After much changing of plans due to work pressures our long awaited long weekend in Wales has turned into an afternoon in the North Downs. I’ve not been before, but it looks like it’s the best day out in the hills that we can get to in the time available, so will be there from late Saturday morning.

Given that we don’t have a lot of time to explore, I’d really appreciate any GPX files or recommendations of how to hook up a good 4-5 hour ride at a reasonable pace taking in as much of the fun stuff as possible. Neither of us are especially gnarr, and will be on hardtails, but enjoy red graded trails if that’s an indication. Anything we should avoid that will kill us?

The STW loops look good, but they’re a good few years old. Anything major changed?

Any help much appreciated.

Ignore the bit to/from Cranleigh (just riding on the road to Peaslake), but this is about right depending how quick you are! Takes in most of the obvious trails.

You should consider adding privacy zones to Strava, it’s very easy to see where you live from that Strava log.

@bol the published STW type loops are good but they are typically all bridleway and don’t include the real trails as they are not official.

@njee’s route will give you a decent tour of Winterfold, Pitch, Holmbury and Leith and covers quite a bit of ground and will give you an idea of the area. You’ll be fine on your hardtails. If you find trails you like it’s fairly easy to repeat them.

BTW it’s the Peaslake MTB Orientiering event on Sunday in case you fancied that and a change of day link

Here is a map of car parks link

#2 Walking Bottom in Peaslake is the most popular (and most likely to be full), there is a stone cairn near the gate for donations to Friends of the Hurtwood if you want to drop in a few cons.

I find car park #11 is usually deserted and can give you a headstart on Radnor Rd/Holmbury Hill climb or with a short pedal uphill a lap of BKB to start your ride.

#13 and #3 (especially) used my MTBers too.
If you want a beer/refreshment you have the hotel in Peaslake with outside seating, Windmill on Pitch Hill or Volunteer just outside Holmbury.

Bike shops Nirvana in Westcott (my LBS) or Pedal and Spoke in Peaslake

OP I like to add the loop out to Leith as per @njee and it gives the ride a bit of a different feel and adds more miles, but you can spend that time doing loops/more trails on – say – Pitch and Holmbury Hills.

You should consider adding privacy zones to Strava, it’s very easy to see where you live from that Strava log.

No it’s not, it’s very easy to see where I randomly park my car vaguely near my dad’s house when I go for a mountain bike ride 😉

OP I like to add the loop out to Leith as per @njee and it gives the ride a bit of a different feel and adds more miles, but you can spend that time doing loops/more trails on – say – Pitch and Holmbury Hills

Yes I’m always in two minds, I like the descent down to Wotton, but can never decide whether to come back up the sandy green lane or carry on across Abinger Roughs, quite nice to break it up a bit with the extra miles.

4 weeks ago I took some friends for a ride around Surrey Hills for my Birthday.

I put together a loop to string together as many as the best trials as I efficiently could. Includes the famous Surrey Hills trails and some of the lesser known ones. All great!

Took us 3hours 20min moving time., we moved at a reasonable pace so once you’ve added on stopping time and a stop in the Peaslake store for a sausage roll it should be a just over 4 hour ride.

I’ve send you the gpx file in an email, here is a link to the ride on my strava page

http://www.strava.com/activities/191150912

I’m not sure if you will be able to see it though…?

I can see that, 4th on the Telegraph top half segment 🙂

Fair enough, I add privacy zones for such areas also.

This probably duplicates a lot of stuff on the other two, but like smatkins1’s ride this takes in more of the trails on Holmbury/Pitch/Winterfold without a loop on Leith. Between those you should be able to find every trail up there!

Fair enough, I add privacy zones for such areas also.

I did wonder about it, and it probably makes sense, but it’s not like you’d actually be able to do anything with the information. It’s just a random residential street, no bikes there or anything.

Thanks everyone. Really helpful. Much appreciated.

The top loop above isn’t a bad starting point, although it still misses out quite a lot of the good stuff and there is some duplication there.

I reckon you can do a fairly decent loop of 40-50km there, riding some great trails, but your issue is putting it all together into one big hit – which will be next to impossible if you don’t know where you are going.

I’m going to give it a go before winter sets in, and try to ride all off the fun stuff & see how far/long it is.

Does anyone know if there is anything worth riding after the first section of three amigo’s now? They did some felling work there & it’s all a bit neglected – I assume the same is still the case with secret santa?

The second link shows some more detail – all you’re missing is the stuff off Pitch Hill, there is probably 10 trails scattered along the steep edge of the hillside worth doing (although the climb back up gets a bit boring).

Secret Santa is back, I’m not sure about 3 Amigos, if you turn right and take the RH fireroad there was a new trail appearing on the left, but Jim McAllister’s been quite prevelant round there lately, so I’m avoiding too much cheeky stuff!

If you want a really daft route Gee of this parish has a 100 mile route around the Surrey Hills, can’t find it at first glance.

I reckon you can do a fairly decent loop of 40-50km there, riding some great trails, but your issue is putting it all together into one big hit – which will be next to impossible if you don’t know where you are going.

How so? Any of the rides linked to will provide more than 50k of trails linked together in a route… 😕

Yep – I know the trail you mention, right at the first fireroad at the end of AMigo’s, up the short hill & it’s there on the left. That’s an old one with a shady stepdown about 2/3 of the way down it. I haven’t ridden that for a while, but it might be worth revisiting, can always pop out at the end and down the fireroad to the long driveway to get to SS.

I noticed some of the more fun stuff up on Holmbury is getting a bit overgrown too. I went down Wet & Wild, then crackpipe a few weeks ago & got raped by brambles various other overgrowth 🙁

How so? Any of the rides linked to will provide more than 50k of trails linked together in a route

To be fair your loop looks to take in a lot more stuff – and doesn’t double up on all the boring stuff up on Holmbury. I don’t go to Peaslake to ride YP/Telegraph/BKB, let alone twice in a loop!

That’s an old one with a shady stepdown about 2/3 of the way down it. I haven’t ridden that for a while, but it might be worth revisiting, can always pop out at the end and down the fireroad to the long driveway to get to SS.

Exactly. Not done it for a couple of months, so it may have changed, like I say there was quite a bit of ‘activity’ to put trails out of action! It always seems a shame to take that LH fireroad fork and up at the bottom of Evian you lose a lot of height very quickly, but it’s what I’ve done the last couple of times.

It’s all getting really cut up – some of the stuff on Pitch and Winterfold are getting so eroded, not sure if bigger bikes are to blame, but Summer Mayhem, Evian, John the Baptist and Curly Wurly are all getting massive braking bumps and getting really cut up.

I haven’t been there all summer, but I had noticed there was a lot of work done to discourage riders, difference is there arn’t new trails popping up everywhere to replace them now.

Regarding the losing height bit – there is a couple of older trails up on the hill that bring you out near the ROW that crosses the road up to SS – you can get to them past the Cochise trail, just keep on going down the logging track & you should see them, if they are still ridden, then you don’t lose all that height to climb straight back up again.

Some trails seem to be be smashed to bits – the steeper stuff on Pitch has been wrecked for ages, having ridden at the weekend I noticed Evian has had a lot of work done on the top part, which was nice, but then I prefer it rougher to hang on to 🙂

My 19lb carbon hardtail doesn’t need crater sized holes for things to get ‘lively’!

It’s all getting really cut up – some of the stuff on Pitch and Winterfold are getting so eroded, not sure if bigger bikes are to blame, but Summer Mayhem, Evian, John the Baptist and Curly Wurly are all getting massive braking bumps and getting really cut up.

I recently rode Evian/SuperNova/John the B for the first time in a while and Evian in particular had more bumps/wear than I’ve ever seen on it in many years of riding. I put it down to being very dry the day I rode and the volume of traffic it gets now. Trail pixies had been out and done quite a lot of work and I quite liked all the little jumps/kickers they have added.

I think the dryness this year has definitely contributed, it’s just really loose, so gets eroded even more quickly, particularly as it’s interspersed with torrential rain, rather than more gradual to try and pack it together again.

Nothing to stop one spending some time repairing said braking bumps/deberming/fixing drainage/blocking cut lines.