Classic Surrey Hills, UK
When you have ridden some classic routes in the virtual world of Zwift or Rouvey, it’s a wonderful experience to actually go out and ride them for real – particularly when they are in another country. A couple of years back I was on a short trip to England but had time to fit in one such ride over the hills of Surrey that featured in the 2012 London Olympics Road Race.
Not only was I going to ride over some of the famous English climbs but I was going to partner up with someone who knows them very well; my identical twin brother Dave. While I came to Canda some twenty years ago, Dave has always been based in England and regularly rides out to Surrey from his home in Ealing, west of London.
Neither of us planned the route as that came as part of a package from the bike hire company I used. The bike was brought to me in Hambledon with Shimano pedals fitted so all I needed to do was adjust the saddle, attached my Garmin head unit and await my brother. Our route was a little under a hundred kilometres but there would be over 1,000m of climbing and some ferocious descents.
Riding in early September on a weekday, we saw few other cyclists even though the weather was warm and sunny. I had to stay alert as my Garmin was feeding me turn instruction in rapid succession. Without this aid, we would have wasted so much time on route-finding. The further we travelled, the more we trusted the instructions being given and could settle into our rhythm.
The Surrey Hills were designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty sixty years ago in order to protect them from overdevelopment. These hills form part of the larger North Downs that is a fold of limestone thrust up at the same time as the European Alps were formed. One of the hills we were going to ride, Leith Hill, is the highest point in south-east England at 313m.
Initially, we struck north on Hambledon Raod, a classic narrow two lane road with high banks and on each side. When we turned on to Munstead Heath Road, the scenery stayed the same but the road narrowed even more and the banks grew taller. Next came Bramley, a bustling old village, followed by a turn south easterly on the Cranleigh Road. We took a wrong turn when we ignored the GPS at Shamley Green but soon corrected ourselves and followed it explicitly afterwards.
The bike I was riding had a budget aluminum frame and wheels but Shimano 105 gears. On fast downhill sections, it was stiffer than my own Roubaix and tended to jitter over the rougher sections of asphalt. The route ran north to Shere, a picturesque village with historic red brick cottages. North of Shere, the big hills began with a pull up Combes Box Hill that has been climbed by over 150,000 different riders according to Strava.
I found the gradient modest despite it fame so we were soon at the top as the climb is less than 200m from the River Mole. All that elevation is rapidly lost as you descend back down to the River Mole and into the one bigger town of Dorking but then the biggest climb of Leith Hill awaits you. The climb is both long and, at times steep, on a very narrow road. Luckily little traffic used the road the day we rode it.
Inevitably, you quickly lose all that height once again and take a steep drop to Forest Green and then stay at around that altitude for the remaining 30km as you track east along tree-lined roads back to Hambledon.
We took 4 ¼ hours with less than 30 minutes total for stops for the 91km and 1135m of ascent. It was a fantastic ride through archetypal English countryside but I would definitely undertake it on a weekday, outside the summer vacation period if you can. The kids go back to school on the first Monday in September as their late summer Public Holiday is the last Monday in August.
