d show me places that had closed down or moved and eventually the app just disappeared.

It’s a lot of work to keep stuff like that up to date and I guess most people’s go-to is Google Maps so there’s very little way of monetising apps like that.

Not much help, but our club maintains it’s own map and resource for this.

https://www.elsr.co.uk/cafes

And we often look a neighbouring town’s club websites to find cafes further afield.

The Strava route editor/map is really good for this (powered by Mapbox). Highlights coffee shops, pubs, cafe/restaurants, grocery shops, toilets & bike shops!