We won’t just take a day trip to Wales these days, although thats partly due to coming from a company car to own funded & fueled car/van. If we do, we would try & make a long weekend of it and go to a few different places.

Still have to drive a bit to ride DH from where we are though. We seem to be doing a lot more lift sharing when it comes to racing now as well. This weekend there is 5 of us going in the van to the first national. That was going to be a £120 in fuel alone, now it’s under £25 each, much more sensible.

Road bike will be getting a lot more use this summer too!

Fair enough. I work in IT

Nonsensical is damn right

am I detecting a hint of the monday morning sense of humour by-pass..?

I’ll ride for 2 hours to get to a ride. Does that count?

MrSpoon – I find that after around 5 miles it gets better but … those 5 miles. I’ve done bits of the waymarked circular Berkshire route.

Just ride further, do a 100mile loop and those 5miles only account for 5% of it 🙂

I often ride straight into Reading and out the other side to get to the Chilterns, it’s a PITA but at least I used to ride to work that way so know the roads like the back of my hand, just have to seal with Saturday morning traffic.

Being honest would have to say yes, the increased cost of getting any where will inevitably affect peoples desire to travel for “Leisure activities”… and has limited my movements…

I’ve been riding more locally, and while I’m not lucky enough to live in the peaks I don’t live in the worst place on earth to ride an MTB, My road bike is for commuting so it gets some use but just because I’m not driving to Wales every weekend, it doesn’t mean I’m going to stop riding My MTB, I can’t believe people’s default is to ride their road bike over a local explore on the MTB…

It’s all been positive in my experience, more local miles, more finding new trails, more digging less sitting in a car on the M4…

When I do get to go for a riding trip now, myself and the small group of mates I go with seem to appreciate it a little bit more, it’s a proper treat rather than “just another trip”…

From skimming this thread it seems a major source of income for trail centres these days is people using up their personal mileage allowances, be interesting to see how long it is before employers start culling that…

I can’t believe people’s default is to ride their road bike over a local explore on the MTB…

Each time I have a local off-road explore I end up wishing I was on the road bike – our local stuff is that shit!

Do you live in Norfolk/Suffolk/Cambs?

Those are the only area’s where it can be excused I reckon?

*(I’ve lived in both Suffolk and Cambs)