My question re driving was more like “is that most people’s ONLY experience of riding?” As in, is that what people think the sport is?

Of course most of us drive to ride at some point, life would be dull without adventure – but I’m wondering how many people treat a trail centre as the place to ride as a golf course is the place to play golf.

never considered myself part of the elite before. As an Audi driving, Santa Cruz owning trail center user, being the subject of philxx’s obvious envy might well give me ideas above my station.

Not even close cheapskate

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/heli-skiing

i have a helicopter to take me to golf.

Is this a bad time to ask about some good Heli-biking destinations?

I wouldn’t call MTBing the new golf, but as ever, there are some enthusiasts who drop proper cash on their hobby. They may not be the fastest, fittest or most skilled but who cares? From experience they tend to be the plumber, builder, roofer etc who owns his t5 for his business, buys in his LBS and doesn’t take himself seriously. In fact, I’ve ridden with a bunch of brummie lads recently who actively took the piss out if themselves for this “all the gear” thing of loving their bling.

Fair play to them – I’d sooner spend time with fun loving guys who have a laugh and spend on their hobby of mountain biking (thus supporting the industry as a whole) than some grumpy inverse snob who carries all the bad baggage of that miserable “cyclist” culture with it’s stupid rules and hierarchies.

Never done an uplift day? Been on a riding holiday/break with your riding buddies?

No interest in an uplift day (riding up the hill is the best bit), no interest in riding buddies – my enjoyment comes from getting out on my own without having to interact with other people.

Probably explains why to me MTB is very cheap as my bike just has to please me, nobody else sees it. But then golf used to be cheap when I played it in my 20’s as just paid green fees on lowly courses, had average set of clubs and wore normal everyday clothes.

You don’t have to turn up with peer approved car and equipment.

Don’t knock it, one of our local clubs runs a weekend minibus service to the local airport, to pick up those flying in to play. The airport it goes to only takes private jets at weekends….. (in fact, i have a suspicion that it *only* takes private flights now.)

On the flip side, the golf course i ride/drive past several times a week (3km from our house) has a huge, covered, cycle rack, right outside the clubhouse. It’s usually at least half full. And i regularly people riding down the cycle track with a set of clubs hooked onto the back of the bike.

Is driving to trail centres really the average MTBer’s experience?

For some, yes. I know someone who only ever rides at one trail centre all year round. Knows the place like the back of his hand. Not knocking it, he’s out there having fun! I tend to live at trail centres during the winter months as it saves cutting up the local natural stuff, save that for a sunny day.

As for MTB being expensive? I used to race karts, anything is cheaper than that 😯

i have a helicopter to take me to golf.

You must play here…..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_19th

And FWIW. about half the board at my current employers are cyclists. Current director travels all over europe to ride the big sportives, italy, france and so on.

They mostly golf as well.