The Surrey Hills is a designated area of outstanding natural beauty based roughly between and around the historic market towns of Guildford and Dorking.The landscape is of rolling hills and woodland with areas of farmland and grazed downland. Much of the land is under the ownership of large organisations such as Forest Enterprise and The National Trust as well as local estates. Access to the land is extremely good and by and large mountain biking is very well tolerated by the landowners and other trail users.
It is bisected from East to West by the chalk hills of the North Downs including Box Hill (172m) and Newlands Corner and then incorporates the Sandstone Ridge with hills such as Pitch, Holmbury and Leith. Leith hill riseing to the height of 295m - the highest point in the whole of South East England.
Surrey, well at least this area, is not the built up commuter land that may well be envisaged by a first time visitor. There are large tracts of forest, both pine plantations and more natural deciduous woods (Surrey is the most wooded county in the UK in terms of percentage of its area) and these are criss crossed by a vast maze of legal and not so legal bridleways and trails including plenty of singletrack.
To supplement the superb riding which includes plenty of lung busting climbs as well as eye watering descents, not to mention the generous quantities of swooping twisting singletrack, there is a whole host of hunger busting tea shops, idilic country pubs and quaint villages just waiting to be enjoyed.
The Surrey Hills is a heaven, or as the local bike shop puts it ' a Nirvana' for mountain biking, in what for many, would be an unexpected part of the country to even offer semi decent trails.
Come along and enjoy.
