Best TOWNS to live in as a MTBer?

I’d have to say Guildford is pretty good, although I am a bit biased as I live here.

Plus points are….

Riding around here is rather good considering how close we are to major population areas. Both road and off road stuff.
Fantastic transport links, I can get to Gatwick with my bike on public transport in under an hour.
Very good employment prospects.
A number of good town centre and country pubs in and around Guildford.
Lovely town centre.
Good choice of restaurants.
Low (cycle) crime.
3 good bike shops and a couple of others that are useful.
Plenty of places for families to go with their children and ride their bikes.

Jambalaya – there is some very good riding to the west and south west of Guildford.

Bolton of course 😉

seriously though has to be in Cumbria or Scotland

I would still go with freiburg.

jambalaya and mattjg

You’ve missed the whole of the military lands to the NW of Guildford. Broadly the area centres on Deepcut and is bounded by the A324 to the south east, the A322 up the east side, the A331 on the west side and the M3 to the north. And that’s just the start.

From my house I can be off road in 1/2 a mile, and from there ride across to pirbright, onto the military areas, and do 5+ miles of almost entirely singletrack then on each of Tunnel Hill, Porridgepot Hill, Frith Hill, cross into Swinley and Crowthorne Woods, head over the ridges to Yateley, Eversley, Warren Heath, Minley – all with miles of ST there as well, eventually down past Fleet Ponds and onto Caesers W of Aldershot; then Basingstoke canal back to Tunnel hill and back via Pirbright to home. Not difficult to link together 600-odd miles of riding of mainly singletrack and very little road if you know where to look.

Get the OS out and find the areas above and have an explore. Or hook up with eg: the Tunnel Hill Trolls. I’ll stop short of maps because these are army lands in the main, and while we are tolerated there I won’t advertise too widely either.

Other comment was meant tongue in cheek btw. But come and have a look, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Check out http://tunnelhilltrolls.get-forum.net/index.htm and also http://www.trailactiongroup.co.uk , for great work on these trails and assisting with access issues on these areas.

Jon thx I’ll get the map out.

I would agree with the Dorking shout, would love to live there. Only issue is that it takes too long commuting into london.

BTW, Guildford = Town. Go on the official guildford.gov.uk site if you think otherwise…

I’m a big fan of Surrey’s riding, but if it wasn’t for the work opportunities would you guys still rate it over Cumbria etc as MTBers?

I’m a big fan of Surrey’s riding, but if it wasn’t for the work opportunities would you guys still rate it over Cumbria etc as MTBers?

Of all the places I’ve ridden (Welsh & Scottish trail centres, holidays to Peaks, Peru, Utah, others) where I live now is the best place I know to ride and live. It suits me and what I want to do. I can’t comment on Cumbria etc with any in-depth knowledge.

It’s totally subjective of course.

The thread title is plural, “where are the best” not “which one is the very best”. That way lies madness and I bet many places mentioned here are superb.

Yeah, I was more curious about what weight people were giving to riding vs other stuff than arguing the toss.

Nice to see a few votes for Skipton. Brilliant little town and some top trails from the door without having to live in West Yorkshire…

A great many of the posts on here are of the format “Well, I live in x and really like the biking…”

Pretty subjective!

theotherjonv – thanks, I am aware of Tunnel/Porridge Pot/Frith Hill I should get out an explore. I did notice on Wednesday that with the Hindhead Tunnel it’s now only 25 mins to Queen Elizabeth Park and much less obviously to Devils Punchbowl etc.

MSP – Freiberg’s twin town is Guildford 🙂

chakaping – that was my point earlier, as good as living and riding around Guildford is I cannot believe it’s the best in the UK, there must be some spectacular places in the Lakes or Peak District or even Wales no ? If Guildford was the best what would I have to look forward to ! BTW the riding may be good in Cumbria but the weather ?

Will have to throw Kendal into the mix been here for 7 mths now and have managed a differant trail/route everytime I have been out.Close to the Dales/Lakes and on the M6 for Scotland.Never seem to see many people out which is odd but it can be a tad wet!
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kendl[/url] by Richard Munro[/url], on Flickr

Yeah, I was more curious about what weight people were giving to riding vs other stuff than arguing the toss.

Can’t really separate them, I think for the ‘best’ places, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Theotherjonv – so that’s Tunnel Hill!! I was driving along the B3405 not so long ago and thinking, that looks like a place that could be worth trying. Now I know, thanks for the ideas. Meeting up with a guy from Woking for a ride in the next few days – might try there for a change. Is it easy to find the good singletrack?

For us oldies, G’ford is a city (cathedral etc) but officially its a town. My son caught me out on that one. Any town with access to S Hilly/Swinley/N Downs etc is good but cant compare with proper mountains like the Lakes. Different riding and both fun though. Big rocky steps easier than slippy off camber roots IMH)!

From my time in Scotland, Peebles goes without saying.

Penicuik (spend 2years there) is very well situated. Including the very local penicuik house loop 😉

From my upbringing in deepest Kent- New Romney? really?

teamhurtmore

It’s not a big area, and you can’t get lost. Used to be that most of the good stuff on TH was to the west of the Old Guildford Road / N of the railway, but even that’s not true now, thanks to the trolls and Gorrick there’s some nice stuff to the east as well.

The thread title was best town for a MTBer to live in. Not necessarily where’s the best riding full stop. It’s a balance, eg: for riding it would be great to live in Glyncorrwg, but LIVING?

Keswick 😛

It`s not allways wet either…. 😉

It depends what you like, those Keswick photos don’t do it for me, I like twisty tight claustrophobic singletrack in trees like wot there’s tons of in Woburn. It’s great this sport has so many variations to suit everyone.

You mean the really old school stuff we did on tuesday night in Whinlatter…… 😛 some of which crosses the Altura Trail…

Sadly i have no pics of them as it`s usually dark!

stoney, truely stunning.

Beautiful pics from Keswick. And so different to what we do in Surrey that a side by side comparison is pointless. Apples and oranges.

It’s where I live. No it’s not, it’s where I live. No it’s not, it’s somewhere I went on holiday once etc. ad nauseum 😉

And so different to what we do in Surrey that a side by side comparison is pointless. Apples and oranges………

It sure is, not that ive ever rode my bike arround Surrey, but weve had visitors come out with us and they are wipped after 10 miles of our terrain, saying thats like doing 25 miles where were from! 😉

Cardiff!

Awesome road and off road on your doorstep, plenty a decent bike shops, plenty of transport links to rides further afield (e.g. Cwm Carn), great bike club in Caerphilly and a damn cool city with everything you could ever need…

Downsides? “it’s in Wales” is not acceptable 😀

Ludlow! It has to be, it was the only town featured on Britains best Towns (BBC), last summer, thats got amazing riding in the town perimeter!

If you can’t have Marple then its going to have to be Chapel en le Frith or New Mills. One has a townhall, town band and town end the other has a new town. So enough townieness to qualify as a town to live in as a mtb’er.

Love to visit Ludlow, looked a nice place on that programme, bit of a foodie destination too.

If you’ve not ridden in the Surrey Hills or North Downs I I think you’lll surprised how good it actually is, technically and how much green space there is.

@rewski Ssshhhhhhhh.

Come for the spring festival, its a celebration of local ale, and sausages. Better than the main september food festival in my opinion.

Make a nice weekend away, Ill even show ya the best trails 🙂

flap_jack – Member
For cycling, Milton Keynes.

Traffic free cycleways everywhere in the town so you can get anywhere you want safely.

Tons of singletrack on your doorstep at Woburn.

Toppest bikeshop at Phil Corley’s.

Great racing and roadie scene too.

You did say best for cycling, not architectural beauty, didn’t you…

Never let it be said that I would not stand up for my home town and Woburn is cool but MK is never up there with the best MTB towns to live. And I reckon I’d sooner visit cycleking than Corleys…bloody rip off merchant.
Perhaps as a roadie but not MTBer.

Dumfries
If I had to choose somewhere else = Ambleside or ?

Keswick, Sedbergh or Aviemore.

Oh, and Guildford is a town. Mind you, St Asaph is to become a city, so where’s the sense in any of it…

Muddy Ground

Pick any town on the North Downs between Reigate and Guildford – it’s all there on your doorstep, and you can get a job good enough to be able to afford to buy some kit. Lots of other places that are good tend to involve putting your bike on a car first for the ten mile drive to the trail head, or have little by way of employment prospects. It’s OK picking somewhere in Wales, but if you first have to drive 20 mioles through some admittedly stunning mountains, it’s all a bit of a faff. Surrey has its’ faults but it’s not this popular a place to live for no reason.