Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 67 total)
  • Any one here do Urban "mountain biking " ? Or has shore in their back garden?
  • singletrackmatt
    Full Member

    Hi There

    Matt here from Singletrack – I was just wondering how many of you do the above? Or a combo of both? – Do you live in a city centre , or the flats of Lincolnshire but still have great riding that you’ve made or found ? Is there a good scene ? Do you mix up Singletrack with a session at the skatepark ? Have you built your own shore?

    I’d love to hear from you – you can either reply here or mail me ;]

    Cheers

    Matt

    Houns
    Full Member

    Kinda related, I remember a few years ago starting a thread about urban Singletrack …. You know the sneaky few metres you use on waste land/between housing estates/trading estates. Was pre hack though

    plumber
    Free Member

    I put slicks on my inbred for riding in cities (Calgary, London)

    makes travelling the same distances more fun if you can go down steps, on/off curbs etc. Theres a lot of stupid stuff to do in london if you put your mind to it

    Rather that than a boris bike

    passtherizla
    Free Member

    some fun stuff under spaghetti junction in brum along the tow paths etc… thats probably more ‘ghetto’ than ‘urban’ though.

    Haven’t ridden it in a couple of years though.

    MadPierre
    Full Member

    We’ve built our own shore(s) a couple of times but it got ripped down.

    Got a small patch of industrial wasteland that we have to make do with for “freeride”.

    donks
    Free Member

    spent all day yesterday shredding round town on the mtb and bmx riding anything i could really….bit of skate park…tescos stair manual to looks of horror at 38 year old man on a bmx descending their stairs. Good day was had. It all counts in my book, riding is riding.

    DrRSwank
    Free Member

    Aaaahhh, memories of yooof.

    I used to do a lot of urban biking in both Bracknell and Milton Keynes. It was a great way of keeping biking over the winter without needing to wash the bike.

    MK has some decent runs down various steps and drops off walls.

    I have also built a skinny in the back garden once – just to practice norf shore balancing. And I also made a couple of wooden ramps that we used to take to Tescos car park and practice jumping.

    I go on the basis that bike skills can be learnt and honed anywhere – not just on the trail. And lazy night rides around city centres can be great fun.

    TandemJeremy
    Free Member

    I do like to look out the urban single track and have found a fair bit around edinburgh

    mrdestructo
    Full Member

    Maybe ten years ago. Curiously I don’t really see anyone in York anymore. Just the two little BMX parks really. I see the odd hardcore bike around on the road but not in the places we used to ride. I always wonder what they get upto.

    Our Roman walls have been here thousands of years and should remain a lot longer. There’s a few stretches ranging from 5-11ft at the section around Victoria Bar where you test your bottle:

    transitions from the Bar Walls

    ps. the entranceways to the walkways say “no dogs” nothing about bikes 🙂

    Many other places to drop off round the Bar walls. Some are hidden, some are highly exposed in main trunk areas onto ornamental grass we couldn’t afford the criminal damage records for.

    If you want to bring a load of loonies up for a photo shoot, I’ll come watch. We’ve even had BMX racers go off the walls round here for the lulz and I remember a drunken Boxing Day ride once where I completely squared a wheel on a hardtails. If I had a proper fork and a 3pce crankset I’d consider doing it again one day before I die.

    We have a staircase coming off the Millenium Bridge here (built like a bicycle wheel, ‘spokes’ and all) but it’s wooden and slows you down too much and has been known to break a few frames.

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    Get in touch with the http://www.urbanextremistuk.co.uk/ gang – they do all sorts.

    GW
    Free Member

    have ridden urban areas all my life. I find it weird any bike rider wouldn’t.

    colournoise
    Full Member

    Often try to liven up the commute home by lengthening it and squeezing in whatever short bits of dirt I can. Odd little bit of properly urban stuff too.

    slainte 😀 rob

    donks
    Free Member

    Dr swank
    Mk lad here too and it’s pretty good if you know where to ride, the city centres great for a bmx or trialsy mountain bike. We just need a mahoosive skate park now and were there.

    jedi
    Full Member

    gw, same here. i remmeber the old stw london street rides etc…

    MW
    Free Member

    Living in Lincolnshire and liking mountain biking means searching out the best riding, perhaps more than most counties. I ride with a local group (LAMB – Louth area mountain bikers) who over the years have put some great farm track/green lane trails together, and with careful planning we can usually climb/descend 500m in a 3 hour ride. Nothing too technical though. To get around this, in between trips to Wales, Scotland etc, we’ve been building a little skills type area/ mini trail, outside of a half acre wild flower meadow. There is a “rockery”, North shore section, table top and a see-saw, and soon to be finished berm/switchback/skinny section called “hissing sid”. We have tried to make 3 different ways around each corner to maximize what can be done. Its small but lets us keep on top of the skills needed when riding everywhere else!

    theflatboy
    Free Member

    i’ve been on a couple of stw forum london rides that were all about concrete, steps, ramps and drops. excellent fun, including one comedic incident in a slippery playground…

    Stoner
    Free Member

    Used to have a little play in London on midsummers night with a mate
    [img]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-PMDmPdIdmMQ/T3qxFVSK8qI/AAAAAAAABNg/IY0NQzyseCA/s400/IMG_8931.JPG[/img]

    scruff
    Free Member

    St Ives in Cornwall is brilliant, loads of steeps, steps and drops and getting chased round the wheelchair access to the Tate by security guards.

    atlaz
    Free Member

    Luxembourg is quite good for that. There’s single and doubletrack surrounding the centre but some paved “singletrack” (some fun little switchback-y footpaths, some cobbled, lots of concrete as there’s a lot of new build areas) too so rides to and from the natural stuff are more fun. Even the stuff around the city winds around the motorway bridges and more urban areas so there’s a real counterpoint of man-made with the trails.

    stevenmenmuir
    Free Member

    Used to do a bit of riding round Edinburgh and now I’m in Midlothian there’s often a bit of urban riding done to link up the woods.

    orangina
    Free Member

    We go sometimes on Sunday morning (as it’s too busy otherwise) into Edinburgh to ride stairs and steps and back to Arthur’s Seat for some singletrack stuff there. Then usually back home to Musselburgh via the steps into Duddingston…

    bigad40
    Free Member

    Yessssa!
    Missed the last train from waterloo 1 night after some drinks and had my trusty old stumpy ht, only took a nod in direction of the esculator and I was on it!
    London is littered with all sorts of cool things. Check out Wandsworth roundabout.
    Earlsfields speed bumps. Richmond park at night with no lights.
    Hampstead heath.
    If only dropper seat posts were around back then.
    Now I live in surrey hills… with kids…

    Big Ad.

    Stoner
    Free Member

    post 23 glitch

    well that didnt work.
    there’s supposed to be a post between this one and BigAd’s one.
    Wher’d it go?

    whatnobeer
    Free Member

    It was Spam

    _tom_
    Free Member

    Not at the minute but love street bmxing in cities/towns. It’s all about the long fast feeble grinds on low ledges 😀

    davepalk
    Free Member

    I ride with an group that does ‘normal XC’ night rides every week. We do ‘Alleying’ urban rides several times each year. The format of Alleying is a well organised and pre-planned 20-30 mile urban night ride, at tempo, using alleys, service roads, car parks, precincts, wasteland, subways, parks, church yards, multi-storey car parks, etc. The routes are circular, much like XC rides, but without any loose surfaces. Optimum conditions are a dry and warm night, starting at twilight. Roads are avoided, and only used where absolutely necessary to link ‘trails’. It’s fast and furious riding, with constant hard accelerating and braking. Your wits definitely need to be about you, otherwise surface changes, kerbs, bollards and other street furniture could spell disaster. We work blocks of flats and supermarket foyers into the mix – which is all very naughty! Steps, banks, drops and any other fun features are included where possible as ‘bottle tests’ for the following group. 6-10 evenly matched riders is best to maintain a good speed and uninterrupted flow. The weapon of choice is a rigid steel singlespeed mtb, with slick tyres and a 55″ gear. Intimate local knowledge is vital, and the leader uses this to plan the route carefully in advance. Our area is blessed with miles of alleys around housing estates, and plenty of rear service roads behind terraces of houses. There are also plenty of pedestrian precincts and other hard surfaced thoroughfares that are not roads. Putting together a decent 30 mile route is no problem. We’ve developed an entire faux lore and tradition of Alleying in the five years since we started it. The language of alleying is French (for the leader’s commands and warnings), and pseudo rules and conventions are constantly hinted at to bemuse newcomers and amuse regulars – a bit like the ‘Mornington Crescent’ game in Radio 4’s ‘I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue’. Alleying is the best fun you’ll ever have on two wheels and would make a great mag article. PM me if you want to visit and experience the thrill.

    couldashouldawoulda
    Free Member

    davepalk

    Welcome to the forum.

    Honestly – its great to see such enthusiasm! I am going to be very very cheeky (but positive I hope) – you (and others) may hate me for this- I’m going to repost your post with some paragraphs that us non LeMonde readers will find easier – apologies. When I post in your neck of the woods pleas feel free to improve a 80%+ post into an excellent post (or slap me in the face!)

    So:

    I ride with an group that does ‘normal XC’ night rides every week. We do ‘Alleying’ urban rides several times each year.

    The format of Alleying is a well organised and pre-planned 20-30 mile urban night ride, at tempo, using alleys, service roads, car parks, precincts, wasteland, subways, parks, church yards, multi-storey car parks, etc.

    The routes are circular, much like XC rides, but without any loose surfaces. Optimum conditions are a dry and warm night, starting at twilight.

    Roads are avoided, and only used where absolutely necessary to link ‘trails’. It’s fast and furious riding, with constant hard accelerating and braking. Your wits definitely need to be about you, otherwise surface changes, kerbs, bollards and other street furniture could spell disaster.

    We work blocks of flats and supermarket foyers into the mix – which is all very naughty!

    Steps, banks, drops and any other fun features are included where possible as ‘bottle tests’ for the following group.

    6-10 evenly matched riders is best to maintain a good speed and uninterrupted flow. The weapon of choice is a rigid steel singlespeed mtb, with slick tyres and a 55″ gear.

    Intimate local knowledge is vital, and the leader uses this to plan the route carefully in advance. Our area is blessed with miles of alleys around housing estates, and plenty of rear service roads behind terraces of houses.

    There are also plenty of pedestrian precincts and other hard surfaced thoroughfares that are not roads. Putting together a decent 30 mile route is no problem. We’ve developed an entire faux lore and tradition of Alleying in the five years since we started it.

    The language of alleying is French (for the leader’s commands and warnings), and pseudo rules and conventions are constantly hinted at to bemuse newcomers and amuse regulars – a bit like the ‘Mornington Crescent’ game in Radio 4’s ‘I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue’.

    Alleying is the best fun you’ll ever have on two wheels and would make a great mag article. PM me if you want to visit and experience the thrill.

    davepalk
    Free Member

    New here. Sorry.

    I got carried away, and was writing at the frantic pace of an Alleying ride!

    You’re right. It’s better like that, with some spaces. Thanks for improving it.

    GW
    Free Member

    really?

    The guys post was possibly the most interesting I’ve read on here in the last couple of years and you criticise him for not splitting each sentence into a new paragraph?

    WTF’s that all about?

    Half the posts on here these days are sent from phones and littered with poor spelling, punctuation and grammar.. are you going to spend the rest of the night making them 100% too?

    No Hate BTW, more pity :/

    couldashouldawoulda
    Free Member

    Nooooo – dont apologise – god!

    One of us will roll up in France and put “les paragraphs” where they shouldn’t ever be!

    It’s just more familiar in English divided into thought sized chunks – French newspapers are the opposite – as are lots of other languages.

    globalti
    Free Member

    Reading it without paragraphs gave me eye-strain and a headache.

    Dickyboy
    Full Member

    Sounds like a perfect excuse for another niche bike, should fit in well here then..

    singletrackmatt
    Full Member

    Thanks so much for all of that ;]

    Some of you may be (mis)quoted in the next issue!

    13thfloormonk
    Full Member

    We had a great scene in edinburgh for a while. (probably still do, I’m just not a part of it…).

    Spent ages seeking out flights of stairs to batter down or occasionally gap. The best were Waterstone Close leading to the bottom of Cockburn St. nice and wide and fairly shallow, you could loft off the top set, land midway down, then just hold on for dear life for the next two sets. Impressed the drunks at the bottom no end.

    There is also an excellent and fairly dramatic 6’ish stair gap at dynamic earth, slightly skitey run in but nice long run out. Kudos to the out of puff security guard from the hotel nearby who had been sent by his manager to approach the three big lads in body armour and full face helmets to apologetically ask us to leave.

    Our favourite though was the Waverley train station flower bed gap. You had to climb up onto the roof of the shopping centre, get in a few swift pedal strokes, then gap the pavement landing on the flower bed on the other side. Dead easy but lots of fun.

    Was brilliant when you could leave your flat at 10pm and return at midnight or later having spent two or three hours ragging about the city. 8)

    BikeStyle_Billy
    Free Member

    We regularly mix up our normal woods riding with our ‘Urban Run’ which uses paths, rivers bank etc to link up various small corpses and wooded areas around town (Clevedon – North Somerset). None of these are worth riding by themselves and often have only 1 fun descent, but add them all together and we can do a great 1 1/2 blast round town. Its amazing how many short, sweet sections of singletrack you can find running along side roads that I’m sure most people don’t even notice are there. Through in a few sets of steps, some very tight & twisty footpaths (I know, I know!) and even a north shore style narrow wall that separates 2 parts of an outdoor boating/swimming lake with 6ft deep sea water on either side of a foot wide, rutted and worn wall to focus the mind, and its great fun and a little different to the normal blast through the woods.

    xiphon
    Free Member

    Lived in London for four years, but regularly used to ride ‘urban offroad’… just used a pair of Schwalbe marathon tyres for grip and puncture resistance!

    _tom_
    Free Member

    Sounds like a perfect excuse for another niche bike

    No need, bmxes are already the perfect bike for this kind of riding. Although they are singlespeed, rigid, steel and don’t have 26″ wheels so there’s that..

    willard
    Full Member

    BMXs are only good if you are not a lanky person. I bought one for use on the loal skate park, but it was pretty much impossible to get on with (i’m 6’5″). I should have bought something like an Identity Dr. Jekyll or a cheap Saracen jump bike instead.

    Back to London though. I used to love trying to beat people between stations when on my bike. You get to see so much more of the capital that way and it’s a lot more fun, even if the dispatch riders swear at you for stopping at red lights. Kings Cross to Victoria is awesome.

    _tom_
    Free Member

    I believe Chris Doyle is over 6ft and he does pretty well on a bmx!

    noteeth
    Free Member

    Or has shore in their back garden?

    IIRC (hazily), MBUK did a feature on this. Something about improving your skills in your own back garden – & illustrated by Zak Brant Tempest riding over some ladders on a re-sprayed Fat Chance? 😉

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 67 total)

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