Surrey Hills – best place to live with a reasonable commute to London?

cobham to bond st is 246 a month.

aP – Member
I am quite maused by the numbers of people talking about driving out to the North Downs/ Surrey Hills from places like Epsom/ Ewell/ Esher as you're pretty much out there – you're less than 5 miles away.

Epsom to Peaslake is 15 miles.

Personally I chose Surbiton for ease of commute – can ride into Bank in London in well under an hour, frequent trains and is 20 mins from Waterloo (where someone above got Esher as 20 I don't know), and by car it's around 25-30 mins to the start of the Surrey Hills riding. Furthest reasonably as a 34 year-old chap I'd want to be out of London as I'd go mental without the social aspects. Can still get to the riding easily enough.

Suburbiton is great if you want to get into London quickly, or out to the Surrey hills. Note that what I have written is all about getting way from Suburbiton and to interesting destinations.

Fair enough, hadn't realised it was so far – that would explain why riding out there from Chiswick takes 2 hours. Its nice coming back along Staine Street and back across Epsom Common though. Makes a proper days riding doing the round trip with tea at Peaslake after going out over Esher Common and past Polesden Lacey.

annual season tickets offer big savings over monthly tickets..

No worries aP, I wish it was 5 miles instead of 15.

Fair play on riding from Chiswick to Peaslake and back. My legs would be shot for a week after doing that.

AP I'd rather spend the extra two hours on the trails than riding to them!

But you live about a mile and a hlaf away from where the trails start…..

No way it's half hour in the car to Holmbury I expect there is a cross counntry route though

aP – Member
Fair enough, hadn't realised it was so far – that would explain why riding out there from Chiswick takes 2 hours. Its nice coming back along Staine Street and back across Epsom Common though. Makes a proper days riding doing the round trip with tea at Peaslake after going out over Esher Common and past Polesden Lacey.

You must have legs like brick shithouses.

BTW the fast train from Surb to Wloo takes 15 minutes…

There is plenty of OK riding straight out of the door from Epsom, Ewell, Esher, Oxshott, etc (woods/commons). But the real trails are over in Dorking, Holmbury, Peaslake, etc.

One thing about Leatherhead – the ride out to the North Downs and the Surrey Hills is offroad. A terrific warmup and much better than sitting in a car to get there. Leith takes about 1 hour 15 and Holmbury takes about 1 hour 30.

At my pace. Which isn't fast…

Oh, and a couple of final zippy downhills on the way back that end 1: Just underneath the town on the main road in, and 2: across the A24 and past the back of Michael Caine's house. At which point one is always tempted to shout something appropriate to do with exactly how the doors should have come off… 😀

after that "warm up" my legs would be shot!

plus I can stop at Sainsburys on the way home and stock up on pies.