Surrey Hills Cycle Trails: Elstead Loop

The Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) has long been something of a mecca for mountain bikers. The most frequented trails are around Peaslake and Leith Hill, but the AONB management team has recently (June 2018) opened a new set of trails to the South West, comprising a set of five interconnected loops (Puttenham, Elstead, Thursley, Frensham, Devil's Punch Bowl). I'm going to give them a test drive. The AONB website has a PDF leaflet showing all the routes, though not really in sufficient detail to use this as your sole means of navigation: so I recommend to download the gpx files from the website and load them into your GPS. The routes are marked by distinctive grey roundels on signposts, and there is a series of information boards at key locations.

I started with the Elstead Loop, from the car park near Shackleford. A map of my track is here (shown in orange: other colours will be used to denote other loops when and if I do them).

My experience of off-road riding in the Surrey Hills has been mixed: the trails around Peaslake are a bit too hairy-scary for me, and elsewhere I have often found the tracks either very sandy or very muddy, or both. However, this ride was neither too scary (it's quite flat), nor too sandy/muddy, though the latter may have been due to the incredible heat wave bordering on drought we have had since June.

There were some short stretches where I did dismount due to sand, but the only stretch I would omit and use the on-road alternative is a short section of bridleway East from the hamlet of Gatwick (not to be confused with the airport) on the northern leg of the route: this was a narrow and sandy path worn into a deep gully, for which I just had to dismount and walk (shown with warning triangles and a purple alternative on the map). I had wayfinding difficulties at only one spot: Broomfields (also marked on the map), where I missed a key sign but I soon recovered my mistake.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable and scenic ride on a brilliant summer's day, with woodland providing much appreciated shade given the 30 degree temperatures.Very quiet too: apart from at Tilford, I saw very few other people. Here is a selection of photos, showing the varied scenery traversed.