• Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Posts
  • Twitter

Clive Goes Cycling

and other Curious Tales

  • Blog
  • Books
  • Equipment
  • Featured
  • Personal
  • Reviews
  • Routes
  • Running
You are here: Home / Featured / A 100 mile cycle ride in Surrey and Sussex

A 100 mile cycle ride in Surrey and Sussex

September 12, 2014 by Clive Leave a Comment

Jackie, Brian and I
Our happy group at the start of the ride. Photo by Jackie (left) with Brian (right) and me (middle).

Every year, I try and complete a long distance 100 mile cycle ride. It’s a personal challenge and is great training for other weekend cycling trips. Here’s a description of this year’s ride.

  • See Also: Merstham to Chichester 100 mile cycle ride

What We Did

  • Catch the 6am train with our bikes from Horsham to Merstham, Surrey.
  • Starting at 6.45am, cycle from Merstham back to Horsham via country lanes in Surrey and a big loop in Sussex.
  • Total distance = 100.12 miles
  • Complete the ride at 5.15pm

The route includes a couple of tracks and off-road sections but is mostly country lanes so hybrid bikes or road bikes are best. I tracked the ride with my Garmin Edge 200 and here’s the resulting map.

Map of 100 mile cycle ride in Surrey and Sussex

The Ride in More Detail

The ride is split into different sections based on the villages (and shops) where we stopped. Somehow, I seem to cycle better if I know that there is a village shop at the next stopping point 😉

  • Merstham to Brockham, 25 miles. Nice shop by the village green.
  • Brockham to Rusper (overall distance ~ 45 miles).
  • Rusper to Partridge Green (overall distance ~ 75 miles).
  • PG to Barns Green.
  • The final section, returning home to Horsham.
My Garmin with the mileage displayed
My Garmin with the mileage displayed

You do have to be reasonably fit and active to cycle 100 miles and we trained for the big day with three rides between 35 and 75 miles in the weeks beforehand. Despite this, I went through a low point physically at the Rusper stop but recovered in the afternoon and felt mostly OK for the rest of the ride. Tired, and a bit saddle-sore, but OK.

The route is not particularly hilly but there are some hills on the route with the steepest being a short section on Hammerpond Road near Horsham. On the other hand, there are some long downhill sections as well!

Overall, I was very pleased with the day because, on previous 100 mile rides, I finished at 6.30 – 7pm. This year, it was 5.15pm. Yay! The ride isn’t a race but I like to improve my time if I can. My Trek 7.4 FX hybrid bike made a big difference on this ride but I hope my fitness played a part in the earlier finish time as well!

It was a long day but finishing at 5.15 meant we had time for a celebratory drink afterwards. Apparently, champagne is an approved recovery drink (ahem). Who knew?!

The three of us cycled the route together and we had a great day for it. Clear weather and not too hot. You can’t ask for better than that!

Filed Under: Featured, Routes

You Might Be Interested In

→ Cyclist – Ride: The greatest cycling routes in the world

Explore 50 of the greatest, most thrilling road cycling routes the world has to offer, guided by the experts at the world's biggest road cycling magazine.

→ Cyclist – Ride: The greatest cycling routes in the world

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Search

Promotion

Garmin Edge 530, Performance GPS Cycling/Bike Computer

Garmin Edge 530

Latest Comments

  • Clive on Review of XOSS G Cycle Computer
  • Rickey Heart on Review of XOSS G Cycle Computer
  • Clive on Review of XOSS G Cycle Computer
  • Steven on Review of XOSS G Cycle Computer
  • Pete Norman on Cycling the Devon Coast-to-Coast Route

Books

A life without limits cover image

A Life Without Limits by Chrissie Wellington

I have to confess that I didn’t know anything about Chrissie Wellington, the four-times Ironman World Champion, before reading this book. But, what a story!

Great British Bike Rides

Great British Bike Rides

This is a great book for discovering rides and planning cycle trips in the UK. It describes 40 fantastic road routes from Southern England to Scotland. It’s one of my favourite books.

South West Mountain Biking cover

South West Mountain Biking – Quantocks, Exmoor, Dartmoor

South West Mountain Biking is a brilliant little book that describes 26 mountain bike rides, between 10 km and 30 km, in Dartmoor, Exmoor and the Quantock Hills

Cycling Days Out South East England cover

Cycling Days Out: South East England

This is an attractively designed and well thought-out book with a wealth of information about leisure cycling routes in the south east of England, including Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire.

South East Mountain Biking book cover

South East Mountain Biking: North & South Downs

A compact and nicely designed guide to some of the best off-road mountain biking routes in the South East of England.

Blog Latest

Cycling to work in Horsham, West Sussex

A few thoughts about cycle commuting in Horsham In late 2016, I changed my workplace from home … [Read More...]

What parkrun means to me

I've made it. 100 parkruns completed. The Saturday morning run in a local park (mostly Horsham in my … [Read More...]

More blog posts

Friends

  • Horsham Pub Guide A guide to country pubs near Horsham, West Sussex
  • Rosebank House A Bed and Breakfast in Porlock, Somerset
  • Social Hiking Plot your hiking or cycle routes on a map with photos and tweets
  • The Cliff Hotel, Bude A friendly hotel in Bude, Cornwall

Copyright © 2025 Clive Walker · Made with by CVW Web Design in Horsham