I was thinking about this on todays ride, how much i like riding by myself, just pooling along and stopping when i like. Most of the time It’s just Susie & myself out, every now and then one or two others will tag along, or us with them, but not often. I have never done a sportive, i think i would hate the crowds, plus i tend to think why should i pay? I can ride these roads for free tomorrow. I used to race a bit back in the day, but mostly time trials, i tried a crit one, i scared me so never did another. So, do you seek out the group rides or live for the solitude?

95% out on my own, it’s a chance to have a bit of time to myself and go at my own pace. It’s nice to ride with others once in a while though.

Just me, the bike and the view feels comfortable. Sharing with a few others can bring good craic if we are all of a similar mind.

Both

I like riding solo but where there is a chance of injuiry(such as shuttle sessions), its good to have some people around who can carry you out 🙂

Solo.

Only time I ride with other people is on a STW pootle.

Solo.
I don’t like the stop/start faffing around that comes with group rides.

Both, depends how I feel. I rode a sportive on my own, not sure why that’s important but it was cheap and I payed for a food stop and some marshalling mostly.

Solo, had bad experiences with group rides.

Hell is other people.

Mostly solo, once a week with a mate of a similar mind but I like being on my own and just enjoying. Every so often I get what I call ‘ the nirvana feeling’ when everything clicks and I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else, don’t get that on group rides.

100% solo. My aspergers wouldn’t allow anything else.

Mainly solo as other riders have childcare commitments and when I can ride it’s early early sadly. I don’t like riding alone all the time

Mainly solo, I have a good group of riding friends but commitments Wags, kids, other priorities get in the way, and I’ve stopped asking if anyone wants a ride out, it’s far easier to say I.m going for a ride at X time and X place , as otherwise one mate will say can we do the afternoon, another the morning and the third will turn up an hour late and then decide to change his pedals or tyres to suit the conditions so a 2-3 hour planned ride turns into a full day of 2 hours riding..

If I set up from home my bike will be ready, fill up my water and off I go, the last time I went to my mates on my bike 10 min ride down, it took an hour 45 to set off.. A ride I can do in just over 2-2 1/2 hours turns into 6 hour waste of a day, and a disgruntled wife when I get home so late

I like the different aspects that each type of ride allows. Solo is great for either planned or for ad hoc outings when you need to get out, I’ll do big 40 mile efforts alone occasionally in fairly remote locations but ride cautiously. I love the companionship and competition that riding with my son will allow, but he’s away at Uni for a large part of the year now. I also like riding is big groups for the social aspect, but then they keep stopping 🙄

Only ever ride alone and only ever will. Riding is me time. But then I’m a pretty solitary person outside of wife and kids.

Solo, no doubt

just me and my bike – whether on the road, or on the dirt

Don’t mind a solo ride, but love all that comes with riding with my mates, and I like to ride with people who are better/quicker than me, to keep me on my toes.

If I road ride, I tend to go solo, but the road doesn’t really do it for me tbh, just a bit mundane.

99% solo , l’il J comes with me now but he’s only good for a couple of miles. ( he’s still only 3).
I really miss riding with certain folk , the ones who are on the same wavelength etc .
Due to my aspergers it is difficult to find new people to irritate …ha.
One day I might organise a North London gravel pootle(tm)…..

Solo…people find my awesomeness overwhelming (also I have no friends).

At least one ride a week with friends, join shop rides when I can and occasionally drag the other half out. Other than that it’s solo

I did impulsively buy a Dyfi entry from the classifieds and will be doing that solo and it’s only the lonely camping the night before that I’m not looking forward to

Clue is in the title 🙂

I cycle alone.

Hence: Solo – member.

Normally solo, but I do ride with others occasionally. Lately it’s been molgrips, which is funny because we’re both pretty introverted, and would not naturally ride with anyone else.

Both

Each bring different experiences.

I like riding on my own when I just want to do my own thing, ride at my own pace, go where it like, stop when I like etc.

But riding with a group of mates can sometimes give you that impetus to get out, ride new trails, improve your riding and just be a laugh.

Apologies for listing this but it surprised me how much I’m doing!

Monday night is solo 24+ off road ride
Tuesday night is solo 7-10K run around the village
Wednesday night is group 20+ off road ride, between 2 and 6 riders
Thursday night is solo 5K run around the village
Friday night is a night off
Saturday morning is Parkrun 5K ~200 people every week of which 4 or 5 are buddies from my village
Saturday night is a night off
Every 3rd Sunday morning is solo 25+ off road ride

So looking at that I guess mine time is split 4 out of 6 solo or 66% of the time! I enjoy solo rides but I also love the Wednesday night ride as it’s the same close riding buddies every week and we have a laugh & end up in the pub, I’m 51 but on Wednesday nights I revert back to a 10 year old!

99% solo for me too. I’m a total misanthrope, probably.. 😉

I find riding with other people fun, but quite stressful also. It’s like being at a dinner party (who are you, what do you do, etc.?) while covered in sweat and negotiating roots. 2 STW pootles to date, good fun, but a different headspace to the lone calm I normally find.

If I actually had any friends, I might ride with them. But I don’t. 😐

Mainly solo these days – generally training for ultra events so difficult to find a friend who wants to ride for 10hrs without stopping. Used to do a lot more group riding – went out with a group of mates the other day, but unfamiliar rider in the group nearly took me out on a downhill because they didn’t have any group riding experience and changed direction without looking.

Mostly on my own, both here and in Greece. I have a couple of good friends (one in each place) that I go out with occasionally but 90% of the time it’s just me. Most people just seem to want to get miles in and so while I like to try new ways to clean particular obstacles, like say a difficult muddy gully or up steps onto a bridge, most riders can’t be arsed with this and just push if they can’t ride it. I get a lot of pleasure out of riding technical stuff well, more than I get out of simply putting the miles in.
Also I find that a solitary singlespeed rider doesn’t fit into the dynamic of a typical group ride and I can get away with riding cheeky stuff on my own that I wouldn’t want to lead a dozen people down. It doesn’t look good, encouraging irresponsible behaviour in others when you’re very nearly 64.
Me, I don’t give a monkey’s…..

Just me on 95%+ of rides… I like it when it’s me and a mate, but it’s rare it happens as we do different things in life that means our weekends don’t fit in too often.

Mostly solo, and I like it these days, no hanging around for mates who are always late, no faffing (well, only my own), no having to lend out a heap of kit before we start because someone’s forgotten something. I can just jump on the bike and go, go as fast or as slow as I want, stop when I want, take pretentious arty photos whenever I want, and have some time alone to think. But that’s mostly local xc or road rides.

I’ll go to trail centres alone, and do regularly, but probably prefer it in a group, particularly techy stuff, it’s good fun discussing who fell off, who’s crap, who’s aswumz, which bits we found hard etc, and chasing each other down. It’s nice to ride with someone better/faster/fitter than you are too I find so you push yourself that bit harder.

I want to do some bivvying this summer, but don’t fancy that alone…..

80% solo
20% group

Have a few really good mates who i love to ride with but shift work , young family means my riding can be at odd times so mostly solo . That said riding in a big group does not appeal to me at all yet i do enjoy stuff like tweedlove events and the tour de ben when your riding with 400 other people .
I think its good to be on your own sometimes , clears the head

Solo for the most part, or with one or two others when asked.

95% alone whether on or off road. I enjoy riding with my mate, brother and gf, but they are inevitably only a few times a year. I could cope with a bit more riding with others, but group road riding doesn’t appeal much. I’m fundamentally a loner so i’m happy enough for it to stay that way.

Social by choice but often solo by necessity.

The only exception being MTB night rides where I always buddy up.

I ride from my front door whenever I have the opportunity and arranging to meet up is something of a faff so it’s mostly solo for me

However if somebody is prepared to tag along I don’t mind

Just me, the bike and the open trails….

Solo for both road and MTB. The only time I end up riding with other people is in events that I do, which is, unfortunately, unavoidable.

100% solo until Monday.
For a while now the realisation has dawned on me that, although I am almost never alone, I am quite often lonely.
Having so many work and family commitments means that my life has been subsumed into meeting other peoples expectations most of the time and it leaves little space for me to be myself instead of whichever role i’m supposed to be playing at the time.
I know this is not a healthy way to live your life and this eventually led to an extremely unhealthy outcome so i made an active choice to do something about it.
Phase 1 of my plan was to get some time to myself. This led me to get a bike and try to get some mood boosting exercise and some alone time.
I totally get the loner mentality that many have expressed and embraced it.
An unintended consequence of this was stumbling across STW.
Came for the bike and stayed for the banter.
It’s been a good pressure relief valve to satisfy that bit of my personality that needs to be a bit childish and silly and interact with other people without having to meet their expectations.
It’s much easier to dip in out for a couple of minutes at a time during the day get your daily banter ration rather than having to resolve scheduling conflicts and meet real people in the real world.

This has helped me enormously to regain a bit of the balance that was previously missing from my life….. I am aware,however that there is real danger of tipping that balance the other way and only living an online life.

So, on Monday, I took the plunge and replied to a message on the Facebook group of the local MTB club where I’d been lurking for a while, asking if anyone was out for a ride.
Met up with a bloke called Dan and went for a blast round the local trails.
It was a revelation. I’ve lived in the area all my life but I was shown trails that I didn’t know existed. I had a few shortcuts of my own that Dan had never seen. We both went home a tiny bit wiser.
I pushed myself much harder than I would normally have and didn’t die as a result. It was something that I’m going to do again.

After a long time as a lone wolf it felt good to run with the pack.

Solo.

After a long time as a lone wolf it felt good to run with the pack.

When is your little compilation of poetry coming out? 8)