I think I’ve got lazy. I’m fed up with the slow Epping forest mush and could easily go 1hr/45mins to Swinley or Hadleigh at a weekend but eschew those with the drive being the excuse.

Inspire me with your travel enthusiasm…

If we want all weather riding then we have to travel from Pembroke to Brechfa. An hour and a bit drive. The kids love it there.
Afan is under 2 hours away which isn’t too bad but we only go a couple of times a year with the kids.
Don’t live in Pembrokeshire if you like riding off-road without a drive!

About 380 miles or so.

i dont drive anywhere to bike nowadays.
in the past i have driven to places like glentress and mabie in the day to ride, or nearer, like dalby or the dales and such.

most of my riding is now from home on mixed surfaces rather than proper offroad riding.

Mainly ride locally but Leeds Urban Bike Park 20 mins for me, from my London base about 65mins into surrey or 90mins Kent although I dont ride in the south anymore for now.

I try not to

Usually not at all.

I’ve got a couple of loops I can do straight out the front door. Otherwise, it’s usually 30-40min for the good stuff or an hour up to Hamsterley when everything else is soaked through.

95+% of my rides don’t involve a car at all. I’d say one a month. That can be 45 min to Swinley or 2hr 30 to Wales.

30 mins each way most weekends. If I want a longer ride it’s about 90 minutes each way.

Saltburn to Hamsterley a couple of times a month, esp in Winter.

The furthest I normally go after that is the odd trip over to the Lakes, where I stop overnight and do a couple of rides.

Other than that I can ride from home or have a nip up to Guisborough.

Locally I don’t need to, but for days out I’m happy to drive a couple of hours, and from where I live that will put me in North Wales/Peaks/Northumbria/North Yorks pretty easily.

Lucky really

I try not to. Mainly because riding out from home prevents the possibility of arriving at the start point one wheel short.

Takes about 20 to 45 mins for me to drive to the better rides for longer days. Shorter blasts can be done from home. Me and my mates try to do at least one weekender a year further afield.

Not that I’m finding time to do any of that atm.

Brechfa is 25 mins away, Cwm Rhaeadr is about 40 mins away. Will hopefully expand on these when the little one starts school after Easter.

Half hour each way to my regular stuff at Mugdock, under 10 mins to the xc trails at Cathkin, an hour to Drumlanrig or Comrie. Oh, and 20 mins to the Glasgow Velodrome where i an going in an hour 😀

Usually not at all. Exceptions for longer “expeditions”or if I’ve been asked to survey a specific route. I try to make it a rule that biking time > driving time.

It’s the main reason I’m a roadie now, got fed up with driving to the trails. I mountain bike on holidays only now if based somewhere hilly, I tend to book our holidays so try to make sure the trails are in riding distance. The bike(s) only go in the car if the car is going somewhere anyway, weekends away, visiting friends etc. This also allows me to take the moral highground.

40 miles to FoD, 65 miles to Cannock Chase. To be honest, if the distances were swapped I’d still go to the FoD far more often.

Most rides are a 20 min drive away, happy to travel an hour or so to Surrey Hills or Windhill around once a month

2hr 30 min drive to BPW 3-4 times a year

I only drive if one or both of the kids are with me.

Generally about 30-45 mins
Yesterday 6 1/2 hrs round trip to Cannock Chase

I’m about 20 miles from Keswick and 14 miles to Whinlatter. Usually start from those two or thereabouts.

Glentress being the furthest at 100 miles away.

20 minutes to Cannock or I can do a loop from the front door which is mostly canal and a little bit of trails.

In 45 years of riding I have never once put my bike in the car to drive to cycle somewhere and don’t intend to start. Not exactly inspiring travel enthusiasm I admit.

Depends where I am going. Don’t mind driving if the ride is good. I’d rather drive 2 hours to somewhere than 15 mins to cathkin. That being said I try and do new trails for my YT MTB Scotland so need to drive to the trails.

20 minute drive to Woburn for me. In the warmer months I regularly drive to Llandegla and Coed-y-Brenin, a 4 hour drive each way, but will make the most of it and stay over for a long weekend.
When working I also drive just over an hour to get to Thetford, do this about 2 or 3 times a week. One of those times Thetford is on the way home so its not just an hour to get to Thetford. Working in Norwich there’s not much else in terms of Mountain Biking so Thetford is the best I can do.
I also drive to Cannock a handful of times a year.

Half and half for me. Especially in winter I prefer to head to Leeds Bike Park (30 mins), Gisburn (1hr 15m) or Llandegla (1hr 30m). Occasionally go further but not in winter.

Anyone use an e-car?

99% of the time I ride straight out from home. Can put together loops of 30+ miles plus, not massively challenging seeing as its rural Herts, but a few interesting bits, many made / adapted by local riders in the woods, not bad for living inside the M25. If you’re stuck in the traffic on the NW section and there a smug looking git riding across the bridge, it might be me.

However just back from a non bike holiday in Malaga and was tempted to hire. They have electric assisted full suss 29ers.

Living in N.Cardiff mostly straight out of the door. Maybe 35mls to Afan a couple of times a year, or 25mls to Merthyr for BPW and the Beacons, but again thats only occasionally.

We’ll drive to Hamsters or Choppers (about an hour-ish) if we’re going to be near either of those with the car anyway but we try not to use the car too much so most of our riding’s straight out of the door.

Now that my boys are now mountain biking I seem to be driving a lot more.
Regularly drive an hour to Cannock or Sherwood Pines.
They have seemed to have progressed faster riding trail centres than riding the local trails, seem to enjoy it more.

I suspect this coming summer we’ll be driving up to the peaks and across to Long Mynd as well.

If it’s just me or with friends we’ll more likely grab the drop bar bikes for local riding and occasionally have a Big Day Out at long mynd or the peaks, though it’s been a while.

For regular riding out the door from Macclesfield or straight from work. Hope valley and Edale are 30 mins away
sometimes drive there for a change though i have ridden from here to there in the past.

As above the kids 11,9 and 6 have all progressed really well this year but only by having to do tonnes of driving. We’ve done Llandegla to death, visited Cord y Brenin, stayed at Sherwood Pines, Leeds Urban bike park a few times and the trails round the Manchester Velodrome. We are staying in the FOD next week hoping to get them all round the blue and the eldest on the red. For a holiday or weekend it’s fine but I’m not comfortable with driving for several hours to ride a couple of laps of a blue route but it is definately the best way for kids to improve.

1 hour gets me to several riding spots in the SE, that’s my regular drive. Wales etc is 3-4 hours away so limited to a few times a year.

Usually just a handful of times a year, couple of weekends away with mates, couple of individual events that I’ll drive to, couple of times a year (mostly summer) will drive out to eg Cut Gate or Sutton Bank. The rest of time is all from the door. Fantastic network of trails around North Leeds suitable for FS, Rigid, CX bike options. More tech and better descents at Otley, Ilkley, Baildon within reach, riding from the door.

Busy life with work, family, wife running a charity means that chunks of time >2-3 hours are rare, so I’d rather spend all of that time riding than half of it driving.

About 2 miles to Kirroughtree 🙂

Generally I don’t drive if I can avoid it.

I can ride Swinley from home it just adds about 80min each way. Which once you consider time spent getting bikes in/out of cars and cleaning up afterwards isn’t too bad. It just becomes a question of fitness (I.e. can I ride Swinley and do a 2.5h ‘gravel’ ride).

I can ride tunnel hill if I take my bike in the car to work and come back that way.

I can ride the chilterns after about 40min of Austrians paths.

If I just want ‘a ride’ I can go out on the gravel bike and do anything from an hour to hundreds of miles.

Sunday club runs on the road.

The trick (IMO) is to do a variety of riding. Just XC, or road, or gravel ends up limiting my riding to the same old routes either through lack of options or lack of route knowledge. But with options I can look forward to some techy XC at tunnel hill on Thursday, a 40mile gravel ride on Saturday, club run on Sunday, commute on Monday, commute via swinley on Tuesday, ride to the supermarket with a trailer on Wednesday etc and that’s a full week without ever doing the same type of ride twice.

Too far…

I’m the wrong end of Cardiff for any real riding from the door – would involve a 30min ride across town – so drive to all the MTB rides I do. Can be just 10 mins to the top of town but it’s usually 25 mins to Cwmcarn or within an hour I have the Beacons, Afan, BPW, FOD or a few other local spots. Doesn’t help that I live in a block of flats and one resident reported me for washing my muddy bike outside and leaving mud on the tarmac so it’s easier to just drive to somewhere and wash the bike when I get back to the car. If I want to ride from the door I’ll just take the commuter bike for a spin. Looking to move out of the city in the next few years and finding somewhere with riding out the door is appealing but finding somewhere with the same variety as I have now is tough so despite driving to most of my riding it’s actually great and doesn’t bother me one bit.