Thinking of moving to Croxley Green to “settle” the family. Ticks all the boxes in being close to the wife’s family and commutable for both our works. However, what’s the riding like?! Would appreciate anyone’s views / recommendations.

Rickmansworth is very nice. I worked a lot around that area on London Underground met line. Chesham is also a nice small town, good riding I would say. Some easy woodland riding like the chess valley and chilterns. You have Aston Hill trail centre and few others. I rate it a good move.

Yep, once you push out past the M25 and into the Chilterns its pretty decent. There are towpaths and bridleways locally so putting a route together to get to the better riding avoiding roads isn’t dfficult.

If you are looking for a club West Drayton MBC are also in area and have lots of club rides etc.

It’s going to get the Met Line in about 2-3 years.

In Rickmansworth one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.

So it must be quite a inspiring place.

Having grown up in nearby Pinner ,and having a couple of good friends in Rickmansworth I know the area a bit.
Great for commuting, easy access for m25,m4 and m40,y you have the aquadrome , nearby for sailing, but prices are high.
Great if you can afford it. Croxley a little cheaper.

Went to Rickmansworth School and grew up in nearby Watford. Ricky / Croxley perfectly nice places to live to settle with the family. Ricky is a bit posher and I imagine prices are a bit more.

Riding wise, you have Whippendale woods near Casiobury park they are quite small, you can do a lap of all the good trails in about 40 mins so fine for a quick blast but not for an epic.

Chilterns is not too far away and will open you up to longer rides but elevation is not great and trails are easy woodland trails but there are some nice views to be had.

You have Aston hill about an 1 hours drive north for DH and Woburn also about 1 hour away for some more fun XC trails and also park riding. Surry Hills are about 1.20 mins away too.

Rickmansworth has a good sociable hockey club..
Thats all I know.

Last time I was there it was a foot deep in snow and I’d taken c.1990 rockhopper, with a stuck seatpost about 4 inches too low, to ride from Kings Cross to Ricky to do a safety audit and then had to ride back across to Lea Bridge to do another. Snow was unexpected. Shoes and trousers were moist. True story. HTH

I work near there, you’re not far from the Chilterns – and so the riding’s not bad at all (if not exactly trail centre stuff), and the local towns are all pretty good. You could do worse…

I once snogged a girl at a house party in Ricky and I took my driving test in Pinner.

I have nothing more useful to add.

Thanks chaps, all useful comments I think!

I once snogged a girl at a house party in Ricky and I took my driving test in Pinner.

Same here…..Quite a few times….

Live in Watford. Ricky/Croxley is a decent area. Can get a 20 -30K loop in mostly off road so not bad. Whippendell as mentioned above is good. And yes Aston is only an hr away as are woburn/chicksands/swinley and Surrey hills a little bit further. .

I lived in Watford for 18 months back in the early 00’s. I remember thinking that Rickmansworth was aspirational and a bit posh.

My current company has an office round there and every time I go there it reminds me of how totally unaffordable that part of London is for normal people. It’s bloody expensive.