@martinhutch’s comment about his “worst offence” reminded me of mine: drove from Skipton to Tyndrum for the HT550 group start, that’s 400km and nearly five hours of driving. Got to Ben Alder Cottage at 80km in five hours, was decidedly ill so scratched and got out to Corrour and the train back to Tyndrum. Another 400km and five hours of driving back home 😖

Cannock Chase and hour away Wales a couple of hours. Local riding a bit crap and even worse in winter, bridleways just turn into sticky sludge.

Aren’t there enough cars on the road already? Why on earth would you want to make a special journey just to ride a bike? If you are going away on holiday or off to a race fair enough.

Fine if you have have endless singletrack outside your front door or are solely a roadie.

Genuine question and not a dig; does that 15 mins include getting the bike in/out or on/off the car and getting changed out of muddy kit? I guess if you are doing it regularly you have it down to a good routine but I can’t be bothered with that additional faff for short distances and it would probably mean I rode less.

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Zafira, may be one fugly car but takes about 30 secs to fold the back seats down and about that to take the front wheel off & load the bike in.

Live close enough to grizedale/coniston to ride from the door and have some nice trails on the doorstep but every now and then you need a change, quite happy to drive to Yorkshire, scotishland, wales for something a bit different although the frau is increasingly reluctant to issue day passes

Zafira, may be one fugly car but takes about 30 secs to fold the back seats down and about that to take the front wheel off & load the bike in.

👍

lovegoinguphills

Aren’t there enough cars on the road already? Why on earth would you want to make a special journey just to ride a bike? If you are going away on holiday or off to a race fair enough.

I love this sort of eco-warrior nonsense. If you apply this sort of reductive logic to everything in life, you wouldn’t be able to do anything, the global economy would collapse, and we’d be back to living in mud huts and dying at 30.

The fact is that most people don’t live within riding distance of decent trails, hence we drive to ride them. I could go back to my pre-car, teen days of riding miles on the road for a few miles of intermittent bridleway, but, frankly, I don’t really want to.

JP

Driving from Sheffield to Leeds Urban Bike Park next Saturday, about 45 mins. Drove over 3 hours to get to G
isburn. Been down to Cannock a coupe of times at about 2 hours each way. It’s great to see what the riding is like in new places. If you need to drive to get somewhere good to ride, or to somewhere more weather appropriate, it’s just what you need to do.

What JP says.

@martinhutch’s comment about his “worst offence” reminded me of mine: drove from Skipton to Tyndrum for the HT550 group start, that’s 400km and nearly five hours of driving. Got to Ben Alder Cottage at 80km in five hours, was decidedly ill so scratched and got out to Corrour and the train back to Tyndrum. Another 400km and five hours of driving back home

Yes, but I drove with the firm intention of riding about 12 miles around a trail centre. Your intentions were slightly more noble! There’s been a few where I’ve driven for hours then had a terminal mechanical riding around the car park…or found out I’d left a wheel at home…

The fact is that most people don’t live within riding distance of decent trails, hence we drive to ride them.

I choose to live within riding distance of decent trails. That was my choice and I very rarely drive to ride anywhere unless it’s for a week away, or at least a long weekend, or I’m going somewhere anyway and the bike comes too.

I look at it this way, if I spend an hour driving to somewhere plus an hour driving back again, that’s two hours I could have spent on the bike, you know, actually riding it. That and I find driving pretty dull.

Like some other folk posting here, in the past I did huge amounts of travelling to climb and ride, I feel like I’ve exhausted my capacity for driving in particular.

That said, in a very un-STW way, I don’t think I’m any more right than anyone else. If people want to spend lots of time driving to trails, then fair enough.

I drove 50 miles each way today and rode 15…

The things we’ll do for our hobby.

If people want to spend lots of time driving to trails, then fair enough.

I don’t <i>want</i> to spend lots of time driving, but to ride decent trails I have to.

Well, I look at it this way it could be worse I could be driving there to ride an electric bike 😉

Well, I look at it this way it could be worse I could be driving there to not ride an electric bike

Fixed that for you.

15 miles to Innerleithen

Genuine question and not a dig; does that 15 mins include getting the bike in/out or on/off the car and getting changed out of muddy kit?

One of my main reasons for buying a Skoda Yeti was the ease of loading/unloading bikes. 5 min max to load and strap down mine and the kids without the need to remove the back wheel of mine. The rear seats can also be removed completely for more room.