So I’m in my last year in school over in Northern Ireland.
Intending to do some form of sports science at a university on the mainland with you folk. I live to race my bicycle, so good local trails/scenes/races are a pretty big factor in deciding where I want to spend the next 3 or 4 years of my life.

Current 5 choices are Loughborough, Birmingham, Sheffield, Brunel, Aberdeen.
Other places I’ve considered are Hertfordshire, Edinburgh, Exeter, Durham.

Ireland is a lovely place, everything is just up the road – I can race road, mtb and cx without having to drive more than 2hrs in any direction. Obviously the mainland is a bit different, but I hope to be racing elite level, primarily xc racing, inevitably road and cx too. My question is, is there any of those places you definitely wouldn’t want to be if you were into riding/racing mtb, or any you definitely would want to be?
I know the Sheffield scene is pretty good, I’ve been there with the UK School Games last year, haven’t been anywhere else though. Google maps can only tell me a certain extent, I know in Ireland there are some fantastic mtb spots where you’d never think from looking at a map. Any insight at all would be awesome, thanks! 🙂

That’s quite a range of academic-ness if you see what I mean. What are your predicted grades?

Loughborough for the support you would get whilst there would be my 1st choice.

GB

I know what you mean. Predicted grades – A*AA

Loughborough entry grades – AAA
B’ham entry grades – AAB
Sheffield, Brunel – ABB
Aberdeen – BBB

Therefore, I’d kind of like to go to Loughborough or Birmingham as in theory the standards would be higher, and the sports support looks top-class. BUT neither of them offer a placement which I think would be fairly useful for employability prospects and general learning/experience.

I see Loughborough won both the BUCS XC championship race and XC sport race. Maybe would be worthwhile trying to get in contact with Jonathan Pybus who won the championship race.

Have you looked at Bath? Great local riding/racing scene, just over the water from the Trails of the Lands of my Fathers, and a very good university all round.

My top tip, though, would be to choose on the course and the education, not the racing/riding. The latter can be found (almost) anywhere. The former cannot.

I had considered Bath, they’ve a good placement year oppurtunity and good course in general. BUT I did notice that they seem to offer specific support and scholarships to just about every sport other than cycling, which didn’t seem all that promising to me.

Sheffield /end of thread

Carnegie in Leeds; great university for Spex…

Loughborough is renowned for its sport. No idea on the academic side but they produce bucs champions on a regular basis.

Bath also has a strong sport setup.

Durham cycling has come on leaps since I was there and I regularly see them around the north east. If you do come up this way then you’ll find no shortage of road and CX in riding distance but will struggle more with xc. If you head to the ne then a look at newcastle and Northumbria would also be sensible. From what I remember the sports science bit of Durham is at Stockton campus so a considerable distance away from the main university. They weren’t really seen as part of the uni when I was there and struggled to get involved in stuff due to location. You may be able to get some sponsorship at Durham so worth looking at. You need to be top level for that. Used to be team durham that elite athletes competed under.

The standard of flange at Loughborough is also nothing short of outstanding

Carnegie in Leeds; great university for Spex…

Unfortunately the Leeds Met cycling team are less than useless.

University of Leeds however, have a fantastic cycling club, covering every aspect of the sport at the highest levels. Sports scholarships are also available for Cat1/2 road or elite XC riders (not strict but those are the levels previous scholars have been riding at)

The standard of flange at Loughborough is also nothing short of outstanding

Unfortunately the competition is all 6 foot plus rowers/athletes/rugby players.

pfft that’s nothing compared to a gnar/mince-core mtber!

If it were me, I’d seriously conisder Manchester. Its a good uni, an ace city and having the velodrome nearby cant harm your academic opportunities to get some fantastic experience.

of your choices, Sheffield for the student lifestyle, Loughborough in relation to the course and your ability to make contacts and get a good job post graduation.

Not knowing anything about the course, but having lived near, and visited many of of University cities I’d have to say Heriott Watt.

Depends what type of uni you are after; research or teaching based, elite sport or sport for all. If you’re an elite level athlete it’s worth getting in touch with the sponsorship programs to see what support, help and pedigree they can offer. They vary a lot!

So many options, such an exciting time. Good luck.

and having the velodrome nearby cant harm your academic opportunities to get some fantastic experience.

The problem being that every sports science student within 50 miles of it wants work placements and they just don’t do them – too much demand for virtually zero benefit to the team.

Great for racing and training though and Manchester has access to some great MTB and road riding. Good race scene round there although the main road races are a bit further north – Preston upwards mostly.

Not sure about the uni, but Loughborough and the surrounding area is an MTB desert.

One general thing to consider is bike storage. Frinstance, my lot ban bikes in halls. There’s bike storage available but it’s for shoppers only, totally inadequate for a proper bike. In practice, there’s a tolerance of it as long as you respect the rooms and don’t cause any problems. But that’s something practical to watch for.

oliverd1981 – Member

Not knowing anything about the course, but having lived near, and visited many of of University cities I’d have to say Heriott Watt.

HW is a good uni, but no sports science courses- we got very bad takeup on it so binned it.

Not sure about the uni, but Loughborough and the surrounding area is an MTB desert.

This. I came to Leicester Uni a year ago, an avid mountain biker, and now I’m in a road club and shave my legs. Make of that what you will.

Loughborough a mtb desert? What utter nonsense. You can ride to whitwick area for example. Ace trails.

I know you’ve already said you discounted Bath, but might be worth taking a second look. I graduated two years ago, and the cycling club is ace – don’t worry about lack of support! We’ve won BUCS plenty of times, and we have world cup XC racers lurking around campus, so you certainly won’t be the fastest in the club!
Take a look at the facebook page to get an idea of what goes on. The trails around campus are great and there is a lot of riding to keep you busy. Probably also the only campus with a DH track leaving from the Uni Halls!

If you want any more specific info send me an email. Also, academics wise, its hard to get any better.

I went to Loughborough in the 90’s on an engineering course. Obviously things have changed a bit since then but my experience FWIW;

Biking – Mountain biking locally was rubbish, slogging around muddy bridleways and no hills. On the roads things were much better, the Uni club was very well organised and transport was always available to races.

Academically – Loughborough was and still is a very well respected Uni especially for sporting related courses. The sporting facilities are superb and accessible. The jocks did have to wear really ‘nice’ purple tracksuits though!

Socially – Loughborough is very much a campus uni, with pretty much everything taking place on site. Loughborough itself wasn’t really worth going out in on a weekend (at that time the locals weren’t particularly student friendly either) so I used to go to Leicester / Nottingham most weekends. The union was OK and had some good events on at times though.

The union used to run a scheme where you could take a short driving test and become a registered minibus driver. If any sports teams needed a driver they could ring you up and you negotiated a price. I spent one year driving the netball team all over the country every Wednesday, driving a couple of hours with 20 drunk girls is an experience!

I went to Loughborough 01-06, and echo what is said above, was involved with the climbing mob, but got to know quite a few of the bikers.

On the MTB front it isn’t as bad as portrayed here. 15min ride the the local dirt jumps, there is some decent, though cheeky trail around in the local woods (Beacon Hill and further out), and a 90 minute car trip has you in the Peaks or Cannock.

Access to high performance sport nutrition/physio/training facilities is great, and pretty cheap, even if you aren’t a “proper” athlete (like me).

And yes, Wednesday night has some excellent banter/pulling opportunities.

Cardiff! Trail centres all over the place. New up lift in gethin woods about 30mins from cardiff. Loads of local stuff to get your teeth stuck into. 10mins ride up the taff trail and you have 100kms of local riding! and theres caerphilly….loads more but cant remmeber off the top of my head

I see Loughborough won both the BUCS XC championship race and XC sport race. Maybe would be worthwhile trying to get in contact with Jonathan Pybus who won the championship race.

I’m just amazed Pybus finished a race without crashing.

We’ve won BUCS plenty of times, and we have world cup XC racers lurking around campus, so you certainly won’t be the fastest in the club!

Surely John doesn’t set foot on campus?!

I’d go for Loughborough/Bath ahead of Birmingham for sure if it were me. Both are excellent for sports, and whilst I can’t speak for Loughborough the riding around Bath is great.

Don’t dismiss Newcastle/Durham/Northumbria uni’s
Local ridign is decent enough once you know where to find it. However the best is that Northumberland/Cheviots/Borders/7stanes/Lakes/Hexhamshire/Dales are all no time away from here at all.

🙂

umop3pisdn – Member

Not sure about the uni, but Loughborough and the surrounding area is an MTB desert.

This. I came to Leicester Uni a year ago, an avid mountain biker, and now I’m in a road club and shave my legs. Make of that what you will.

Been at Leicester for 4 years, I still flog out the worst mountain biking our country has to offer.

Where do you ride, out of interest? I’ve heard of some cheeky stuff in Bradgate Park, but it’s a bit of a slog to get to on an mtb.

Staffs Uni? Not sure on placements/scholarships there but used to be a highly-regarded sports science course (at least when I went there :p ).

I’m at Loughborough currently as a 4th year and part of LSCC at the moment.

The trails aren’t as bad as said above,there’s two main riding areas, beacon/swithland/bradgate(alot is cheeky) and Whitwick, and its possible (albeit via road) to connect the two up to make a 35ish mile loop which is alright. The main problem is getting bored of those after a few weeks-as said before there is peaks and cannock around an hour away. The club organises trips away to wales at a reasonable cost too.

Theres plenty of support for elite riders, and as mentioned above massages etc can be done on the cheap as part of the club. There was 30 guys out on the XC ride yesterday and about 60 on the Road ride, obviously mixed ability but you should be able to find some riders of a similar standard.(I’m a bit of a slow XC/Road mincer) They’re trying to get into Track abit more this year too(something I’m hoping to be involved in) with trips to Manchester and Newport if that tickles your fancy. Social scene is pretty good too.

Dave- I’m going to assume you are Alice’s brother? (I know her through Jazz Band, and that she has a fast XC riding brother)

@Kitz Cris

Probably also the only campus with a DH track leaving from the Uni Halls!

Storthes Hall student residence near Huddersfield also has one, but it’s definitely a rare commodity.

@davemonty – with A*AA as your predicted grades you’re in the driving seat as university admissions are down and AAB students are highly prized as they aren’t counted within the strict quotas universities are allowed to recruit.
Definitely pick the university before you pick the riding, it sounds like you’re willing to travel to ride so that opens you up to most of the country. Don’t discount some of the central London uni’s as you’re less than an hour from the surrey hills and there’s a lot of road riding clubs as well.
Also look at what sport the university is affiliated with and where you want to end in your career. Leeds Met where i work is a very good sports science uni, but not the best at cycling.

umop3pisdn – Member

Where do you ride, out of interest? I’ve heard of some cheeky stuff in Bradgate Park, but it’s a bit of a slog to get to on an mtb.

Braggy Park is on my doorstep but it has to be done early am or late pm for best rides. (I used to ride there from Fleckney so having it just 4 miles away now is a walk in the park so to speak) Swithland woods is also pretty good, I’ll find the link to the post so we don’t fully hijack this fellas thread. uni email is gml11 if you wanna drop me a line

Swithland wood post

Intending to do some form of sports science at a university…

useful for employability prospects

Am I the only one who sees the irony!

On a more constructive note, Aberdeen is 2+ hrs from anywhere, so if you really plan to spend your weekends travelling the elite race scene it will be a ball ache.

Your choice of degree will affect the rest of your life. There is, statistically, a reasonable likelihood that when you go to Uni and discover Drink / Drugs / Willing Sexual Partners that biking will change in priority for you. Your predicted grades are very good; potentially you can follow any career path you wish – but beware a Sports Science Degree could be a dead end.

What about Stirling? Big sports faculty there iirc, and very very good riding right behind the campus

Can I (excuse the bias) recommend Exeter? Exmoor, Dartmoor & Quantocks with 45 mins drive, decent local racing within driving distance.

Proper hard-drinking campus Uni, if thats your thing.

I own one of the nearby student pubs…

I’d say that if you want to do lots of racing then Scotland will leave you with a vast amount of travelling. At least you have more viable public transport options from the UK.

Sheffield, where else in the country can you leave the student halls or ghetto (Endcliffe Village for 1st years, Crookes for everyone else) and be in a national park within 10 minutes riding? There’s also Warncliffe (pronounced Whooaaaaa it’s a f****** cliff by XC mincers) which is rideable even on a DH bike from the city center.

It’s also pretty central if you want to do national races, although I’ve no idea how southern centric they might be, it’s geographicaly 3 hours from Scotland or London but it’s very definately the start of the ‘North’ so any ‘National’ events that barely leave the home counties might be a trek.

Not much local raceing either, but then I didn’t race so didn’t bother me. It’s better for that on the Manchester side.

On the other hand Loughborough will probably be the best course and best SU, but Loughborough is a small town with nothing going for it. And there is nothing you’d actualy chose to ride within 90min drive, just bog standard flat-ish muddy bridleways, I once bumped into a student who’d driven out to the Melbourne/Ticknall area and though it was singletrack nirvana, poor thing!

Bangor?

Snowdonia on your doorstep and all the riding that goes with it.

Thanks for all the replies, s’awesome.
Kitz Chris – can’t get on facebook at the minute, but will check that out. Bath looks very good as a university in general.
I’m going vaguely by the rankings of universities and their specific sports science rankings, so Cardiff, Newcastle etc don’t really come into it, the 9/10 I listed at the start are the top 10.
PGreen – yep, that’d be me. Say hi to her sometime for me 🙂 Loughborough seems to be coming out on top. LSCC website and community looks good. Have done a bit of track myself, it’s super fun, high speed.
Poly – cheers, shall disregard Aberdeen then. I know what you mean about a Sports Science degree. I’m fairly passionate about it, I’d hope I could do something with it, be that coaching, managing a team, sports promotion with a local council. If it turns out a complete dead end I wouldn’t at all mind being a teacher so I could go the PGCE route in theory. Bound to end up doing something more interesting than being a GP anyway. Although any other ideas are very welcome!

So choices looking like Loughborough, Bath, Birmingham, Sheffield Hallam, Brunel. With Loughborough and Bath being the favoured two?