North Downs Way – what's it like to ride etc ?

My mate has suggested we do the North Downs Way this Sunday, after reading about it in MBR.

What’s it like ? Anyone out there ridden it ?

Ridden it a few times, but not in full for a good few years.

Depends upon how much of it you ride, stretches quite a way, used to pick it up in reigate and go to Guildford and back. Not amazingly technical, but a good ride.

However detour off the route and there are some real gems of trails 🙂 goes real close to Dorking and therefore Leith Hill and surrounding areas (which can take you onto Guidford), there is some good riding around Reigate too and over by Boxhill.

Good thing about it, is due to the size it is possible to do most of it and back in a day, so you can park your car at one end (newlands corner or Reigate hill) and enjoy 🙂

The MBR trail is 20 miles. Anyone seen the route in this months mag and care to comment ?

I rode the NorthDowns way in 2002, suffered many thorn punctures in one section and it was lovely and scenic.

Then as above mentioned by Dekerf I found went on to find Ranmore, Leith, Holmbury Hill etc etc (its on the otherside to Box Hill).

As a starting point- ride the NDowns Way then you’ll have a contrast the more you investigate/tag onto riders etc.

Enjoy 🙂

What bit are you planning on doing? It runs from Farnham to Dover! A lot of it is footpath so not legal (although I’ve never had any issues on the bits through Kent).

A lot of it is footpath so not legal

My thoughts exactly. Not seen the MBR route, but there are many better rides in the area I’d of thought, with less walkers about to shake their stick at you

I have walked a lot of the route both sides of Box/Leith Hill and that is definately the best area for riding. Ive riden around that area there and are a lot of good rides and trails near Box Hill. If you are going past you should at least make a smal detour 🙂

I did this one last weekend http://singletrackworld.com/trailguide/uk/south-east/the-north-downs/
Did the ‘grizzly lungbuster’. It was a pretty decent ride – had a few problems map reading but only because we tried to make do with print out!

It didn’t take quite as long as it make out either. We spent about 7 hours I reckon. With a fair bit of faffing about…

you might be best off posting an idea of the route. There’s two ‘North Downs’ really- the long distance path mentioned above, and the other which is a generic term used by some people for any riding north of the South Downs and south of London.
What have mbr mapped out?