Be fair, that is a typical Surrey country lane. Surrey & Hampshire are sunken lanes that have evolved into single carriageway roads with tarmac.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunken_lane

I used to ride home from work along the sunken lanes around Farnham & Frensham in Surrey and never had an incident. The lanes were so deeply sunken in places the fields were more than a metre above your head. If it had rained you ended looking like you'd ridden Roubaix or Flanders!

Roubaix and Flanders would be more comfortable and way less dangerous John did you ever write into Viz?

Bought a Boardman Road CX Pro and yesterday did a loop including some of the Chiltern's bridleways I used to love all those years ago. Not bad in all honesty and more fun than trying to share narrow potholed lanes with testosterone fueled idiots trying to assert their place in the class war and suicidal mothers in 4x4's.

Tyres give some cushioning when on the road too - at least allowing a little more in saddle effort when on the black stuff.

Sadly not much help from a fitness POV but I'll either have to spend more time on the indoor trainer or move to Europe to keep my legs I suspect.

I find that Garmin Connect is very good for when one goes to new area- chuck in your rough area, "road ride" and the sort of distance you want to do, then download it to your Garmin and go out and ride it.

I did the Rapha Festive 500 that way, when spending 2 days with my girlfriends parents on the South Coast, then across to Winchester for another few days, then back up to London.

Now whenever I go back to my parents I go out and do one 50 mile figure 8 that has become one of my favourite rides, and doing it solo means that it's a two and a half hour threshold session.

Hampshire has generally much better roads than Surrey FWIW. As another chap said, Kent around Toys Hill and Westerham has some decent riding. If you get up early then Windsor Great Park (both in the park, and the road round the edge of the park) are great for training. Chilterns good too.

It's not a bad idea just to find a couple of acceptable loops and go round and round.

I'm in Kent and find it pretty easy to find good riding anywhere between Toys Hill/Westerham down to Sussex. I avoid A roads as much as I possibly can and a surprising amount of quiet country lanes seem to have been resurfaced during the last few years. There are some Roubaix style roads here and there but it's ok overall. On the whole I don't find drivers too bad either, perhaps I've just got used to it. Occasionally on single lanes roads they just drive at you, but fortunately that's pretty rare.

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My cycling blog: http://girodilento.com/

If you are near Winchester then grab the .tcx for this ride and do it- it's really beautiful scenery, and the ride itself is a good one, roads are mainly traffic-free, and well surfaced.

I do it every time I go to see my parents, on a sunny day it's very hard to beat.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/161268752

Thanks Dammit et all. Very useful information.

Rode in the Chilterns at the weekend. A broken spoke and two punctures later I reverted to off road the next day. How you guys put up with it I don't know. Amazing race of people.

You're just soft - or very good at hitting potholes.

My thoughts exactly. Nowt wrong with the roads in the Chilterns, more likely your wheels & technique are lacking perhaps?

Ha!

Those will be the same wheels that have handled the pave of Flanders, strada bianchi and gone off road up to 2300m above Alpe d'Huez.

You can avoid the crap on the road by picking a line at all times but you might as well do that off road on single track and avoid the mindless canutes in pimped up 4x4's.

Can I suggest re-emigrating?

I would recommend Switzerland? roads are like mostly like billiard tables and punitive traffic fines plus lots of rambling locals so no crazy driving. Views also rather better than Kent.

Also you can bore the locals with 'If you think that's bad...', . 'You call that a pothole...' while they take the piss out of your crap German/French/Italian and silly little hills.

Sadly I think that's what I'll be doing.

Switzerland is indeed a fantastic place for cycling but somewhat pricey for an idle bugger like me.

That is just like the lanes I was riding earlier today in the rain/sun/rain/sun [tick as applicable]...mine were in Berkshire/Oxfordshire though. Thoroughly enjoyed it!