Sort of inspired by the Road bikes are the new STW niche idea and a bit of this thread…

As a general rule, roadies will meet up and go for a long ride on country lanes through a few local villages to make up a long loop with some nice scenery.

As general rule mountain bikers will meet up and go for a shorter ride and ride round a much smaller area taking in as many of the interesting trails as possible.

I seem to be very much in a minority by combining these two riding styles.
I like to make up a big loop linking up several bridleways and other trails by quiet lanes if possible, or busier roads if unavoidable.
I know a lot of mountain bikers try to avoid roads as much as they can, but I think of it a bit like downhilling.
Downhillers will spend 10 minutes pushing up a hill so they can spend 2 minutes riding back down it, I’ll spend 10 minutes on a road so I can spend 2 minutes on a bridleway.

Anyone else like to ride like this ?
Not the classic long distance bridleways like the South Downs Way or Ridgeway, just the short local ones between nearby villages.

What do you consider a “long loop”? Just out of interest? Just sounds like a good ride…

Anywhere between 2 and 5 hours with stops. Whatever distance that works out to be.

I’m with Graham. If you throw in usng a train and then riding back it opens a world of interesting riding with very little expense.

That’s how I tent to ride too. I’ll try and link in a playful section or trails of I know of any in the area as well but like to feel as it I’ve been somewhere, otherwise I may as well go to a skaepark.

Downhillers will spend 10 minutes pushing up a hill so they can spend 2 minutes riding back down itquote]10 minutes pushing = more like 40s riding.. it’s not worth using a DH bike if the gradient isn’t steep and often difficult to push up.

Why pigeonhole your riding? 😕

I’l ride anything.. A days DHing can mean about 6hours on the hill with probably less than 30mins actual riding time.
Dirtjumping or BMX track you never ride any further than a few 100ft.
proper remote miserable XC alone or with others.
short local XC blasts of less than an hour and am never more than 3miles form home, longer local rides (maybe upto a 30 mile local loop 90% offroad).. the odd trail centre, DH races, play in the streets on my hardtail or BMX.. I also sometimes check out single track if I see something that looks interesting while out on my roadbike.
lastnight I rode a mile long stretch of local fun drifty singletrack (slightly DH but not a DH track) 3 times then rode home. and at the weekend I rode a red/black Trail centre on a 38lb DH bike with a 36T chainring and no fancy large sprocket cassette (WTF was I thinking?)

oh.. PS. Bridleway = road anyway

I tend to do a similar thing to MTG. I use maps to create a decent length route with as much off-road as possible, but with linking bits on the road where necessary. So far I’ve not had to include road stretches any longer than a couple of miles max. These tend to be my solo weekend rides, 100km minimum & a great way to see a part of the country whilst also doing some good base fitness training.

It depends on where I am. When I was a student I didn’t have a car so I used to ride long rides in the Valleys by riding from Cardiff. They consisted of probably 30 miles of road and maybe 10 of trails, or more depending. If I wanted to check out the better/bigger looking trails further up the valleys then I’d need more road still. Once I rode up into the Beacons, just nipped over the hill then came back – 70 miles.. long day that was.. 🙂

My bike was perfect for that – long low old skool fully rigid original Orange P7 (1996) that I wish I still had, cos I’d love to do those kinds of rides again occasionally. Hardtails nowadays seem to be of the long travel variety which would be too upright. CX possibly not MTBey enough to keep me happy (although a possibility).. so maybe 29er or hybrid.. dunno..

Yes, most of the time.

I think you only need to look to the ‘trailquest’ bit of your moniker to understand why this is so.

i think this is what Specialized have pigeonholed as “Freeroading”

Used to do a lot of that sort of thing back in the day. There is a great network of single-track country lanes, green lanes and bridleways to the West of Stafford and at the time (early 90s) Cannock Chase was a bit of an unknown quantity. I won a USE seatpost for a letter I wrote to MTBPro about it.

But MTBs got better, the trails got better and now even though I live just over a mile from the Chase I have to get the quiet country lanes out of the way as quickly as possible, Tarmac just feels all wrong.

For a ‘natural’ day out I feel compelled to drive 100 miles to Wales for a 30-mile bike ride. It sounds mad but that’s how it is.

I ride my MTB on the road all the time, for fitness more so than fun mind you…

I tend to ride my cx bike 20 miles out of town to ride the same trails that Surrey riders require body armour for then ride home after. And I still get loads of abuse from twatooed 29ers and fat blokes on never ridden off road Patriots at Peaslake.
So yes, basically most of my riding is similar to what MTG has written about. I also do 5-6 hr road rides as well, but we weren’t talking about that.

My mates and I do this sort of riding all the time. Personally, I get bored riding round in muddy/dusty circles in Thetford etc. A bit of road work widens the scope, gives you time to chat and chill and eventually leads to different (bigger) loops being put together.

I have just discovered how much fun a CX bike can be and the fact it opens up masses more scope is even better.

Me too, though i only tend to use road links in the winter to avoid really muddy sections of bridleway.

The South Downs are ideally suited to this. It’s easy to vary a ride between woody singletrack, open doubletrack & down/uphill on the north facing scarp slopes. Having a railway line running parallel makes for easy 5+ hour ride out & train home.

the trails got better

Yep. The nature of MTBing has now changed a lot. Back in the day you’d follow the red dashed lines on an OS map and if a bit of the trail was good then that was a bonus*.

Now most bits of woodland have sculpted singletrack, jumps, DH lines and all sorts, which are fun and there’s much less road to chew through.

* yes I know you can still do this blablabla and I still do

As general rule mountain bikers will meet up and go for a shorter ride and ride round a much smaller area taking in as many of the interesting trails as possible.

is this not so you never get too far from the car/home?

I just tend to pick some downhills I like the look of and plot a route between them that is as offroad as is workable. I don’t mind tech/hard offroad climbs but if i’m on a big ride I may pick more tame tarmac climbs to get more mileage out of my legs and squeeze more downhills/fun sections into the ride

I’ll use roads, Farm tracks and bridalways on my local loops to link up all of the interesting bits as they are a bit spread out…

I have to admit my preference is to avoid riding on the road if I can, I’ll take the longer harder off road slog route to avoid the Range Rovers/X5/Toureg crew of a weekend…

But whatever links up a good route best I’ll ride, I’d happily do a mile on the tarmac if it gets me to a nice bit of singletrack…

aP – Member
I tend to ride my cx bike 20 miles out of town to ride the same trails that Surrey riders require body armour for then ride home after. And I still get loads of abuse from twatooed 29ers and fat blokes on never ridden off road Patriots at Peaslake.

*swoon*

2 and 5 hours with stops

yeah, I like short rides like that too.

Isn’t this what most mtb rides are like? Unless you live somewhere with massive amounts of trails that all link up without road sections.

And I still get loads of abuse from twatooed 29ers and fat blokes on never ridden off road Patriots at Peaslake.

Thanks for that – put a smile on my face!

The OP really describes what used to be known as going for a ride! Now we have great legions of people who quite literally never bike on a road and think that mountain biking by definition involves putting the bike in the car.

Each to their own, but mountain bike rides with new places to discover, views, pubs, places etc are a great thing – it doesn’t have to be singletrack all the way.

Yep. The nature of MTBing has now changed a lot. Back in the day you’d follow the red dashed lines on an OS map and if a bit of the trail was good then that was a bonus*.

Now most bits of woodland have sculpted singletrack, jumps, DH lines and all sorts, which are fun and there’s much less road to chew through.
When exactly is “back in the day”? we had all that in our local woods when we were kids. and as an adult, 20 odd years ago my second ever mtb ride was at a disused quarry with kickers, berms, jumps and hidden super techy steep chutes to play on all built by local riders. The only thing that’s changed is that the average newcomber to mtb riding has everything handed to them on a plate with the arival of trail centres, pity really as many may never discover how good it is to ride a good natural (but cut by riders) trail) or build something yourself and ride it.

I don’t mind riding on the road at all. After a few hours of bumpy or muddy bridleways and tracks it feels quite nice to be able to really steam along on flat, smooth concrete and put the hammer down.

Having said that I’m still always surprised at how far I can get from my house in Didsbury, round the Peaks and back without hardly ever having to travel on road; and that’s without even really trying- it’s quite easy to link the offroad trails togethor and I’m sure I’m still missing plenty.

Well where I mostly ride there is a main area: (Black Down/Rowberrow/Burrington) and several other areas: Cheddar/Axebride, Wavering Down and Lyncombe Hill. These can be linked easily with short sections of cycletrack, road, bway and pushing for a rewarding xc ride with added techy bits.

To make the best of it, you need bike that pedals well and goes downhill confidently.

cycling is about variety:
– I have driven 150 miles each way for a 2 hour ride
– I’ve cycled from my doorstep for an all-day ride across roads, lanes, hills and fields
Do whatever the **** you want.

To answer the OP’s question

Anyone else like to ride like this ?

You just need to count the number of posts on this thread compared with the number of posts talking about going to “1 to 9” or “Double and bash”. I think the answer is very few 😉