Just been looking at that article and I can appreciate the sentiment behind it. But I live in Blackpool and I have to argue that there is no gnar near my gaff at all.

A ride from my door involves a very flat bridleway round a golf course where all the joggers and dog walkers go and a trip into Stanley Park where there’s a couple flights of steps (to be fair there is a bmx track but I feel a bit of a kn0b on there coz the kids are way, way better than me!) I do feel lucky to have a nice park within strolling distance of my house and that there’s so much mtb’ing within an hours drive, but I’d love to have just a little something that could be considered exciting to ride from my door!!

So two questions :

Anyone else have nothing on their doorstep?

Anyone from Blackpool know of anything at all worth riding!?

Err…. grange park or central drive??? Real gnar core

I suppose riding out towards trough of bowl and may be best bet

Living in west London my nearest “gnarr” (such as it is) is Swinley Forest. It’s hardly full on and hardly on my doorstep (40 minute train ride from Richmond), but far better than nothing and certainly provides a couple of hours of fun a few times a month.

I do my best to get out to places like Yorkshire or the Lakes as often as possible. to make up for it.

i very recently made the move from Hammersmith to Bristol, and the change to my riding has been very good. Now have some decent short trail centre riding, as well as some decent off piste stuff along with that. Also, BPW, Cwmcarn, Mendips and FOD within an hour, very different to the hour and half drive to the Surrey Hills I was used to.

Full on Gnarr in the South Downs, but that really does depend on your own interpretation of Gnarr.

Fat bike beach riding then, it’s better than the gnar towpath and private woods that may or may not be trespassed in round here!

Judging by the chap I often see riding through the village in full face and body armour, there’s clearly a Whistler franchise somewhere nearby that I’ve yet to find.

Yeah, got few gnar bits round our way.

Tis the reason why we moved from the flatlands.

i suppose i could ride to the peaks from here, it’d be an hours slog though instead of a 20 min drive.

I can bob in to clayton vale on the way home from work though, it’s not exactly GNARRR but on a cross bike it’s interesting

Since moving down here there is a lot of stuff a 10 minute pedal away from my front door that is gnar enough that I’ll never be able to ride it.

I’m in Greece at the minute, and there’s more than enough gnarr for me to handle, thank you…
Platsa, to be precise.

Not very

[video]http://youtu.be/QAaimt6dWM0[/video]

[video]http://youtu.be/fytwwUyv16I[/video]

Doorstep gnar where I are on consists of up/down clifftop ramps, with plenty of steps in varying configurations, some drops, with smatterings of low quality “singletrack”. Some flat technical challenge when tide is out on chalk rocks poking up out of sand.

The Fens. Literally zero gnarr.

He he he

On our doorstep, there is literally one place to ride. It must be 7 minutes on the roads to hit the woods.

Considering Southampton has elevation levels that resemble that of a small pimple, there is a surprising about of reasonable trails in the local spot. I can easily do a standard loop of about 20km and not ride everything.

We have some some pretty big jump lines, there are some trail variations that have some nice sized drops and stepdowns etc, great stuff for a morning or after work blat.

Someone is also rebuilding an old school chunky river gap too I spotted recently & grading it back into a trail. It’s going to be one hell of an alternative line.

Otherwise, it’s the New Forest. I’d probably rather not even bother to ride my bike than go there.

15 minute ride on quiet road then bridleway to wharncliffe for me, so more gnarrr than my middleaged predominately gnarrr-free carcass can handle. One of the influencing factors when I bought the house

I’m about 20 minutes drive to some gnar.

Or ten minutes-ish to Set Murphy which is kind of semi-gnar depending how mincie you ride it.

I live in peebles so the nearest gnar to me is probably… the steps to my garden.

Narrow with railings both sides and a non functioning lawnmower at the bottom.

Still not brave enough

My gnarr

http://www.redbull.com/en/bike/stories/1331664138014/%C3%A5re-bike-park-the-most-beautiful-riding-destination-on-earth

15 mins through town to ride out on to open fell and the rest of the Lakes, often can’t belive how lucky I am for all the riding options In the area. Road stuff is good as you can do 50 miles and have hardly a car pass.

Castle Coch / Forest Fawr is a 10 mins ride from my house, there’s a couple of unofficial DH trails there and some really good techie XC trails, then BPW is a 20 min drive, Cwmcarn 30 mins, Afan 40 – plus lots more in between, it’s a real struggle.

I’ve got ?narr out of both doors. Front door is best though. It’s down hill for the first 4 or 5 hundred meters.

Back door means I have to climb up to the top of the ridge. (And ride through someone else’s garden. He doesn’t mind though)

South Wales. There’s gnar.

Including a looong drop in my local woods (P-Jay, you may know it, between Lisvane and Rudry) which is manageably steep in reality but a) it’s greasy b) it’s got a small bit of vert to drop in c) there’s a huge mature beech tree half way down and from the top you are looking into its crown which makes it look rather intimidating. I have yet to do it even though I am pretty sure I’d make it.

There’s also a ‘trail’ on the top of Sirhowy ridgeway leading down to a junction which is little more than a long pile of large loose rocks. Fun on a skinny bike that is 🙂

In fact, there are little cheeky bits of challenging trail all over the place. Makes me think I should put that silly rigid bike away for a bit and get the bouncer out.

Deepest South Devon we have short bursts of gnar after a bit of work to get there. One woodland bridleway which has turned into a Strava racetrack with my mates – getting silly now as we have halved the time getting down it! Otherwise 30 mins to Dartmoor with the infamous babies head granite marbles and some great techhy stuff around Hound Tor.

Chobham Common, Surrey. Zero gnar, on the bridle ways anyway. A massive descent of 67ft makes Cannock Chase looks like the Alps. Also makes Cannock look amateurish when it comes to dogging, mind 😯

Guisborough wood’s on my doorstep. I’m a lucky chappie

Heptonstall. There is some some gnarr. 😆

For all you north Londoners

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td3TsUaWz5E[/video]

Oh Sweet Jesus, that trail looks like an MTB version of Purgatory. Neither going up or down, and everytime you hit a kicker you see it from at least ten different angles.

Im in Peebles too. I broke my toe last weekend on the kids DH trail into Inners. Gnarly tree stumps ahoy.

Not really on my doorstep unless an 8 mile road ride is your ideal start to a ‘gnar’nival but QECP is that distance up the A3 from me.

I am very lucky as i live in the F O D and it takes me at least 10 seconds to hit the trails , as it happens the sun is up , the sky is blue and i have just watched that propain vid from off here, sooooo time to grab a bike and go ride .

Not really gnar but a fair bit of xc riding which is surprising considering Croydon is so close to London. Just nip across the park and there’s plenty of woodland to play in, then up onto the north downs.

Video up there is another reason not to live in that London.

The local forest/hill is a 6.5 mile uphill road ride, which every time i do renders me too busted to ride 😀 If the trails were better i would do it more often but it’s a bog for 95% of the time and when it’s dry there are much better places to ride.

I have a local loop that includes sections of ultragnar in places. It’s evolved* over the years and has a good mixture of all types of riding – except big hills – there aren’t really any of those. It even passes the local jump spot (that i built over 20 years ago) if i fancy hurting myself 😀

*Either by me making things on it to play on or, this year, a whole new ‘fat bikers dream’ section was opened up when the lough flooded and washed away a large area of swampy gloop revealing some great rooty, rocky terrain to play on.

So OP, take a little look about – there may be new lines just waiting for someone to open them up.

I live 100m from Philips Park in North Manchester. There’s a couple of short, fun non techy downhills and some flat singletrack. Not terribly exciting but great for an after work blast.

I’m bloomin’ lucky. Can ride to the good stuff at Haldon in ~20 mins or spend less than 10 in the car and be up on Dartmoor.

[/url]Aeris Meets Dartmoor by jruk*, on Flickr[/img]

Direct from the house there’s not much, a small lump called the tump which had a jump/Singletrack line built into it a few years ago and a couple of rough bw’s – within about 30mins mtb ride there’re the Mendips which have multiple days worth. TBH though as I don’t drive I tend to get the road bike out unless someone can pick me up!

Not like when I was a teenager and would spend the whole weekend riding, it was all fields back then…

I see your Blackpool and raise you a North Lincolnshire…..sure, the wolds are 15miles away, but who the hell wants to ride them? Dirt tracks and potential shotgun wounds, great!

Maybe I just need a guide, I’m new to this Lincolnshire thing. C2W is helping fund a CX bike, so I’ll see how that goes.