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Burls - Quantocks are very good indeed but miss the wide open vistas and big mountains and certainly the bits I was shown the "just riding along thru the countryside". all very intense up and down but no descent more than a few minutes and no great sense of covering distance / journey.
IOts a broad church mountain biking which is why this thread is a bit daft really. No one area has it all. Grampians come close tho with big mountain rides and also woods and also old routes thru glens
Other than Grizedale and Lingmoor, name any other classic route which doesn't include a hike a bike?
Iron Keld/Loughrigg/Elterwater etc. Staveley/Longsleddale/Kentmere is 99% rideable too. And there's loads of different routes in Grizedale/Claife with no hike a bike.
anywhere as long as it's with good people 😀
Iron Keld/Loughrigg/Elterwater etc. Staveley/Longsleddale/Kentmere is 99% rideable too. And there's loads of different routes in Grizedale/Claife with no hike a bike.
Don't want to get into an argument, i'll give you the first three IF you pick your routes but come on, the last three! You name me any route in kentmere which doesn't involve hike a bike, unless i'm talking to a riding god! Anyway as I said each to their own, we will have to agree to disagree.
Sue W
In the UK - the Carneddi mountains in Snowdonia
Any standout routes for you in the Carneddi? (I've recently moved to Bethesda) 😀
really surprised no one has said it yet... but...
Been living in Innerleithen for just over a year now, riding here for about 6 years. I love living here and I'm still not bored of the riding. These days I hardly ride anywhere else other than the tweed valley hills on my door step. An incredible variety of stuff to choose from.
If I had to ride on just the trails around Innerleithen for the rest of my life, I reckon I'd be very happy with that. Saves me having to move too 🙂
There was a little run of cheeky singletrack at Cannock on the weekend that, if you could extend by about 3k I would happily ride on a loop for the rest of my life 🙂 There is alot to be said for flow, I would want that much more than features if I could only ride one place evermore.
You name me any route in kentmere which doesn't involve hike a bike, unless i'm talking to a riding god!
The route I suggested - from Staveley to Longsleddale, then over to Kentmere and back to Staveley - only one very short section of climb that most people would struggle to ride (I'm sure someone out there could ride it). And I'm certainly no riding god.
There's also Whinlatter trail centre and Lonscale Fell/Latrigg near Keswick, stuff round Cartmel fell, and Jenkin Crag.
Just saying that characterising all Lakes riding as epic hike a bike is fairly misleading imo.
not so much misleading as just plain bollocks
The roads!!!!
Only kidding (I hope :lol:) I do like the suggestion of the Alps as you'd never run out of trails, if it was the UK, I'd have to agree with the Tweed Valley. Would really miss my (kind of) local trails if I never rode them again.
Chamonix.
Maxray- we can extend it, now that we know you we'll take you deeper into the secret bits for a full day out
I like where I live, western fringe of the Peak. Still finding amazing new trails to ride after almost 20 years and love the way stuff rideable all year round, but always subtly different. There's a fascination for me in seeing how familiar trails change with conditions and use and temperature.
Abroad? Alpujaras/Sierra Nevada in southern Spain maybe, or I have an itch to ride in Nepal and/or Bolivia.
But I reckon I could manage anywhere with decent-sized hills. If the trail's too easy, change the bike to make it interesting again.
Only one??
I.. I can't.. I mean there are soooo many amazing places.. I'll have to choose 3, you're kind enough to grant that yeah??
1) Brittany, France. Sun, sea, mountains (well feking large hills - steep hills, rolling countryside, access to miles of French farm and wooded forest land, oh and the food.
2) Florence, Italy. Sun, sea (quite close), large hills - steep hills, rolling countryside, access to miles of Italian farm and wooded forest land, oh and the food and culture and art and architecture and..and.. and some beautiful women.
3) The Basque Country, Spain. Sun, sea, Mountains - steep mountains, rolling countryside, access to miles of Spanish farm and wooded forest land, oh and the food and culture and art and architecture and..and.. and some beautiful women.
I have some recuring themes there, so you'll understand why I choose why I do..
The lakes,
but if fuel prices keep rising year on year as they have done,and this may well be an evetuality.
if you want just one hill i'd say the Pfänder (1100m) in Austria. a small mountain with 700m of height difference. lots of trails. doesn't get too snowed up in winter and i know it really well.
as for area, i'd go for: South Tirol, Italy - beautiful scenery, some areas don't recieve much snow below 1000m and the valley floor sits at 400m; Bertschesgarten, Bavaria, Germany - proper big mountains that remain little ridden; or Freiburg, S-W Germany - lots of trials, good bike scene and nice town.
Colorado, Crested Butte if you want a defined area rather than an entire state.
South Tirol, Italy
Dammit, Alpin got there first.
From my limited experience so far it'd be Garda..... loads of fantastic trails: 601, Sentiaro della Pace, Serpente, Skull
And all this with proper thin pizzas, lovely ice-cream and even lovelier Munich beer. Pure heaven 🙂
My local trails if I had only one ride left, so Chinley / Hayfield. The first thing I see in the morning is Mt Famine and South Head, right out of my bedroom window. And I just want to go up and have a nosey round to see how things are looking, the wildlife, livestock and stuff that grows.
If not local then around Betws y Coed, as that was my first proper experience of mountain biking and I love the scenery around there.
Quantocks for me not just because they're closest (3.5 miles) Dartmoor and Exmoor are OK but I find you have to work a lot harder to string the good bits together without long boring bits in between.
i spent every friday and saturday at Garda last year.
the thing that pisses me off with Garda is the whole "look-at-me" crowd. there is some great, year-round riding to be had, but so many people never make it above 500m and think that a 1 hour ride up Monte Brione or a pootle along Ponale (up to where it gets steep) constitutes a day out. too many like to ride through town, grab an ice-cream and sit there counting how many looks their precious bike recieved.
seriously, next time you are there count how many "used" bikes you see. almost all are picobello in appearence, brand new tyres with this years latest dropper post or other such accessory.
an awful lot of people there are over biked and underskilled (go on STW nazis, jump on me) for the trails they are riding. i blame the magazines for pushing certain trails (601?) and stating that you need "x" bike with "y" travel to ride them.
Lake Como is much nicer, imo. not so many people but same laid back culture/feel.
Seems to be a lot of love for the Qs on here. Think I'll have to go and give 'em a try.
tough call between peaks or lakes for me. reckon it would be the lakes, easy to combine with good road riding, climbing, walking and nice wild camping too and not far from me folks... 😉
The Glencoe/Kinlochleven/Glen Etive hills and surrounding paths. Not rode all the trails there, but my, the scenery is simply majestic.
Garda ... so many people never make it above 500m
Alpin, that's got to be a good thing surely 😉
You are a very fortunate person. 8)
I'm not sure about "need" for big bike on anything around there. I took a 140 and it was fine. Mate took an mmmBop & a "5" with 160s. He rode the techy stuff better on the mmmBop TBH.
601 was probably well down the list of best trails IMHO. I think Sentiaro della Pace and Bocca di Fobia were probably my favourites
Quantocks for me, lived 5 miles away for 8 years and never got bored. About time I visited actually.
yeah, it is a good thing, but i feel it's avictim of its own sucess.
i, too, ride everything there with my Lyrik'd DB Alpine and don't have any problem. most of the trails are more techy than full on speed DH (which seems to be what people expect given the bikes they ride).
beautiful area, though. even better if you like windsailing (which is a bit gey).
The best thing about Cannock Chase is that it doesn't matter if you've only got an hour, you can get some good stuff in. But if you've got all weekend, there's enough to keep you entertained.
UK = Dartmoor
World = Downieville
Shropshire seems pretty good - you've got the Long Mynd, Hopton and Bringewood, probably more that I don't know about.
If I 'only' had the Peak District to go at for the rest of ma puff, I wouldn't be disappointed.
I was going to say Surrey Hills on account of laziness but then I saw this post
Zoolander - Member
Ibiza
There's not one standout trail there that's better than a lot of well known trails but I'm never happier than when I'm on the bike over there.
and then I wondered... is that blissfulness down to trails or a consequence of er other activities?
Ibiza's not somewhere ive taken much sporting equipment, Ok the missus on the last visit, er a while ago...
Whistler
Easy, round here - Stirling - just wish the weather was good.