I’ve been away from mtb for a few years I’m back on the bike now and well; enduro, e-bikes, wheel sizes, plus sizes, trail centres …. great, cool but…

Does anyone look at a map, pick a route, get their boring bike with regular travel so it can be pedalled up a hill, go out and ride in the rain/hail/sun/snow, enjoy just being out on the bike in any terrain, in any conditions, on any trail, without: go pros, strava, gnarcore nduro, big tyres, little tyres, electronic assist, a marked route with a name,

I can’t help feeling that with so many developments, what I know as mountain biking is becoming rather niche 😛

No I’m not old either I’m 22

See the XC thread…

No, what you think of as ‘mountain biking’ is a dying art, unfortunately.

Yeah I do. I have an XC bike for exploring and getting lost in the countryside with, just go exploring the countryside. Then I have a FS bike that I use to have a go at the places I’ve made bite of that would be fun to go at with a FS bike, I also use this bike to follow routes that I download to explore the peaks.
Does this count?

I’ve been away from mtb for a few years

I’m 22

Can’t be that many, Shirley?

How many countries have you crossed?

Well never without strava as obviously the ride never even happened if its not on strava, but yes, most of my rides between nov-june tend to be just hopping on the 29er and riding a mix of gravel, dirt and road.

Edit: also done some mtb orienteering this year which is almost exactly what you describe, just going eyeballs out in the paincave

Yes. Me

I don’t get the criticism? I just get on my bike and ride towards a hill most of the time and see what happens? Isn’t that what it’s all about? Adventure, nature, finding new things, exploring, testing yourself fitness and skill wise?

Yes

Yeah, me too. Most of the trails I ride are the same as I’ve done the last 16 years. I’m considerably older than you, though!!

I don’t get the criticism?

Neither do I. From the OP.

I live in the new forest area
Pretty much all of my rides near to home are pure xc – the others are road

My criticism if you will is that what is mtb for me anyway, seems to be dying out in a sense, it’s a little strange.

Whenever I tell people that I do mountain biking, people start asking what trail centres I’ve been to for example, that trail centres are the new normal if you are a mountain biker

I don’t get the criticism? I just get on my bike and ride towards a hill most of the time and see what happens? Isn’t that what it’s all about? Adventure, nature, finding new things, exploring, testing yourself fitness and skill wise?

I agree it’s the same for me, I’m not so much criticising to a great extent with this thread, I am also genuinely asking who else rides like I do that’s all

without: go pros, strava, gnarcore nduro, big tyres, little tyres, electronic assist, a marked route with a name,

Cross country is still the most frequent for me and most who I know, even with different wheel sizes and strava it doesn’t mean it’s not cross country

25 miles Tuesday night from my door on my Scandal 29, road, green lane, bridleway, open hill/common, bit of everything, over half off road, averaged 10mph nearly, almost 2000 ft of climbing.

Did it alone, spd pedals, no pack, no map, just rode and made choices as I went. Was around Kington, Herefordshire, where the rough ride was, used some of the trails they used to use.

Was brilliant, equally as fun and more rewarding than forest of dean (blue/red/dh tracks) on my soul today. Soul is getting hung up for a bit soon to try a fs frame for a bit, just to make rough stuff a bit nicer and see if I like it, will mainly get trail centre & more downhill use. I like to do a bit of both. Have to say bits of FoD blue are crap these days, it’s a boring old trail anyway, but it’s badly eroded in parts, surface is just juddery and not much fun on a hardtail when trying to stay with full sus riding friends. If I’m gonna ride a trail centre that feels man made I’d rather something smooth, swoopy and flowy, not rougher than natural trails, in a braking bump/washboardy way, with no views.

Hopton and NyA are exceptions, mostly natural, big views, feels like a proper mtb ride with some spirit of adventure and the obvious sculpted sections are ace, smooth, fast, fun.

FoD needs maintenance, gets ridden massively I know, but still, I’ll be trying to ride some off piste if/when I go again.

It’s like I’m into 2 different sports, I like both, but XC feels more ‘proper’ and what it’s all about, there’s no middle aged fat blokes in neon clothing on £5k carbon endyooro bikes being caught by kids in lonsdale trainers on an argos bso where I like to ride most. Black Mountains and Lake District are my favourite places I’ve ridden. Bit of everything.

Edit: should add I’m a bit spoilt for choice, location is bang on for mtbing, so many options within 2hrs, natural & trail centres, an awful lot worth riding within half hour of home too. So I can afford to be picky/critical, each to their own.

Me to +1 for xc, or just riding as I call it.

I think that as long as you’re enjoying the ride on whatever you have it’s all good. I get to the odd trail centre, same every visit (+ or – weather) but prefer the natural xc stuff but then maybe it’s because I’m old (cough 45) 😉

James

Trail centres are too far to drive to for me. Gisburn 1 hour, Llandegla 1 hr 10 minutes. I’ll go sometimes but there’s no way I’d do every ride at a trail centre with that amount of driving involved, more like less than 10% of rides are at one.
Sometimes do rides that’s a mix of trail centre and XC on the surrounding moors. Llandegla, Cragg & Lee Quarry are good examples of places where this is easily possible.

Sorry this is a load of bollocks. Is it not just as people who like mountain biking find what they enjoy more it get pigeon holed into a category? XC, enduro, downhill, yada yada yada. Do what you like and enjoy it, isn’t that the most important thing?
When I think about it I ride mountain bikes in so many different ways, commuting, out with the Mrs doing mild trails like towpaths, XC, trail centres, out into the peaks finding challenging trails and enduro events.
Still all mountain biking, no one is right.

Yeah I’d say most of my mob riding is just heading out along tracks paths and seeing where things go. I don’t have the time to drive for hours to a trail centre so spend time on maps Siddons out possible routes and link trails and heading out in the hard tail and trying them.

All these new developments are all good I think they have their place, but I just feel that they seem to overshadow what mountain biking is fundamentally about for most (I hope hence the thread) people. With a heavy industry and media push on the next best thing wondered if we still do that boring old (fun) thing

Not much to beat scouring the map, trying a trail head you’ve spotted before, trying to link bits up, the sense of adventure and the fact so few people do it and get to see the places and sights I do contribute massively to my enjoyment. More so than ‘railing a berm’, I push myself, go as fast as I can/dare on all rides, but it’s not the speed that makes it for me.

People are riding bikes, in whatever discipline, that’s good. I just don’t like most people, so trail centres aren’t my ideal environment. I also like the isolation on a big hill on my own, it’s when I’m happiest

Need to ride the malverns.

There’s quite a few on here that don’t do the bike riding bit but are good at getting cross..

I do kind of miss just having an “XC” bike.

My C456 has gone from 100mm forks and 717 rims and 2.1″ tyres to 150mm forks, 2 deg angleset and some wider rims with 2.4 front and 2.25 rear ans a dropper.

My 29er scandal was replaced by a slightly larger Solaris but then that got a 2 deg angleset, the forks are going up to 120mm and it has 35mm carbon rims and now a dropper. I have stuck with 2.25″ tyres though in an attempt to keep it “XC”.

It now makes general trail riding that little bit less special but when the going gets a bit downwards and rocky and slippy and unpredictable (don’t really ride trail centres) the more “modern” trail set up does give you a lot more confidence and you just find yourself having to spice up general XC rides a bit.

I’ve had a battle with my Scandal, as many seem to have, but a 2.4 front tyre and wide riser bars have sorted it out for the type of riding I want to do with it, it was perfect for the ride I did Tuesday (described above). And should be good for bikepacking. Traditional XC riding is falling out of fashion/the limelight for sure.

Does anyone look at a map, pick a route, get their boring bike with regular travel so it can be pedalled up a hill, go out and ride in the rain/hail/sun/snow, enjoy just being out on the bike in any terrain, in any conditions, on any trail, without: go pros, strava, gnarcore nduro, big tyres, little tyres, electronic assist, a marked route with a name,

Yes and no. I woke up on Tuesday morning and decided I was going to go to the Lakes for day or so, I just looked an OS map and rode what I thought looked good and took in the sights I wanted to see. But I have to say the comment about ‘boring bike with regular travel so it can be pedaled up a hill’ is total BS. My 160mm travel 29er weighs 12.5kg and is probably the best climbing bike on rocky terrain I’ve owned.

Once a week, or at least every other week.
I can’t remember the last time I put my bike in the car.
Every now and then I will see a track I haven’t been down and just follow it.
Usually it goes nowhere interesting but occasionally I stumble on some trail pixie’s hard work.

Yes I think I do, it seems the media in their attempt to sell ad space, have to talk about the next big thing and variant of a mtb, boost + sized wheels , 1×12 all advancements, but the end of the day we could all still be riding bikes from last year or 10 years ago.

For me mtb’ing is about a ride out with mates or a ride out into the wilds and only say hello to a couple of people.
Can’t beat getting onto the Yorkshire moors or peaks and not seeing a building or person for miles.

Inevitably I may have to ride a few roads, bridleway to get their. But it’s all fun

Trail centres have their place, and sometimes I wish I rode them more, far easier tracks and smooth riding, yes you can go big on the jumps, but at the same time you can roll the vast majority,

Yes I do and so do all the people I see out too (although they might think they are doing some gnar tastic riding)

I think marketing has turned a lot of people from XC riders in to some niche so they can justify buying the latest best mtb (and justify it to the wife)

Well I’m just back from a ride, I took the normal bike, due to access laws I followed some trails up and down it rained a bit. I went up stuff along stuff and down stuff, I changed my mind halfway round and went another way tried to link something up and couldn’t so came back. There was also some awesome jumpy flows singletrack in there that made the long grind up worth it.
Is that good or bad, I’m not sure.
https://www.strava.com/activities/683304105/shareable_images/map_based?hl=en-GB&v=1471758453
So here it is for approval 😉

All my rides are 100% XC, all year round in all weathers. I rarely see other riders and just ride off in any direction hoping I can get back. I use Strava but it is just running on phone in back pocket and only look at it when I get home.

Don’t know where my nearest trail centre is but guessing it is at least 100 miles away so I am never going to go to one. Even it a trail centre was around the corner I doubt I would go as it would be full of those annoying mountain bikers getting in my way…

https://www.instagram.com/p/BJWiVAIAebO/
(can we get and instagram pic linky thing please as this makes the next one liner lame if you have to click a link…
Do you even xc man?

My criticism if you will is that what is mtb for me anyway, seems to be dying out in a sense, it’s a little strange.

Whenever I tell people that I do mountain biking, people start asking what trail centres I’ve been to for example, that trail centres are the new normal if you are a mountain biker

I’ve been riding since the late nineties and have never done XC; it’s pretty much always been mucking about on bikes in the woods, building jumps, clearing runs etc.

We’re incredibly lucky with the trial centres that we have, yes there are some dicks there but we now have lots of legitimate places to ride without getting whinged at etc. Try leaving your pre-conceptions at home – you may even have fun. I’m as happy mucking about at a trail centre as I am in the Peaks on ‘natural’ trails in Wales. It’s just riding bikes.

yup me. bit of road to get to the woods, bit of dirt track, bit of bridleway, bit of rural road…I love it. I consciously ride a 3×9 because I love the big ring when I can, I love speed… the sort of rides I do cause a problem when inviting other mtbers out on my rides because all ‘mountain bikes’ purchased in the last 2 years are either 2x or 1x up front. They spin out easily on the road/track and are built for trail centres not for Xc, so they’re not keen on Xc at all, rather annoying.

They spin out easily on the road/track and are built for trail centres not for Xc, so they’re not keen on Xc at all, rather annoying.

It’s weird and probably to do with the geography round here that it’s either up or down, no massive long flat road riding really so we just don’t need that massive 42t ring. The riding I do is not trail centre but built and natural trail, I probably was spun out on a couple of fire Road downs today but it didn’t really concern me. Taking some science to it the last massive high speed pedal fest I did was a time trial mostly on fire roads, my top speeds doing it one year 2x and the second year 1x where about the same, I was quicker on the flat grinds stuff too. Sometimes you just need to adjust techniques a bit and other time realise that not everyone wants to pedal flat out along a fire road

Does anyone look at a map, pick a route, get their boring bike with regular travel so it can be pedalled up a hill, go out and ride in the rain/hail/sun/snow, enjoy just being out on the bike in any terrain, in any conditions, on any trail, without: go pros, strava, gnarcore nduro, big tyres, little tyres, electronic assist, a marked route with a name,

I do, but mostly on my CX bike lately.

Yes. I don’t do anything but.

Does anyone look at a map, pick a route, get their boring bike with regular travel so it can be pedalled up a hill, go out and ride in the rain/hail/sun/snow, enjoy just being out on the bike in any terrain, in any conditions, on any trail, without: go pros, strava, gnarcore nduro, big tyres, little tyres, electronic assist, a marked route with a name,

That’s exactly what I do. BUT, I most often use a fat bike to do it. Not sure if that ruins everything.

Am I a ‘person who just rides across country’ or a Fatbiker™?

muckytee – Member
…Does anyone look at a map, pick a route, get their boring bike with regular travel so it can be pedalled up a hill, go out and ride in the rain/hail/sun/snow, enjoy just being out on the bike in any terrain, in any conditions, on any trail, without: go pros, strava, gnarcore nduro, big tyres, little tyres, electronic assist, a marked route with a name…

That’s the only sort of riding I do. That applies to almost everyone I know as well.

I’ll take any bike anywhere.

Ok. I think the OP has the answer to their question. Tge truth is, the vast majority of “mountain biking” in this country is XC, it’s just not fashionable to talk about it. That being the case, the media don’t make much of it either. Neither should anyone make the mistake of thinking that forums are representative.

Pretty much only XC, or as others said…Just riding my bike lol

It’s mainly all just xc.

I don’t really do trail centres. I don’t do uplift.

I do riding my bike outside