MTB Trails around Peaslake, Surrey Hills

Peaslake is home to England's best singletracks!

Video at bottom of post.

With the crypto market crash today I needed to get out of the office, so I went on a solo mission to Peaslake in Surrey Hills with my Enduro to get some fresh air!

It's a quiet little village surrounded by trails, I have been here a fair amount, but not much this year and the weather was dry so I thought buggar it, mid-week sesh on my todd.

Anyone who hasn't ridden here before and may be thinking of it, do yourself a favour and download the Trailforks App. Almost all of these runs are hidden and you will be lucky to find a lot of them without this app. I know where my favourites are, but I still use the app as I have got lost more than once here on my own. I'm glad I came with friends here first or I would have been totally lost.

Here is what it looks like, if you have this open on your phone in your bag, you can use it to get to the runs.

You can see the fire roads, just use them to get to where you need. This screenshot only shows the runs close to the car park, there are waaaaaaaaay loads more if you zoom out. Quite a few that require a 20min or so ride to get to.

It is worth mentioning that yes most of the runs are blue, this is because this is not downhill mountain biking, it is Enduro. I would still want full suspension (Enduro), but downhill bikes won't work here, there is just too much up hill. There are a couple of red and black runs about, but they are not mental. Bring a small bike (Enduro) and you'll be set.

This is at the bottom of a run called 'Van Gogh's Missing Ear', I stopped here for a breather and to check the Trailforks App as I was only very slightly, lost.

It is like this all over Peaslake, nature everywhere, it really helped take my mind off work.

Below is an overlay of Google Maps using Strava, it shows where I rode. You'll see the start and finish on the left, which is Car Park 1. There are a bunch of places to park but this is my preferred place as a lot of the runs finish here and you are a 1 min ride away from the shops.

There are so many runs to choose from, it's extremely unlikely you could do them all in a day. Actually I kinda take that back as if I saw someone write that, I'd want to see if it could be done haha. It would be tiring...

I had a couple of hours spare yesterday when I rode Peaslake, so I chose my runs carefully.

I started with one called Supernova, which runs parallel to the rode you drive in on. Once you are parked up (Car Park 1 ), you cycle back up the steep road you came in on (about 8 - 10mins) and you will be at the top. I use this run every time to warm up on as it flows well, and its not too hectic for a first run. I starts off with some very small doubles and it has a couple of small drop offs half way down and another double. It also has a small root section. All in all its easy, and I would put a first timer down it and not worry. When I started riding 3 or 4 years ago I hit it on my hard tail and I was fine.

So that ended up in the car park, so I cycled in the other direction now (East) towards Jean Baptiste, still in the same area, just the other side of the car park. So I could ride this one back down and end up where I started again.

If you look again at the map above, you'll see the two runs to the left of Ewhurst road.

This is the start of Jean Baptiste. It is quite a peddally run, but does offer a couple of fast bits, it is also split into 2. You have a crossing about half way down where you have to cycle up and then the run continues. Although this isn't a white knuckle ride, it's still fun, which is why I put it on my list of runs for the day.

Once I did that I grabbed a sip of water then cycled East into the village, and through the centre past the shops to put me over the other side (far right). I wanted to ride Van Gogh's Missing Ear as I remember last time I was hear I enjoyed it so much I had to do it again straight after. I also had a mad crash on this run as there is a sneaky washed out left hand berm, which comes out of nowhere and catches you out. Not ideal but it is part of the fun.

After this I had a long up hill ride (there is a lot of uphill between runs by the way, that is worth mentioning, it is a cardio workout for sure), I was riding towards 'Barry Knows Best', which is Peaslake's most famous trail. It is actually famous in Great Britain. There were a few cars parked at the top of this run as there is a little car park there.

This would be my last run as I was hitting around 1hr 40 mins of ride time by this point and I only allowed myself 2hrs of riding as traffic would get bad on the way home.

I will upload a video on Dtube (separate post, as Dtube wont allow me to attach photos when uploading videos, so couldn't do one big post).

This runs goes on for over 3 minutes, its fast and flows well, it has some big berms and a few little jumps for fun while riding fast. I love to finish on this as again, it comes out on a main road, which you can use to get back to the village centre (slightly downhill), you can cool down all the way back to the car park, it's perfect.

Here is what 2hrs got me at Peaslake. This is from the moment I pulled up to the moment I was putting my bike away.

It says 1hr 27, but it was 2 hours exactly from when I arrived to when I left. It was perfect for a little ride. If I came on a Saturday I would stay longer, usually 3 - 3.5 hrs and would cycle to the far left where runs Like Northern Monkey are, then I would ride Pitch Hill also where Crack pipe is. It's worth it when you have time to spare.

1 min video of 'Barry Knows Best', the full vid is too large for Dtube.

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