You could live in Dorking, only 15 mins to work by car, 30 mins by bike.
mtb bike out your front door on the surrey hills, and its just as good as the Pentlands…

Thats what I do anyway!

Easy to find a room i would think. lots of local riders.

Go for SE.

If your young, then Londons got a lot to offer and it still iss the center for financial services etc etc so if you fancy yourself as a thrusting young exec. N Downs are on your doorstep etc etc. There IS still an outdoors.

Just got back from a weekend around Edinburgh. Nice town. What is going on with the chuffing roadworks!

couple of million at least. No way am I moving back down there for any less.

Those that have made comments about hating London are missing the point – Surrey ain't London! It's a very green county; it's only failing are the expensive house prices and lack of wild areas. Of course it's expensive because so many people want to live there….

good point mudshark.

Surrey is the most wooded county in England (in density terms). I live in Surrey and there's loads of great riding.

I've lived in the midlands(kid), reading(uni), london(work) and now back in reading.

Didnt really like London at all, ended up living in a rubbish flat in battersea was cheap though.

Found londom hmm limiting always felt I was having to live around it rather than just doing what I wanted when I wanted.

However as others have pointed out cobham although inside the m25 is nt going to be like living in central london. My wife comes from the ashtead which is near by.

In fact living in one of the towns near by will be much like working/living in any other british town/small city rather than like living in the big smoke.

As mentioned if there one area in london you want to live in London for MTBing its the north downs.

Personally I'd suggest moving to guildford its a great little town.

I think I'm swung on the South East idea now!

Only need to find somewhere I can affordable to live. Other issue is that I don't have a car, and can't see myself affording one soon. So will need some method of commuting to Cobham by public transport…

obviously the trains are pretty busy round london but train + bike may be possible

Cobham is one of the most expensive places to live in the southeast outside central london (av. house price is over £750K – figures from rightmove) but Leatherhead/bookham near where I live is cheaper and there are many more rentals. Dorking is very good place for cycling too. 5mins to the North Downs for me and I can ride all day off road (Pitch/Leith etc…). Going into London from Chobham some areas are cheaper but shityer. It sounds like you might do better careerwise down here (from the tone of your post). However you don't get the spaces and top level riding like the Staines down in the southeast.

456 bus from dorking to leatherhead then the 408 to cobham, but quicker to ride….and not far.

Sounds good freeridenick…

Any advice on best place to look for a room in the Dorking area? I notice that Guildford has a gumtree which is useful.

To be honest I'd be more inclined to look guildford as your on the train line to cobham.
Also if you dont have a car theres more to do in guildford.

Guildford is also on the north downs theres plenty of riding there, you can also riding along the north downs to the riding near dorking or get the train to dorking if you need to.

Plus the trains into london are 35 mins as opposed to 60 mins.

I would say that Surbiton is a good spot if your working in cobham there is a direct trainlink and it is flatland so you should be able to find a home really easily.

I live in a place called East Molesey which I really love it's right by Hampton court around a 20 minute ride to Cobham it's by the Thames and there is a fair amount of flats and stuff, it's a really nice area I'd recommend it!!

Dorking is good but a bit quiet after dark, quite a small town but really good for riding as it sits at the junction of the North Downs and Surrey Hills.

Guildford is most likely your best bet as it's quite lively, has a decent selction of everything is 25 mins from London by train and Cobham is a direct train link.

Have a look here..http://www.findaproperty.com/searchresults.aspx?edid=00&salerent=1&areaid=0122&bedrooms=01

There are quite a few flat/houseshares around as Guildford has a uni and a university hospital I think.

I would say that realisitcally you could get a nice room somewhere for around 450 – 600 or a flat for around 650 -700

Thanks, will look into some of those areas.

Everywhere I've seen looks nice, but is there anywhere I'd want to avoid?

Trouble is the office is about a 35 minute walk from Cobham station (as I discovered when I turned up 20 minutes late for the interview) but I'm sure there are buses.

Come back and check with us when you find something! To be honest it's mostly nice but there are some iffy estates and so on but they are not too bad really.

There are buses!

You could look in Cobham, to be honest it's a lovely little place but again a bit quiet after dark.

I visited a train yard in Slade Green earlier this year.
What a dump.
I couldn't wait to get out of the place.
Soul destroying.
That bit of London where the M25 goes over the Thames is awful.
Reminded me of the film "28days".

We used to have an office in Farnham. That was a nice place.
But this is of course no use to you is it. 🙂

Cobham is very nice, and quite pricey. Consider Woking, much cheaper (also cheaper than Guildford) and 25 mins into london with trains every 10 minutes or so. Woking to Cobham would be a nice 15 min ride, it's fairly easy to make that ride almost entirely off road too.

Tons of good riding around, ash ranges is full of singletrack, leith hill is nearby, and close enough to the M4 you can get to Cwmcarn in 2.5hours without flooring it. I live in woking, and the thing I like best is the fact I can run/bike out of my door and be off road in a couple of minutes in some pretty decent train.

Worth pointing out that Woking / Guildford / Cobham are pretty leafy bits of surrey, the further in you get the more Clockwork Orange it gets. Personally I'd avoid Dorking, don't really like it compared to Woking / Guildford.

Be worth checking with someone in the area which roads are rubbish in the mornings. If you end up near Woking, give me a mail and i'll give you the low down (ewan at ewanpanter dot co dot uk)

All the 'London haters' seem to have gone, I do want to visit this panacea that is Edinburgh. My personal favourite comment is:

Of course, being well-off would allow you to fly to the Alps on a regular basis, but squeezing it into a weekend wouldn't be too pleasant and how many holidays would you get?

WTF has that got to do with being near London?!

Anywho… Cobham's v nice, Woking would be the cheapest place to look, Guildford's alright, Leatherhead/Bookham area are worth a look. You're not really going to go wrong frankly, there's no 'rough' areas really!

Great riding too, not the huge hills of Scotland, but I can easily do a 50 mile with 99% off road and tonnes of singletrack.

Surrey is the most wooded county in England

ace…so it'll burn well? I always get the urge to destroy things when I'm down that way. Horribly bland part of the world.

In what way is it bland? There's quite a mix here…in my younger days I'd have liked Guildford as lively stuff to do at night, these days I prefer sleepier villages. Would be happy in Dorking but I'm in a village near Leatherhead – I like the gentle pace. Maybe that means bland?

To the OP – Fetcham and Leatherhead might be worth looking at though Guildford would be my 1st choice is nightlife is of interest. Woking has never appealed to me as it is perhaps a bit bland(!) in the centre though communications are good. Roads get v.busy around there when going to the M25 though.

Bland ? LOL, far from it. Ever visited the Surrey Hills AONB ?

In what way is it bland
it's all very samey.'pretty' quiet villages and grim towns. Lots of bad driving. No proper wild countryside. And it contains my inlaws.

AONB
?

Well I like the villages so each to their own – actually they tend to have an upper-middle class feel which ain't great; not sure about grim towns but I suppose I avoid those. I wouldn't live in places like Cobham and Horsley as too much money about even though there are poor people there too; I reckon I chose a good compromise.

Surrey does well here if though so does Edinburgh….

http://www.channel4.com/4homes/on-tv/best-and-worst/

How much extra would you want on your salary in the South East?

About 100k, with company earth tax and three times my current holiday allowance.

I suspect all these northerners have never ridden the surrey hills….
I would hardly call the lake district/peaks wild – i see far less people out and about down here than up there.
Grim towns – none in the north then!

Yes i supose if you are youngish & single and want abit of night action then guildford might be a better bet. Dorking tends to have more of a pub/restuarant scene – but the riding is better from Dorking and feels more like small town IMO (f you are after that feeling?
more likely to find a room in a houseshare in guildford as uni there.

I suspect all these northerners have never ridden the surrey hills….
I can't speak for all the other northerners but I have. If you can call them hills.

Grim towns – none in the north then!
plenty actually.

As good riding as anywhere in England, FACT.

I'll be calling on all these Surrey locals for a ride sometime in January. Start date is the 11th!

Guildford sounds like the ideal location. I'm wondering what late-night transport to and from London is like though… how late does it go on?

AONB = Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Having lived and ridden round there, it was alright at the time, but now I've moved up north Id never move back