The 360 Recce: Guildford to Hemel Hempstead

Army heathlands, fast gravel and the last lump of the Chilterns

This recce was written after riding The 360 in dry, fast late-summer conditions. The trails were running hard, the weather stayed warm through the night and I completed the route in just under 22 hours. In wetter conditions, expect a very different beast.

By Guildford, the ride finally settles.

The North Downs are behind you and The 360 stops feeling like a long ride out of London and starts feeling like a proper gravel ultra.

This second sector runs north across the Surrey Heaths, through Swinley Forest and Maidenhead, before climbing into the Chilterns and eventually dropping towards Hemel Hempstead as darkness begins settling over Hertfordshire.

It is one of the fastest sections of the route, but also one of the most deceptive.

Across the Surrey Heaths

As the route pushes north, the landscape changes completely. The oak woods and steep ridges of the Greensand give way to the sandy heathland and military training grounds of the Surrey Heaths.

Wide pale trails cut through pine forest with long straight sight lines stretching between heather and silver birch. Surrey, rather improbably, is actually the most wooded county in England, and parts of this sector feel almost un-English. Tank tracks weave across the trails, army warning signs appear beside the route and the ground beneath the tyres suddenly feels dry, sandy and fast. On a hot evening, riding between open heathland and tall pine trees, parts of the Surrey Heaths can feel oddly Southern European.

The route threads through Swinley Forest, one of the best-known mountain bike areas in the country. Some riders will inevitably be tempted by the trail centre signs. Most carry on. There is still a long way round London left to ride.

Bracknell finally arrives and, briefly, the route becomes genuinely awkward. Designated a New Town after the Second World War, much of modern Bracknell was built through the 1950s and 60s, and the route passes through a strange maze of underpasses, cycle paths and concrete connectors that feels just disorientating enough to become annoying if you stop paying attention to the GPX.

Then, without the usual farewell run through retail parks, Bracknell simply stops and you are back in countryside. One moment you are weaving between underpasses and office blocks, the next you are back out on broad gravel bridleways and farmland heading north towards Maidenhead. It happens so abruptly it almost feels theatrical.

One of the strange pleasures of The 360 is gradually orientating yourself around London through roads, signposts and geography. Earlier in the ride, signs pointed towards Dartford and Sevenoaks. Then came Godstone and Guildford. Now they begin shifting westwards: High Wycombe, Henley, Marlow.

You realise you are no longer riding away from London.

You are beginning to circle it.

Maidenhead and the Halfway Point

This is where riders start properly eating kilometres again. The route relaxes slightly, average speeds begin creeping back up and riders who had mentally abandoned thoughts of a sub-24 hour finish quietly begin doing the sums again. Ideally, you want to be arriving into Marlow somewhere around six or seven in the evening, getting most of the Chilterns done in daylight before the route settles into the long night push around the top of London.

Maidenhead marks roughly the halfway point of The 360 and, for many riders, the psychological reset before night begins creeping into their minds.

Start thinking seriously about food here and the hours ahead. If you are aiming to complete The 360 within 24 hours, Maidenhead or Marlow is where you properly refuel and reset. Buy too little food here and you will regret it somewhere near Hatfield at one in the morning.

Marlow itself is absurdly jolly. Polished shopfronts, immaculate pubs spilling onto pavements and the suspension bridge stretched neatly across the Thames. It feels so comfortable and so reassuringly retro that it becomes difficult to imagine anything remotely unpleasant ever happening there.

So Waitrose.

Into the Chilterns

The Chilterns are the last real lump on The 360 and they arrive with surprisingly little ceremony.

Cross Marlow’s suspension bridge and you’re climbing, gradually at first, but then with more intent towards Lane End and the summit. Cross the M40 and you enter a completely different world of chalk woodland, steep-sided valleys and old coaching villages.

West Wycombe is one of the highlights. The old London to Oxford road still runs directly through the village beneath crooked timber-framed buildings that look faintly unreal in the failing evening light. It feels as though a couple of wizards from Hogwarts ought to wander out of one of the doorways, wands at the ready, looking mildly suspicious of bicycles.

Even once you reach the Chiltern ridge, they do not let you go easily. You earn the Chilterns. Every descent into a valley is followed almost immediately by another climb back out again. Hughenden. Penn Street. Little Missenden.

Relentless, although each climb is ever so slightly smaller than the last until, finally, Chesham Bois arrives. Possibly the only moment in life anyone has ever been pleased to see Chesham Bois.

There is one final notable refuelling point just outside Hemel: a glowing 24-hour McDonald’s sitting beside the road like a strange modern lighthouse for exhausted cyclists.

The restaurant stops serving inside late at night and switches over to the little hatch window instead. If you are still able to sit indoors eating fries at this stage, you are probably moving reasonably well and still somewhere close to a proper sub-24 hour pace.

The terrain itself is beautiful: chalky woodland trails beneath huge beech trees, fast rolling descents and surprisingly steep little ramps hidden between them. But by now riders are somewhere around the 220 to 240 kilometre mark and the effort begins accumulating differently.

This is no longer fresh-legged enthusiasm.

This is management.

From the Chiltern ridges, the route finally drops onto the Grand Union Canal and follows it towards Hemel itself.

Mentally, this is the turning point of The 360.

By now riders know whether they are going to finish or not.