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I'm guessing becuase it's a fairly wealthy [u]city[/u] and has lots of access to good riding spots:
Bristol trails - 15 mins ride away
Mendip - 25 mins drive
CwmCarn - 40 mins drive
FOD - 50 mins drive
Cotswolds - 50 mins drive
Quantock - 60 mins drive
Malvern - 60 mins drive
Brecon - 90 mins drive
Afan - 100 mins drive
Ednburgh - wealthy city with a high quality of life and high employment at high wages and far more riding than bristol
Pentlands - 20 mins ride a hundred of miles of legal trails
Corstorphine hill - 10 mins ride away
Masses more riding within an hours ride from
Glentress - 40 mins drive
Innerleithan 40 mins drive
Highland riding starts an hours drive away Dunkeld and so on
Stirling less than an hours drive - dumyat, Ben Cleugh etc
No doubt its some decent riding around bristol but no way can it compare especially for what you can ride to from the city in a short time
Hmm, I'm still not convinced 😕
Still think I'd rather be somewhere in the North West, with access to Peaks, Pennines, Lakes and North Wales all within the same kind of driving times.
Quantocks and FOD are fab though, not tried the Mendips yet.
oh good, the 'my city is better than your city' has started.
Can't believe they left Leicester off their list!
I really hope you're joking, I've never lived anywhere with less going for it.
I believe MBR are based around Bristol, also there is seemingly a politically correct spread of locations.
If it was regions rather than cities then clearly Yorkshire would be number 1 😉
Bristol is fairly close to Swindon and therefore the trails out the back of the Nationwide.
bosh!
Is Brighton a city?
London as a good city to be a MTBer. Made me laugh!.
Bristol has some from the door riding and the Quantocks not far away and [b]Dartmoor[/b] not much further.
That'll be accessed by driving past Exeter then. 😉
I believe MBR are based around Bristol,
MBR are based in Croydon and do most of their riding in the Surrey Hills, daahhhling.
I quite like the Bath/Bristol area but anyone that thinks it's remotely in the same league as Edinburgh for a mountain biker is certifiable.
Having London anywhere on that list is also a joke - London has many wonderful qualities but a great location for a mountain biker wouldn't be on the list.
Bristol trails - 15 mins ride away
Mendip - 25 mins drive
CwmCarn - 40 mins drive
FOD - 50 mins drive
Cotswolds - 50 mins drive
Quantock - 60 mins drive
Malvern - 60 mins drive
Brecon - 90 mins drive
Afan - 100 mins drive
Afan 100 mins? Are you riding there? 😀
Not mentioned dertmoor, exmoor, longleat.
The main thing is you can ride this stuff (and get to it) all year round.
Well I'm half an hour from no.5 and 40 mins from no.3, I'm happy where I am, in 'the biggest town in Europe'(if not the world!) We could've been a city but we don't what that! And I don't have to drive anywhere to get to some great trails with proper hills!
You know what, i get to do a trail every morning on the way to work. I live in Bristol. Thats all that matters to me. Many thanks, kind regards, stay safe, well done, take care, use the green cross code and NEVER run with scissors.
Bristols a great place with good riding - I simply think that Sheffield and Edinburgh are duking it out for first and Bristol third.
Having London anywhere on that list is also a joke - London has many wonderful qualities but a great location for a mountain biker wouldn't be on the list.
no complaints from me about living in London - fantastic transport connections in every direction
we have Surrey Hills (965ft on Pitch Hill), Woburn Sands, Aston Hills, Swinley Forest, Wisley, Chicksands, PORC (we also used to have Esher Shore before it closed) and other riding locations all within an hour of London by train
plus stacks of dirt jump trails accessible by train just ouside London, if you know the builders, and London has over 35 skateparks if like me you enjoy riding DJs and Skatepark in addition to mountain biking
and quick, easy access to all the Welsh trail centres and FOD by car
Gatwick and Heathrow quickly accessible by train, with great air connections to some of the world's best riding in Europe and Canada
in the past season, we flew from Gatwick after breakfast and were riding the excellent Winterberg Bike Park in Germany before lunchtime!
and 10 minutes ride up the road from my house in NW London, I have 1200 acres of steep woodland with dozens of excellent XC trails including a 3 minute descent off one side and a 6 minute descent off the other side
no problems from me?
london above manchester, absolute joke... be edinburgh for me if you include why the city is actually like as well...
esher shore - Only the last bit about the place you ride to in 10 mins is local to you, every other place you talk about is planes/trains/automobiles.
Tells a story.
including a 3 minute descent off one side and a 6 minute descent off the other side
Wow - huge long runs
esher shore - Member
we have Surrey Hills (965ft on Pitch Hill), Woburn Sands, Aston Hills, Swinley Forest, Wisley, Chicksands, PORC (we also used to have Esher Shore before it closed) and other riding locations all within an hour of London by train
and thats the 8th best set of locations, god help us all...
Wells is the best city in England because its the smallest and at the foot of the Mendips and nearer the Quantocks, Dartmoor and Exmoor than Brizzle
Bristol will concede victory to Edinburgh. Drawn with Sheffield though 😉
if you ask me edinburgh is probably the best place to live full stop.
i'll have to stay in middlesbrough (not a city) 'cos i'll struggle to earn a good living outside of the local industry. edinburgh would be very attractive though.
A controversial MTBR review? Whatever next.
buzz-lightyear - MemberBristol will concede victory to Edinburgh. Drawn with Sheffield though
You have to say positive and negatives with each city really.
TJ,
There's no mountain biking anywhere near Edinburgh, nor indeed anywhere in Scotland except for that famous Glentress place. Please stick to the party lines, we don't need the sort of person that decides where to live based on MBR's top 10 cluttering up the country.
no complaints from me about living in London - fantastic transport connections in every direction
So basically the best thing about MTB in London is the other places you can go to MTB, including a small hill in Surrey?
I'm sure it's Ok, and probably ever so good in so many other ways, but better than Manchester and Exeter for mountain biking???
Poly - I had got them believing me there for a minute :-0
Is this not the exact same article they printed about 2 years ago? Realy value for money with MBR...
Actually I agree with poly. There's nothing of interest north of Watford, just mud* and poor people.
*This actually feels true at the moment.
Gordon Bennett, the Pentlands look niice. Only ever been up the holland bit and that was a mud fest.. Hmmmm..
What no Swansea - afan, brechfa, brecon beacons, black mountain etc.
Holland bit? Hillend..
Swansea also has The Potters Wheel and (had, not sure if it is still closed) The Swansea Jack, two of the best pubs in all of South Wales. Try going in there in a pair of slightly too small lycra shorts.
I live in the South and yes I am very jealous of people living in Edinburgh, Exeter, Bristol or anywhere else apart from the over crowded South East.
This thread reveals the stupidity of the 'we're growing up lets move to from Bristol to the Midlands to be closers to friends and family' discussion that we're currently having the the CD household.
The Pentlands are rubbish.
Edinburgh smells when it's a westerly (coz the wind has to cross Glasgow first) and freezes when it's an Easterly.
It's full of tourists and the drivers are mental.
The council tax is about to shoot through the roof on account of the trams.
Getting in and out of the city is all bottlenecks and takes forever.
You'd hate it. Honestly.
druidh has nailed it. Edinburgh is crap. Everywhere near Edinburgh is crap. The folk in and near Edinburgh are awful. We should all move back to London. Never been to Bristol but that sounds good too!
Honestly I'm chuckling reading that list (having lived in a few of those towns on the list) - I'm guessing the guys came up with v1.0 and the editor came in and said - WTF my home town is missing - then the subs manager came in and said - 50% of our readers are from London, then .....
Pretty pointless really.
Wrexham is not on it. Wrexham should be in positions 1-5. Scotland is rubbish, take it off the list and put Thetford and the place next to the Olympic XC course down too.
It would be interesting to see exactly what criteria it's all based on, where they got their stats from and how they scored it. Or, did they just sit in a pub and decide over a few pints?. I thought Lancashire was supposed to be the new MTB Mecca in the north and yet Manchester was well down the list against Leeds. Can't imagine there's that much difference otherwise ie wages, quality of life, house prices, crime, time to drive to quality MTB destinations etc etc.
Everyone knows Lancaster is the real no 1 (and yes it is a city, technically) 🙂
I liked living in Brizzle, can't wait to move back.
The one thing was the People (and the riders) who were friendly not just the trails and roads for riding.
Is Edinb. as friendly to cyclists? (I don't know?)
So far living in Cambs and the cycle network for commuting is ok but the drivers hate us.
Why are the thefts so high in Cambridgeshire? worst place for mtb.
I reckon Inverness is the best central place for a mountain biker.. amongst other things. You can get to Torridon quicker that someone in Edinburgh could get to Inners! You could go to Golspie and Balblair in an hour,contin/strathpufferland in 20 mins,cairngorms 35 mins,learnie 40 mins and laggan about an hour. If you need to head south its straight onto the A9.. If you surf,Thurso 2 hours 20 mins up in the other direction. Natural or man made trails on weekdays can often be ridden with not another rider in sight. Its really that dead.
I would love to be closer to the central belt at times but a day in Edinburgh with the time it takes getting into the place,then exiting it.. leaves me laughing on the way out and shaking my head at how glad i am to be heading back to peace and quiet. Its just too busy for a tcheuchtery head like me.
Oh and we get proper seasons ;O)
I live in the peak district, can ride singletrack from of my front door all the way across the peak district if I desire, and my commute to work in central Sheffield takes 15 minutes. If you can get over the gruff northern-ness, there's nowhere better to live if you want to live in/near a big city and like riding.
Bristol is probably perfect if you like driving to trail centres, but the riding in and around Bristol itself is... average. Likewise living in the central Lakes or Peaks is probably pretty outstanding for riding but not very accessible to civilisation. There are way too many variables, but having ridden around most of the top 10, I'd agree with the top three (just not in that order).
TLDR: My city > your city
As for London, lol!