[Closed] How far do you drive to bike?

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.

The trick (IMO) is to do a variety of riding

Quite, but in my case I want the speed and movement that comes at race speed, which in mud & clay is hard to replicate. I also want "handling skill" so pushing corners at speed at a wet Swinley which will also me more technical than a muddy grind should be the solution.

My two option I'm given are a club ride, or this type of MTB ride and the latter is of course more specific. I should probably alternate bi weekly.

Sounds like I might be in the minority.
Living in Devon and Dartmoor being wet wet wet I regularly drive to s Wales or mid Wales for the weekend. Trail centres and just guaranteed fun and rideable no matter the weather.
Usually opt to drive to Exmoor or quantocks in the summer so around 1.5 hours there....
However, gf rides too, we go in the camper and always make a weekend of it.

Always do an Alps trip each year and trips to North Wales and Scotland.

Turns out I love a drive.....

Looking back it's almost embarrassing to admit that every weekend would involve at least a couple of hours drive just to ride a trail centre for a few hours. 3 of us would happily travel from Manchester to Penmachno, Llandegla, Dalby and Cannock on a regular basis and every now and again we would even go to Glentress or innerleithen and back in a day. Madness.

I wouldn't do it now though. Half an hour tops gets me to plenty of local stuff but even then I prefer to ride on the road from my door rather than spend time in the car.

Rivi is 40 minutes away,south lakes just over an hour,Degla approx 1h 20 mins.
I've not been on the MTB for 18 months,purely because I detest driving on my day off.
I'm always out on either the road bike or the gravel bike,it's great riding from the door step,plus most of my rides are less than 3 hours which leaves the rest of the day free to do other stuff.
I've decided in 2019 I'll be getting back out on the MTB,but I won't be looking forward to the drive...

Hours of riding from my door. Plenty of gravel, BWs,singletrack and heathland.

Occasionally I might drive 20-30 mins. In that time I can get to Haldon (did 23 miles of off-piste there yesterday for example), Dartmoor, and the Quantocks.

Quite lucky with my local riding really.

I'll always drive to places, even if I lived in one of the bike meccas, I'd still want to ride in other places.

Living where I do means I drive an hour to an hour and a half one way most weekends. Even the local stuff is 15-20min drive. Planning on moving at some point.

The downside of living near enough to trails ride from your door is you get stuck in a rut of the same local stuff. I am another Cardiffian, and there is some great riding just a little too far away to ride to (unless you are going for an all-dayer) which I should visit more often. But the faff of packing the car up etc. means you end up going local, like you did last week, and the week before...

I can ride off the doorstep or 25 min drive to my mums and then it’s 30 mins of langsett/cutgate and all the great riding of the Pennines, I just wish northern rail would stop going on strike it’s been 8 Saturdays in a row so no 5 mins to station and train to hebden/Tod and a beer on way home

We've a BW going directly past the house but it doesn't really link up with with much. It's the best part of an hour each way on roads and/or very boggy lanes to get started on the Dales' BWs so a fifteen minute drive is a better use of time.

Seventy five minutes of driving gets me to Staveley and the riding round there, a similar time to Reeth for the Swaledale trails. We've just got back from three days bikepacking in Kielder Forest, three hours each way.

Usually 20 to 45 minutes but the sky is the limit. New Zealand and Canada are ace for riding trips.

I drive, on a regular basis, 30 mins to WindHill Bikepark, or 20 minutes to Rowberrow on the Mendips. Also do BPW about three times a year (2 hours away).

Probably going to offend some people now, but I wouldn't bother going out of my way to ride Swinley; it just doesn't have enough gradient to be anything other than a slog. If I lived near, I'd probably drive a bit further to somewhere like Tidworth.

JP

One hour for me to get to any good riding. I do it almost every weekend in Summer and every second or so in winter. I just have to do it otherwise there will be no riding!

We've got common land 300 yards from our house. Not supposed to ride on it,but chavs tear it up on mopeds & don't get nicked so sod it 😊. There's also the Malvern hills less than a couple of miles away too. Plenty of fun there if you know the trails 😁

I get the wish to keep vehicle miles to a minimum, but driving-for-mtb miles pale into insignificance when compared to driving-for-whitewaterkayak miles. I have done 10s of 1000s of miles many times over. Never again.

I do ride out from home most weeks but I have been doing these trails for 30 years so do like to drive somewhere for a bit of variety. An hours drive is my top limit though.

The downside of living near enough to trails ride from your door is you get stuck in a rut of the same local stuff

Nah, I don't agree. You can always push yourself to go a bit faster or sillier. Once you know the trails and local routes backwards, then you can ride lots of trails combos without having to plan a route.

Or go and build some lines. I've put in quite a few fun lines in forestry land near me this year. Lots of steep, off-camber silliness. Only I'm riding them, so I can try out different line routes and sections. And when that area gets harvested I move to another bit of the hill.

Lucky to have a fully wooded, 5 mile long, 200m high ridge right next to my house. Lots of fire trails for going up, and hardly ever, if at all, see anybody up there.

The downside of living near enough to trails ride from your door is you get stuck in a rut of the same local stuff

There is truth in that. When I lived near Edinburgh I'd ride from my doorinto the Pentland Hills but for variation I really needed to drive further afield.

I'm now in Aviemore though - hence much less driving. There's just somuch choice and variation locally.

I drive to the South Downs on occasion, other than that I ride to the local trails near me on the North Downs. I am still discovering new ones, which is always good.

Once you know the trails and local routes backwards, then you can ride lots of trails combos without having to plan a route.

Agree - great if you're short on time to just get on and go without needing to plan much, plus if you're familiar with an area you get to know the cheeky routes. There's enough around where I live (Durham) to combine road sections with fire roads/railway paths and bridleways to keep it interesting, with the occasional visit to one of the National Parks or Hamsterley (which I do sometimes ride to from home, but I need to commit a whole day to it to make it worthwhile).

I rode to Morzine to go biking a couple of summers back.
Twas a great way to beat the peages and eat loads of pan au chocolates.
I regularly ride to Cannock for a few laps of the dog; its all free saddle time!

I live in Oswestry Shropshire. I drive:

30 mins to llandegla.
75 mins to the Marin
60 mins to penmachno
100 mins to nant yr arian
90 mins to cyb
120 mins to the dark peak

I have local bridleway/cheeky trails I can ride from the door but some need to be all day affairs (Glyn valley/Berwyns)

I live in Leeds...

Before i had kids 1hr 15 mins each way for a day ride (dales or peaks), less than 4 hrs for a weekend (n wales or lakes)and then 4+ for a few days or more (highlands).

Now I have kids i tend to ride from the door to max the time in the saddle. Did a weekend in the lakes in April this year as couldn't be arsed spending too long driving.

Depends where you live I guess...

@Matt_SS_xc I’m also living in Devon and spend quite a lot of time driving to Wales or FOD as let’s face it Dartmoor is quite often in its natural liquid state. In fact I’m on my way to the Forest of Dean now.

I go to the Forest of Dean once or twice a month and BPW about the same amount. Local stuff is mostly for midweek riding.

I'm about 2 minutes away from local trails and there's a good selection of them to ride.

Me and a mate once drove to Provence and back in a weekend to spend a day riding up and down Mont Ventoux. Probably wouldn't drive any further than that to ride to be honest 😂

I’m a 40-45 minute drive from Aviemore/Cairngorms. Mountain biking is better when, you know, there are some actual mountains... Contin is about 20-25.

I do the majority of my riding in the gorms (there’s a variety and scope I’ve not exhausted yet even if I have now done the Burma Road 3x this year 🤣). Plus I’ve mates who live there and, well, plans...

Bikepacking takes me further afield and like Scotroutes my ‘rule’ is riding time > driving time which is easy enough if you’re overnighting. I have left from the house a couple times (a four day away cross the country and back for instance) but my access roads are singletrack with passing places and the highlands seem to be full of people hurtling along in their cars at breakneck speed... also, crossing the Kessock bridge with 750/800mm bars means stopping if there’s anybody coming the other way... 🤪

My roadie scum days are long gone.

I won’t. Which is guess is why I barely MTB anymore. Being time poor means that I need to use every minute available to me, I can be on quiet country roads on my road bike in 5 mins, and can be running on quiet trails in the same time. Local MTB trails are maybe 30 minutes ride away, anything good is the best part of an hour in the car.

15 mins drive to Woburn or 45 to chicksands or Aston.

3 hours each way for afan that I'm doing next week tho !

An hour or so to swinley, which is the kids favourite

15 mins drive to Woburn

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.

Agree – great if you’re short on time to just get on and go without needing to plan much, plus if you’re familiar with an area you get to know the cheeky routes.

This is true- jeans & trainers (no special shoes needed) and out the door for a quick blast of urban swerving (as my OH calls it)- hopping up kerbs and riding down stairs can be as good for your head as a big day out and there are fun lines and routes all over the shop if you look for them!

^^^ on that theme, closest all weather riding to me is Cathkin, which is ok for a fitness blast when time short. It’s a 7 minute drive or 20 minute ride. I almost always drive though as riding there and back is all on road and to me, waste of time, given I tend to go there when I don’t have enough time to go further afield.

And if you rode there you'd probably get bum raped and your bike taken off you....🙄😂

😎, an added bonus I guess !

I know you don’t rate the place Greg, but it’s worth having a look at the new stuff that was built for the European champs, linking down to the new pump track. I suspect you would find it annoyingly enjoyable...

30-45 mins for a typical 2-3hrs ride

1-2 hrs for a full day out

2-4 hrs for an overnight trip

Up to 14hrs for a biking holiday

Normally straight from the door, but generally try to apply the rule where if you're driving longer than you're going to ride, it's not really worth it for a day trip.

My worst offence this year was driving to Whinlatter - 3.5 hours driving there and back for well under 2 hours riding.

Done day trip to Afan which is 3 hrs each way door to door, apart from that within 1hr I can be at Swinley , Devils Punchbowl, Whiteways, Stanmer Park, Surrey Hills or its 20min drive to QECP.
Most of which become a mudfest this time of year so I jump on the road bike instead.

50% of weekends either 1hr to peaks, or 2.5 to North Wales. Other weekend - 25% from door or less than 30 minutes, 25% boring as shit family weekends.

Cutting down on family for more wales. Would live there but for work. 🙂

About twice a week, Mortimer forest (15 minutes) or Hopton Woods (25 minutes). A couple of times a month either FOD, Llandegla or Cannock all about 1hr 30min.

Well I did the Swinley thing today with Jnr - 2 laps of everything, 4hrs at his speed. Not so sure anymore its going to be a regular thing for me, p'raps I need to hit 2 laps at my race pace to see if I get more from it.

1hr there this morning 1:07 this afternoon back, 110m round trip but only £4 in the car park - £1 an hour.

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.