I’ve been offered an interview for a PDRA at Nottingham Uni. The group is excellent and it’s quite a good opportunity due to good links with industry. It would be a great way to get some working experience with UK aerospace, which is where I want to end up.

– Is there any decent mountainbiking which is ride-able from the University Park Campus?
– What is it like parking near the University Park Campus?
– Can anybody recommend areas to look at, for rental accommodation?

-Debatable/No
-crap to nightmare depending what time you arrive
-Beeston to be with everyone that works here or near the M1 to get to mountain biking places

-not really, a small hill + a few jumps at bramcote/hemlock stone or bestwood park. There are a few bridleways that you link together via canal paths.
Better biking is further away – peaks / cannock chase/ sherwood pines all about 1 hr drive

-I’d bike in to the campus, traffic is bad at that time in the morning if I had to go that way (probably quicker too)

-Avoid lenton / radford (it’s where all the students are). Beeston / Chillwell / Wollaton or further out towards Derby – depends what you want city/suburbs/village life?

1. Depends what you want. Loads local Singletrack if you know where to look , Bigger hills then 45mins to Peaks.
2. campus by bike or bus. Staff parking plentiful but now costs
3. Beeston for campus. West Bridgford if want more suburbia / have more cash to spend.
Email in profile if you want more

Not much ride-able stuff from the City. You can ride out to Sherwood Pines if you like a longer rider…

Not sure re parking.

I’d look south of the river for accommodation. Much nicer areas 🙂

I’ve heard the Sherriff’s a bit of a dick.

Traffic is manic around the campus – I commute past it about 7.30 by bike – and it presumably gets worse after that. Riding in, or tramming in might be better options. Better to look at somewhere to rent convenient for that, though by definition you are in student territory.

Lots of cycle paths and bridleways around Nottingham for riding, but nothing very gnarr. You are only an hour from Cannock, Pines and the Peak, so again, think about where you want to travel to when factoring in housing possibilities.

The areas to avoid are the cheap ones, you’ll see why when driving through them.

All cities have good and bad areas, and they are usually side by side, so use your common sense and ask on here when you have some more fixed ideas.

To give you an idea, if I drive into Nottingham, it’s 11 miles and can take 35-60 minutes, depending on time and luck. I can ride 12 miles in – half off road – in between 45-60 minutes depending on energy levels and headwinds. But I live the correct side of the border, in Derbyshire.

Its got a hooters 😯

Moved here ~12 years ago for work
3 jobs later, only 1 based in Nottingham, and I’m still here.

I really like living in Nottingham, but I suppose it depends on what you want from where you live, your age group, social circles etc.

for MTB, really, you need to drive, there is some local stuff, but you’ll still probably want to drive to get to it. better, is the peak isn’t far.

Traffic, and parking is a pain, the council charges ~£300 for the privilege of parking at your work place! so commute by bike FTW

I hear the meadows is still a cheap place to live 🙂
(in reality, id look a beeston, west bridgeford, wollaton)

It’s better than living in Derby

(Says a Derby resident of last 16 years who spent 5 years before that at Uni in Nottingham)

Riding – get a CX bike, bridleways and canal links to areas south of Notts (Gotham), west (Dale Abbey, Shipley) or North (Bestwood, Felly/Eastwood) become much more interesting on a CX bike
For mountain biking it’s a short drive to Pines, Cannock, the Peak, slightly closer to Matlock area where there is loads of great riding
There is a ride to the south of Nottingham on the STW rides section, that is doable from the city centre via the old canal/bridleways, and the Ticknall ride south of Derby is okay for a fast summer blast

Shottingham….

I think more people have been shot/stabbed in Derby in the last 5 years than Nottingham? And don’t get me started on van breakins in Belper! 😉

Iain1775 has got the riding spot on. He has overlooked mentioning that Derby is where you move to when you are too grown up for Nottingham.

You could try Nuthall/Kimberley for accommodation. A reasonable commute to the uni (possible to work out a mostly traffic free route), local woodland loops out to Bestwood or numerous patches of forest which can be linked to take you as far as you want to go (!) and you are on junction of the M1. Central for most UK riding, esp Peaks, Yorkshire, Lakes, Wales

Riding as per all the above. Nottingham is a great city, small and compact with all you need. 1:45 and you’re in London if you want that of your weekends. Peak District/ Cannock etc is all around an hour away. The tram now goes through the university campus so opens up your areas for living. As Mildbore said, Nuthall/ Kimberley are both good. I’m in Watnall in the middle of them both, my cycle commute is 10 miles to near the station and takes 35-40mins. To drive could be an hour for the same or worse at peak times.

I’m originally from Nottingham, and Beeston is one of the best places to live there at the moment. Loads of my friends have moved there; it’s an affordable, nice, well connected neighbourhood. Especially now the tram extension is open.

In terms of living there, it’s a great place if you’re either a student, or want to settle down. You’ll find though that Derby, Nottingham, Leicester, and their residents will get into constant pissing matches with each other, when that fact is they’re all small cities perched on the event horizon of London. Most people hit 25 then either settle down or **** off. It’s not a terrible place to buy a house and have kids. The East Midlands is a shit place to be single in your thirties though. It’s a weird demographic gap that drove me away and is noticeable when I go back to visit Notts. I thought it was just me at first, but after moving away to several other cities, realised people in Nottingham really can be pretty weird and intense about dating/singleness/etc.

The nightlife is less aggressive and macho than it once was, but it still has a drunk, loud, pukey square mile at the centre after 20:00 or so. Much, much less fighting than there used to be though.

“- Is there any decent mountainbiking which is ride-able from the University Park Campus?”

Not really. Iain has it right about getting a CX bike. We all rode hardtails, and the few who went full suss said it made local riding, including Pines, quite boring. Nottingham is probably one of the worst places in the country to live with a mountain bike but not a car. Mostly, you’re in a wide, very flat valley.

There’s a load of guys who dig over at Hemlock stone (about three miles from the University Park Campus), a couple of DH runs with a line of dirtjumps at the bottom, but you’ll be down in thirty seconds and pushing back up. Likewise, some digging in the woods at the northern tip of Bestwood Park, but short lines (with some very big jumps) that were decaying last time I went. That park does also have the best natural riding I found close to the city, you just won’t get an all day ride out of it.

Sneinton?

Nottingham is probably one of the worst places in the country to live with a mountain bike but not a car.

I wouldnt go that far
Anywhere further east of Nottingham is alot worse, from Lincoln across to Norwich to name just one area. Leicester isn’t much cop either without a car (and its further from the Peaks)
I’d actually say after cities like Edinburgh, Sheffield, Bristol, Shrewsbury, Cardiff/Swansea area etc Nottingham is a pretty decent base for a mountain biker, a car makes it easier but without a car Nottingham is well served by bridleways and old canals/railways converted into cycle paths, they do at least allow plenty of traffic free cycling to link together the small more technical (but still not very technical) bits there is. Hence my CX suggestion, my CX is probably my most used bike if I’m out from the doorstep

If you’re going to be working/studying in Nottingham then you’re better off living there. Driving in and out of there his a complete nighmare. It’s been hugely improved recently with the upgrade of the road to the M1 junciton being converted to a dual carridgeway, but that will only help you if you want to get out of Nottingham City Centre and out towards the M1 and out towards Derby. It’s still a horrendous place to drive in and out of, and within the city. Also, not sure if they still have this in place, but they brought in a car park charge for businesses too, so if you woked in Nottingham and communted in by car, the council charged you for using the car park at your place of work, so make sure this doesn’t affect you.

For riding you’re looking at getting out of Nottingham and more into Derbyshire or the Peaks, so a good 40 minute drive – or get your bike on the train, there are plenty of trainstations in Derbyshire in the heart of all the good riding places – the Peaks might be a bit more tricky by public transport.

The typical student areas of Nottingham were a bit rough – not sure if things have improved over the last 20 years, but they used to be a bit of a war zone – lots of violent crime, house thefts and car thefts – from the experiences from quite a few friends who went to Uni there 20 years ago most of which were mugged themselves at some point, a few beaten up by the locals pastime of ‘student bashing’, I had my car knicked when visiting a mate there once, and they all had their houses broken into a number of times during their time there. So if I were you i’d look out to the nicer (and hence pricier) parts of town.

Sneinton?

A bit rough. I live further up the hill in Bakersfied which is slightly nicer.

As to the riding, my mountainbikes haven’t moved in a few years. Living in the Surrey Hills and then Sheffield spoilt me, as I just can’t bring myself to drive to ride a bicycle.

Motorbikes are how I get my two-wheeled fix now.

thanks for the advice folks. It’s very much appreciated. I’ve only been to Nottingham once, to pick up a bike. I know very little about it. I grew up in the North York Moors and then moved to Sheffield for Uni, so I’ve been a little spoilt with easy access to good biking terrain.

The interview is next week. If i get the position, I’ll look at areas like Beeston. Ideally, I’ll need a flat/ terraced house with car parking and a garden for the dog.

Cycle commuting looks good; there seems to be lots of little ponds, docks and so on, along with parks. Using the canal paths to link up little woodlands should be enough to give a couple of hours mtb’ing on a weekday evening. The weekends can be saved for the peaks 😀

I lived in or around Nottingham for almost 15 years and really like the place, would probably still be a local if I hadn’t got a job 40 miles away!

Anyway most of it has been covered so far, but I’ll definitely stick up for Nottingham riding.

Okay, it’s not the Peak District, and it might not be the mighty Surrey hills, but it’s pretty easy to link loads of woodsy singletrack together going north out of the city for a good days riding. And then if you make it up as far as Sherwood Pines there is loads of singletrack to play on. A good while ago one of the rangers there told me they’d been out looking and had found about 40-odd miles of trails, on top of the official ones.

Okay, there might be a bit of connecting road on the rides at times, but it seems it’s only relatively recently that people seem to have stopped going out doing more traditional cross country routes in favour of it having to be gnarr all the time, but then I guess hardly anyone had full suspension bikes back then…

Edit: Oh, and the University used to have a pretty active MTB club… so might be worth tying up with them.

CharlieMungus – Member
Sneinton?

Sneinton is forever up and coming, and never quite seems to get there, but is a lot less rough than it was in the 90’s/early 00’s. Likewise for Forest Fields, used to be dealers and users, now mainly hippies and students (though never, ever walk over the forest rec alone after dark).

But speaking of Sneinton, I meant to say the woods along Colwick Ridge are a pretty nice run around on a bike. Nothing massively long or techy, but you can get in a 4 – 6Km loop with some steep hills and nice singletrack. A lot of it feels more secluded than it is, and there are several routes rideable each way East and West:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.9529033,-1.1083461,16z/data=!3m1!1e3
(Most entry/exit points are on Greenwood Road, but less obvious ones also go up from near Snienton level crossing, the junction of Sneinton Boulevard and Shrewsbury Road, and the Eastern-most tip of the woods near the lowest point of Greenwood Road. It’s probably all cheeky, I never even checked TBH, but I rode bikes up there from when I was a kid until about four years ago, and the dog walkers I ran into were always friendly).

iain1775 – Member
Anywhere further east of Nottingham is alot worse, from Lincoln across to Norwich to name just one area.

Ah, fair point, and I did find the East Mids pretty good for bike commuting, even from Nottingham to Derby. I think you’re absolutely right about it being more fun for something like a CX bike though. I was on a Hardrock at the time and rarely needed anything more. The rocks around Hedben Bridge took a bit of getting used to in comparison!

Thanks nach, i used to go to school in Sneinton, back in the 80s

A lot of BS here, I particular liked the hearsay from students 20 years ago…

I’ve lived here for the last 7 years.

Nottingham has rough bits like any city, but there’s plenty of V nice bits too. As above, W Bridgeford, Wollaton and Beeston are all fine, the last 2 would be a walk to University Park really. W Bridgeford a nice ride along the river and canal.

The riding to the N of the city is fantastic, if you like twisty, pedally woodland singletrack that is. I should also add that it’s mostly on sandstone, so has remained DRY for all of this winter. A whole day loop is easily done.

Good pubs, in all flavours and Rock City and The Rescue Rooms for bands.

What’s not to like?

Good luck with the interview.

APF

Sounds good! ^

Good luck with the interview, HR!

Notts is great. Always plenty going on and has a good arts and culture scene. Mtb not so much. I’ve lived here for over two years and do most of my riding in Amber Valley via train journeys.
If you’re happy with one ride a week then it’s not so bad to get out to decent trails at the weekend. Just don’t expect any gnarly local weeknight rides.