Chilterns Ridge and Thames Valley

3 passes in 420 km, topping out at 1340 m

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Why this ride

A rider’s loop: clean exit, memorable middle, calm return. Out of Upminster and back again: 420 km, roughly 8 h 44 in the saddle. On the way it passes Sutton, near Wingrave and Morden. The climbs: near Milford, near Royal Tunbridge Wells and Scenic stretch near Sevenoaks.

Roadbook

1. Fuel stop near Upminster fuel

   Fuel at 0 km.

2. Sutton, on the way back swim

   Sutton is a tiny village in the east of Bedfordshire, close to Potton, and its fame rests on something wonderfully small: a ford and a medieval packhorse bridge. The road dips through a shallow stream at the bottom of the village, and beside it a narrow stone bridge, barely wide enough for a laden horse, carries walkers over the water as it has done since the Middle Ages. It is one of the few packhorse bridges left in this part of England.

   The ford is a classic test of nerve and judgement for riders. Most of the year the water is shallow and the bottom firm, and you can splash through at walking pace with a grin, but after heavy rain it rises and runs fast, and the stones on the bed are slippery with weed. If in doubt, take the other road round. And yes, the label says swim, but that is too generous: the stream is for paddling feet on a hot day, not for swimming, and the nearest real water is elsewhere.

   This is greensand country, a low ridge of sandy soil that runs across Bedfordshire, with pine woods, heath and old estates. Potton, on its edge, has long been a market-gardening town, famous for its vegetables, and its small square and old houses have an easy charm. Not far west, at Sandy, the RSPB has its headquarters in a heathland reserve, and at Old Warden the Shuttleworth Collection keeps vintage aircraft and cars, with flying displays in summer that are a real treat if you are an engineering enthusiast.

   The roads are gentle and quiet. The lanes between Sutton, Potton and Gamlingay are narrow, with hedges and short bends and good surfaces, and the land is mostly flat, with long views across fields towards the Cambridgeshire border. Watch for tractors, especially in the harvest months, and for cyclists on the lanes around the villages. It is not a place for speed but for easy riding and a sense of the old countryside.

   Potton has shops, a pub and a café or two, and for fuel and bigger services, Biggleswade is about six kilometres away, on the old Great North Road. Sutton itself has a pub and a church and very little else, which is exactly why it feels like a good place to stop.

3. Food stop near Wingrave food

   A break here at 120 km.

4. Photo stop near Milford pass

   Milford is a village just south of Godalming in Surrey, on the old road from London to Portsmouth. The A3 runs past it, climbing south towards Hindhead and the Devil's Punch Bowl, a huge natural hollow in the sandstone hills, and that climb is the reason this is a high point on the ride.

   For decades, the A3 squeezed through Hindhead and along the rim of the Punch Bowl, a notorious bottleneck. In 2011, a tunnel was opened beneath the hill, and the old road was removed and returned to heathland. Now you can walk along the rim of the Punch Bowl in peace, with views across the heath and woodland to the South Downs on a clear day. Gibbet Hill, nearby, is one of the highest points in Surrey, named for the gallows where highwaymen and murderers were once hanged.

   The countryside around Milford is a mix of heath, woodland and farmland, with sandy soils and pine trees. Witley Common and Thursley National Nature Reserve are among the best heathland reserves in southern England, home to rare birds, reptiles and dragonflies. The villages are pretty, with old cottages and churches.

   For riders, the roads here are part of the Surrey Hills, a popular riding area. The lanes are narrow and twisting, with steep hills and blind bends, and the A-roads are faster, with long, open bends. Traffic can be heavy, especially at weekends, and speed limits are strictly enforced. Fuel and food are available in Milford and Godalming. As a start and finish, Milford offers easy access to the hills.

5. Morden finish

   The Northern Line ends here, deep in suburban South London, and Morden is the place commuters come home to. It is a district of semi-detached houses, parks and shopping streets, built mostly in the 1920s and 1930s when the Tube arrived and turned fields into suburbs almost overnight.

   There is a surprise hidden in the middle. Morden Hall Park, owned by the National Trust, is a green oasis on the River Wandle, with meadows, wetlands, a rose garden and old snuff mills where tobacco was once ground into powder. The river, which powered dozens of mills in its day, is now clean enough for trout, and the park is a peaceful place to walk.

   Morden is also home to the Baitul Futuh mosque, one of the largest in Western Europe, built by the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, with a dome and minarets that stand out among the suburban roofs. It is open to visitors at certain times.

   Coming back from the Chilterns and the Thames Valley, the final stretch takes you around the M25 and in through Kingston or Sutton. Traffic is heavy at rush hour, and the A24 into Morden is often congested. Watch for buses, cyclists and pedestrians.

   There is fuel on the A24 and the London Road, and plenty of cafés near the station. But if you have half an hour, leave the bike by the park gates and follow the Wandle under the trees past the old mill wheels. It is about as far from the M25 as you can get while still technically being within earshot.

6. High point near Royal Tunbridge Wells pass

   Tunbridge Wells owes its existence to a rusty spring. In 1606 a young nobleman, Lord North, was resting in the woods here and noticed a pool with an orange scum; he tried the water, felt better and told the world. Within a few decades the court was coming down from London to drink it, and the Pantiles, a raised, colonnaded walk with trees along it, became the place to be seen taking the waters. The town was granted its Royal prefix in 1909 by Edward VII, and has been the butt of letters to the editor ever since, usually signed by someone disgusted.

   None of that matters much on a motorbike, but the setting does. Tunbridge Wells sits on the High Weald, an old ridge-and-valley country of sandstone, ancient woodland and hedges so thick the lanes run in tunnels. Right on the edge of town at Rusthall is Toad Rock, a lump of weathered sandstone that does look like a toad if you are generous, and there are many more outcrops in the woods round about. The riding south and east is some of the best in the southeast: narrow, hump-backed B-roads and unclassified lanes with blind crests and wet leaves for six months of the year. North is Penshurst and the Medway valley, west is Ashdown Forest and the road to Sussex.

   As a stop on the way back to London this is a place for sensible things. It is a proper town of nearly seventy thousand, with every fuel brand, plenty of cafés in the old Pantiles and along the high street, and public toilets by the common. If you have been out in the lanes since morning, it is a gentler re-entry than going straight onto the A21. Traffic into the town on a Friday evening is slow, so leave before four or accept the queue.

   Remember that most of the lanes around here are signed for far lower speeds than a bike wants to travel, and farm vehicles, horses and cyclists use them in numbers. Assume there is a tractor round every bend, because eventually there is.

7. Scenic stretch near Sevenoaks pass

   You top out here; the road stops climbing.

8. Back to Chilterns Ridge finish

   Upminster has a windmill. The windmill, a tall white smock mill built in the 1800s, stands on a hill above the town and is open to visitors on some days, and the sight of it among suburban roofs is oddly cheering.

   After a ride along the Chilterns ridge and the Thames valley, the end is a very different landscape. The roads here are flat and fast, with long straight sections and roundabouts, and the countryside is open fields, small woods and the occasional lake. Thames Chase, a community forest being planted across the area, gives a green setting, and the paths and lanes through it are quiet. The surface is usually good, though heavy traffic on the A127 and M25 can disrupt things.

   The area was once fairly empty, with farms and scattered villages, and the arrival of the railway in the nineteenth century turned Upminster into a commuter town. Bulphan has a quiet fen-like character, with drains, flat fields and old farmhouses, and its church is worth a look. The soil is heavy London clay over gravel, so the fields stay wet well into spring, and the ditches hold water and the odd heron. Old maps show how thinly settled the district was before the commuter railways arrived. Cranham has a pleasant green and an old village church.

   Fuel is available at Upminster, which has stations and supermarkets, and the town has a small centre with cafes and pubs. A weekend market on the green offers fruit and snacks. The Tube and rail station connects the town with central London, which is useful for tired riders. If you want a short quiet loop before going home, the lanes around Bulphan and Orsett are less busy on Sundays than anywhere nearer the A13.

   Come in the late afternoon, when the light is long and the fields are gold. It is a gentle end to a day, with a mill on the skyline.

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