Low quality trails Vs time in car & high quality trails?

Riding from the door on bridleways and trashed muddy woodland trails for a longer period OR suffer a 30-45 drive to ride high quality rocky trails for a much shorter length of time and then drive home.
Which would you preference?

How close is the Pub and chippy?

Buy a bike that will make exploring nearer to home more interesting?
I’ve got a hardcore hardtail and full sus for rougher stuff, and a Genesis Vagabond and a Surly Krampus for local stuff and green-laneing.

I have – thankfully – some decent manmade compacted trails within a 15-minute ride from my house. Nowhere near bike park standards, but more than enough to keep me riding all year round and through parenting two young kids.

I do appreciate a good ride on better trails, but would probably err towards a “meh” ride locally, perhaps on a rigid singlespeed.

Even a “meh” MTB ride is a big improvement on the vast majority of alternatives. 🙂

I don’t like driving to ride at all so for me the lower quality trails from the door. Also if driving the amount of riding time must be more than the driving time

If the local trails are properly crap I would drive to the decent trails or ride a road bike from my door.

drive to your local wood? best of both worlds

The liberal democrat answer is a mixture.

I find myself riding more amd more from home both on and off road. The trails aren’t that brillinat but they are way better then field edge Bridleways

20 minutes drive or alot more cycling gets me to Woburn. 50 minutes the Chilterns

Depends. Today I may choose local, tomorrow I’ll drive. Which is what I’m actually doing tomorrow for Swinley fun.

Move?

When i lived in the UK it was about 30/45 minutes to the nearest trail of any note. Everything closer was basically riding round the edge of a field.

So we sold up and moved.

Do the drive once a week and ride from the door focussing on fitness the rest of the time.

Presuming time available is limited by family commitments, do neither and bank the brownie points to allow a longer ride somewhere good the day/week/month after.

30-45 minutes is nothing, if I’ve got the whole day free, so I’d pick the high quality trails. The ride has to preferably be between 30-50K though to justify the bother of it though.

If it’s a 1+ hour drive each way though I usually sod it. That is when it becomes suffering.

I don’t like riding from the doorstep as it means doing the rather boring bit twice (out & on the way back) but I like to get the train out to somewhere good and ride back to the house then the rather boring bit is only done once (and in the downhill direction). It’s a lot less faff if you don’t have to use the car but options are much more limited.

Almost always option 2 for me,only a few average trails locally so generally have to travel to muster any enthusiasm.
Do it most weekends though

I drive, but then I’m not tied by kids so generally have plenty of time at weekends.

But similar to TJ, the ride time has to be at least the drive time or I’ll not bother.

Local riding is generally shit or cheeky to very cheeky, so I do a fair amount of road in the week, particularly this time of year.

I’ve got some OK stuff a 15 min ride/5 min drive from home and LOTS of brilliant stuff within a 30 minute drive so I usually do the local stuff midweek for an hour or so on the trails and then drive at the weekend for a 2-3 hour ride.

I just cannot commit to a pure road ride, what about when you pass an inviting farm track or a path leading away through some trees, also I hate riding at night with motor vehicles on road. I might bring some urban into the mix and do a tour of local city parks!!

Both. Variety is king for me. If I had great rocky trails from my door I’d be a much happier man, but I’d still want to go different places sometimes.

we have a mate who won’t drive anywhere unless its a race when he will drive 200miles for a two hour race!
It gets really boring trying to organise a group ride because we have to meet him within riding distance which inevitably limits the places you can get to. Needless to say we don’t always tell him we are going out!
But as far as I am concerned , it depends on time available, less than 3 hours , local*, all day , drive.
*I do live ten minutes ride from the edge of the Peak.

Move somewhere with good trails from the door.

Build/improve trails cost to home?

45 minutes is nothing – I travel all the way from the Isle of Man to Platsa, Messinia (and force myself to spend twenty weeks a year there) just to be able to ride quality rocky (extremely rocky) trails.
I’m there (here?) now and really don’t want to leave for the grim north next week, where everything will be a real slopfest for the next six months.
If it wasn’t for family obligations, and the need to do some work on my house back there, you couldn’t drag me away.

I can ride from my door into the pentlands, there’s some really good stuff up there. But I can drive to the tweed valley in 45 minutes for some of the best riding in the world. So basically i only ride locally if I’m short of time.

I hardly ever drive to ride these days. Cx bike from home makes my local singletrack come alive . Ha.
Sometimes I treat myself and stop on the way from home for a purely off road cycle(relax) on a mtb.
Pure road riding doesn’t have the same appeal to me either,even when my local trails are really clarty and I’ve promised myself “I’m not getting muddy” ,I’ll see a bway or a trashed muddy woodland path and I can’t resist..:-)
More than an hour driving has to have a good long ride to earn it.

Drive – variety is the spice, your local trails will still be there next week when you’re more enthused about them.

Generally if the overall driving time > overall riding time then think again.

Depends on the roads going there and the car.

Currently at Uni in Shropshire. llandegla is an hour, Hopton / Long mynd is an hour and Cannock 35 minutes. At uni we have Wednesday afternoon off so I usually spend a day at one of these then ride road and turbo between to keep fitness up.

Back home in the Peaks I ride from home but Tuesday and Thursday I ride as a group so end up driving.

I agree with above posts that the time riding has got to be longer than the time driving.

An hour isn’t that much hassle driving for a decent ride. I think it would come down to the company more, meet some good mates at the good trails and there you go

Know some people who drive 2+ hours each way just for one ride. Sometimes they don’t even ride any further than 30k!

Anything like that, to me, would have to include overnight accommodation and riding over at least 2 days, to even be considered worth it.

I always drive for mountain bike trails.

Riding from the house sucks but we live here for work and other domestic reasons that affect five days of the week. It’s an ok compromiae.

I lived just off the South Downs for a few years. Then I would ride from home. 3 miles of road then everything else was off road pretty much. The downside a 70 mile round trip to and from work 5 days a week.

Honestly I think drive to ride is better as we’re saving fuel and hassle on the non discretionary journies.

Hate driving to go riding. Live 20 minutes from the quantocks and still haven’t been there. I do have good local riding though.

I always ride from my door, it’s just that mostly it’s my car door…

You live in Warwickshire, you drive. Nice and central for good stuff though.

I live in Lincoln, there is a distinct lack of quality off-road riding near here, I was stuck in a loop of riding short local loops, night rides at sherwood Pines and a day in the Peak every other week. Impending fatherhood and the need to get the house sorted in preparation seriously impinged on my riding time, so I sold my hardtail and bought a CX bike. Riding from the door has become fun again, I can get a quality ride in and be home in les time than it would take me to drive to the Peak, let alone ride and drive back. MrsMomo is much happier with me away from home for less time, it’s meant that I can get out to ride 4 times or more a week rather than one large ride.
I save the MTB for big days out/weekends away now and it has renewed my love for the bike again as I’m concentrating on riding quality trails as I can get the quantity in on the road/cx.

Would not have bought a mountain bike if I had to drive

I would love a 30min drive to any trails! London living doesn’t suit the MTB life! 1hr min and then 1.3 hours back due to traffic….still better than sitting at home doing nothing

Would not have bought a mountain bike if I had to drive

Alternatively, riding the same trails week in week out would do my nut in, even if I lived in the likes of Tweed valley or Lakes.

Just show’s we’re all different, I love exploring new area’s on my bike, if I have to drive, then that’s what I have to do.

my local trails are a 30 min drive, though I do have great road riding from the door, so a mixture I guess. An hour in the car gets me to Drumlanrig, and just over the hour to Glentress, so pretty decent. Driving north I can be in some Argyll woodland stuff within an hour too.

(Cathkin XC course is a 10 minute ride or 5 minute drive, but it’s barely worth it….)

unless you live on exmoor, trying to work out where there is good riding 20 mins from the quantocks…

(Cathkin XC course is a 10 minute ride or 5 minute drive, but it’s barely worth it….)

I wish I could have that course a 10 min ride from me, would be on it loads.

I like my Dales trails, but if I didn’t head up to the Lakes and Wales fairly regularly, I’d go slightly mad.