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from all the threads here about all the places people have driven/flown e.t.c to go ride,just interested in how many of you mainly ride where you live.due to not having a car,i have almost always ridden locally.i am planning on going further afield someday,but that won't be for a while.so how many of you just ride where you live? 🙂
Mountain bike: got about a dozen good routes in a 20 mile radius but only one straight from my door; the rest need a few miles in the car first.
Road bike: 99% from my front door out onto empty roads in the Ribble Valley and Forest of Bowland. Only used the car once this year and that was for an all-day ride in The Dales.
Been living in Whistler Creek for the past 2 months so yeah - the bike park is an easy 5km ride away down the valley trail 🙂
Unfortunately probably back in England soon where the nearest half decent trails are Woburn which is about a 40-50 minute drive away. Probably gonna end up getting a bmx again 😆
Usually ride from the door - I'd hate to have to get in the car each time I wanted to ride
+1 maybe drive to a ride 2-3 times a year. saying that kids limit me to mainly evening/night ridingUsually ride from the door
living on the join of dark and white peak its rude to ride anywhere else 🙂
I don't drive so unless I cadge a lift I stay local. There's a fairly big selection of woodland singletrack within a 20 minute ride and some bigger routes which require some country lane link ups. I usually ride 'away from home' once or twice a year. Great road riding from the door though and a dedicated, traffic free 8 mile commute over to where I work which is great. Can't complain all told.
mrsconsequence and I are pretty lucky that its less than a 1 1/2 miles on tarmac from our front door until we're in the woods, swinley forest is only 3-4ish miles away from our door or our friends door where we store our bikes 😀
the thought of driving to go riding feels really alien, but on sunday we're off to play in pastures new with yeti... some places are definitely worth the drive!
I'd hate to have to get in the car each time I wanted to ride
I hate it but it's either that or ride flat and uninspiring bridleways. Driving 2-2.5 hours home after a full day of riding is really rubbish.
Pretty much all the time here.
Then again, i live on the edge of the Southern Pennines, so i've a wealth of decent trails either from my door or a short train ride into Calderdale away. Road riding is equally good with lots of hilly routes through Calderdale and Lancashire 🙂
Being 5 minutes from Swinley, I've gotten lazy and ride locally 95% of the time. Sometimes I'll sling the bike in the car to go to Tunnel Hill or Mytchet; not far away and done one trip to Wales this year.
I do not drive so I ride locally every day. I'm lucky enough to live in Tyne & Wear. We have the C2C which has fire roads branching off every half mile and taking you to loads of great places. One place in particular, if anyone knows it, is Kong woods near Chester le street. I know of a group called the Odd Socks who I'm sure must ride here though I've never seen them. I mention this place because it's so good. It feels like a trail centre without people. Miles of singletrack that's well used but by who??? I'm always alone every weekend in there. Anyone near Chester le street should try it, you'll most likely love it.
'This is a local trail for local people' League of Gentlemen. 😆
Me loads of good trails near by but require a short car journey, the ones from the door are fairly flat and dull so I use the CX bike.
I hate it when u drive for longer than the actual ride lasts when u get there, so 95% local for me
95% local here too - off-road stuff is 15 mins riding away, in three different directions. It's all woody singletrack though, so not much variety.
90% local, which is saying something living in Norfolk.
local 🙂 but not much on offer around here apart from road riding, unless you got directly over the river... which you cant 🙁
me.. I live in Dartmoor national park..
It's still a good 2 or 3 road miles to the best spots but I can cope with that.. 🙂
Sometimes I'll sling the bike in the car to go to Tunnel Hill or Mytchet;
You can ride (mostly offroad) to Tunnel Hill in 30 mins or so from Swinley! 😆
I have two local areas, I'm pretty lucky to live both on the North Downs and South Downs, ride a lot around Eastbourne end of the SDW, Friston and Stanmer. And I'm 20 mins from the surprisingly good riding around Surrey Hills and Swinley a little further up the M25. Planning some further afield rides later this year, got my heart set on the Brecons.
I used to live in Minera just down the road from Llandegla so all of the riding I did when I was younger was local, sadly I'm living in Birmingham now and there is not a great deal on my doorstep 🙁
I'd hate to have to get in the car each time I wanted to ride
It's why I bought a road bike.
Yep - have done for the past few years after having moved to Cumbria - why go elsewhere when I can ride up onto High Street, Helvellyn, or Cross Fell from the front door... Erm - and the same for the previous 15 years when I lived in North Wales and 20 minutes away from Coed Y Brenin...
Mostly local for me, because I don't want to waste what little riding time I do have driving the car. The rides I have done away from home have largely been whilst on holiday.
Kind of.
I don't have a car as live in Manchester so generally get the train for 20mins to New Mills or Marple and then ride there or around the Peak District, and ride back home.
If I was more dedicated and fitter I think it would be possible to ride to the peak district, put in a mtb ride and then ride back home again but it would take a while.
I am considering whether to buy a car but as I wouldn't use it to commute (or for much else) I'm not sure if it would be daft to buy a car just to drive places to ride my bike? 😕
Would love to be able to just stick my bike in and go off to all these other places I keep hearing about though.
Very rarely ride anything but local. Decent hills are an hour's ride away but that's a fine warm up and I can get there almost completely offroad so that's OK.
Spending a lot of time in the car to ride a little amount of time somewhere was something that lost it's appeal a long time ago.
Ride to the end of the road, across the park and into the woods. Which are on the edge of the Calder valley and all its bikey goodness. Tonnes of superb local riding from my door or I ride down the (excellent) hill to the canal and jump on the towpath for a 25 minute spin to Hebden. And the riding around there isn't too bad either. I reckon easily +90% of my riding is from the door. The only exceptions are a few weekends away to the 7 Stanes, North Wales, the odd day trip to Dalby/Gisburn/Stainburn/the Peaks etc.
I've got enough close to me that I can do good local rides whenever I want. Swinley is 20-30 mins drive east, Aston hill is an hour or so and south Wales and all her delights are~2hours away I maybe drive once or twice a month to ride these days.
Really its all down to where you are lucky enough to live. some people have no choice...
Mainly. Its around ten miles on easy offroad paths to the hills - I ride that fairly often tho less so the last couple of months. I also do "mtb lite" rides straight from my door. I drive to ride a few times a year.
I find the concept of driving a few miles to ride weird. Just ride those few miles
95% of the time local, ridden the same network
of trails for the past 17 years still not tired of them
Nice to get an away day but great to ride a trail where
you know every root,rock,berm and drop off
I live in Cumbria so ride road & off road from the door. I have a singlespeed bike at my parents house in Keswick for when I visit them but I don't count that.
I cycled the c2c at the weekend so got a lift to Whitehaven and picked up at Sunderland so that is the first time since 1997 as far as I can remember. I remember that because they were filming 'The Lakes' on Ulswater and the Police tried to make us stop for twenty minutes so that we didn't get in the shot, needless to say they got short shrift after a hard ride along High Street.
I am very surprised by these responses. I get bored of trails quickly so I only ride locally during the week. On weekends I get in the car and explore new places.
about two thirds of my rides are from the door. I don't mind travelling to ride with friends, but the ride time must exceed total time in car (eg. 2 hours door to door is 4 hours in car, so must be 4 hours on a bike)
i'm lucky enough to be on the door step of the kilpatrick hills so i stay local most rides......even mugdock is about half an hour away.
Live in Calderdale - can ride straight onto the Mary Townley Loop, over to Lee and Cragg Quarries (yes, it's quicker to drive but it has been done) and various rocky singletrack stretches within spitting distance.
Would never have got into mountain biking if I didn't live here and it hadn't been for the steep valleys and borrowing a bike for daily journey up steep hills and farm tracks. Then discovered you can get up onto and around the moors much more quickly than on foot - hooked.
It depends on your local geography as to how much you ride where you live. Nearly all my riding is around where I live (Halifax) but if I lived somewhere flat, then I'm sure I'd drive out to other places a lot more.
In 25 years I think I've put my bike in the car no more than 10 times. I got into riding off road because I could do it within a couple of hundred meters of my door. I'm also lucky enough to be able to ride to work with only a mile of it on road.
I almost always ride locally. I always have. I find it wierd that anyone really keen on cycling would live somewhere that you couldn't (excepting certain limitations due to family).
One place in particular, if anyone knows it, is Kong woods near Chester le street. I know of a group called the Odd Socks who I'm sure must ride here though I've never seen them. I mention this place because it's so good. It feels like a trail centre without people. Miles of singletrack that's well used but by who??? I'm always alone every weekend in there. Anyone near Chester le street should try it, you'll most likely love it.
Hmm..... a mythical wood with mythical bikers who've never been seen. Miles of the most wonderful singletrack that nobody ever rides, but the Imps and Pixies keep them sweat for you, Rob. Kong Woods, not mentioned on any OS map, the internet or any guidebooks to the area. Roll up, Roll up, Kong Woods, the eight wonder of the world. 😉
Im kinda forced to ride locally, living on an Island. The ferry costs around £40 for a day return so mainland trips dont tend to happen.
Theres plenty of good riding here, in fact I covered the entire island coastal path on Saturday, all 75miles and 7,500ft of climbing of it!
From the door - mtb on Conwy mtn and the Carneddi, and superb variety of road riding into the mountains or along the coast.
Ethically I struggle with the idea of putting a bike, which is the most sustainable forms of transport, into a car in order to park somewhere and ride round in circles before driving home. If I ride further afield, I'd rather hop on the train with my bike (although the don't always make that easy!)
I live 3 minutes riding from a wooded singletrack strip that leads up onto the South Downs around Brighton.
I probably drive to ride 2 or 3 times a year for 'events' but that's it.
Other than for races I haven't driven to go for a ride in years. I live in a good area though, and have trails starting 200yds from my door.
I ride from where I live all the time.Which is amazing beacuse I`m less than 3 miles from Luton airport!
99% local for me. Ten minutes from the woods. Plenty of singletrack, bridleways, and other cheeky bits.
I don't drive so that is a factor. I think most peoples' riding is influenced by whats local to them.
I normally do a foreign trip once a year and enjoy hitting some rockier stuff, but my fave spot is my local woods on a dry,sunny evening flying along with a couple of mates.
I know people who drive 3 hours to Afan, do one little trail and drive home again-mentalists?!