You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Hikers have the Munros, Wainwrights etc. - what do we have?
I'm a devil for working through a list, whether for work or fun. I've done a fair share off some of the mountain baggers lists, and was wondering is there similar for MTB. Not bagging for the sake of it like some like to, or doing the whole 200+ over a lifetime, but just taking the big list and whittling it down to a quarter or a third based on what people say is good. Then just go and do one wherever there's good weather when you're free.
Of course you could just use those same bagging lists, but if you prefer riding bikes to carrying and pushing them then it's mostly no good. There are a few books (Cicerone) for each area, in which 5-10 of the routes will be a day ride. There are also sites like Pedalnorth for those areas. Or if you have a localish responsible YouTuber make a list from where they've been. I seem to remember someone (matt_oab?) here set himself a challenge something like visit (walking) every hilly bump within half an hour of his house, you could do the same with bridleways.
I'm not looking for something performance oriented like x miles every month, an epic challenge, some multi day adventure, racing, or going abroad. But feel free to share for other people. Just things where the achievement is that you did it and had many good rides out. It helps a lot if it can be done as day outings from home, maybe involving a drive there, or as weekend 2-dayers staying just one night.
Surely every trail centre trail is the obvious one?
Don't know if it the sort of thing you're after but during lockdown I rode every road on the OS map where I live (luckily quite near the middle)
Didn't need to go far but improved my local knowledge a lot (quite new to the area)
Buy a map and a highlighter and go for it.
Move on to the surrounding maps when you're done
Getting one proper ride in at least once a week😉
Every bridleway on 'your' OS 1:50k if you're England, Wales or Northern Ireland, path if your Scotland?
It’s an interesting thought
If you’re a subscriber then you could start with the 153 mag routes. Then maybe whittle down that list to a “single track mag top 100”. Or maybe separate lists for England, Scotland and Wales.
Road cycling had done quite well from the top of 100 clubs list. So it feels like MTB could benefit from something similar.
The down side is that the loops are defined, so for some removes the fun of planning. A list of passes and peaks would work in the Lake District. You could then plan your routes and tick them off in your own way. The trouble is that most of the uk doesn’t have have peaks and passes. Maybe a list of top descents from Trail Forks could be worked through. Although for me I’d rather it wasn’t a descent list as for me MTB isn’t just descents.
Hikers have the Munros, Wainwrights etc. – what do we have?
...........................................................
We have the simple pleasure of riding bikes unencumbered by arbitrary and essentially meaningless lists?
I've always disliked tick-listing. I think it goes back to an old climbing buddy who was an obsessive ticker and never had anything interesting to say about the route - El Cap solo? 'It was okay'. The Eiger Nordwand? 'It was okay'. K2? 'Yeah, not too bad'. He could easily have done the Joe Simpson, Touching The Void thing and described it as 'tricky climb with an awkward descent'.
I get that it's a device to get you out riding just like any number of Strava challenges, but it somehow seems at odds with, erm, cliche alert, 'the spirit of mountain biking'. I guess it depends on the individual though and if people want to stuff that makes them happy, then fair enough. During lockdown, the missus chose to tick off every bridleway in a selection of local grid squares, which seemed to work for her.
She's also very attached to the Veloviewer thing where you basically tick off grid squares and try to build a big block of the things. I don't really get it:
https://veloviewer.com/
+1 for bridleways/byways. At the moment I plan routes based on combinations of the ones I've done before and want to ride again, and gaps in the map where I haven't ridden. In the map below, orange is 2023, blue is 2022, purple is everything before that.
Surely every trail centre trail is the obvious one?
...................................................
Only if you also ride between them would be my take. Unless you really, really like driving around the country with all that entails.
Blimey who has soloed El Cap and done K2?
Blimey who has soloed El Cap and done K2?
.........................................
No-one to the best of my knowledge, but my mate would have done both and had absolutely nothing of interest to say about either. Meanwhile other friends would climb a long VS and come back absolutely bubbling with the joy of the experience.
It's a slight divergence, but I don't understand the thing where only 'epic rides' are worth doing - it's sometimes about finding beauty and fun in the relatively mundane and local. But as above, everyone's wired differently. It just seems a sad way of missing out on a lot of good experiences. You can, of course, enjoy both epics and local rides, you don't have to choose.
Most hill list are not meaningless, they are an encoding of something that is there. Very hard to think of anything on a bike that is similar without being a made up entity, a meaningless list if you like. The seeking out every corner of the OS map around your home has a lot of merit - I discovered the downside of coastal living doing that in the Covid time. If like me you have a city near by, trying to get into as many 100m*100m grid squares (hundredth of a "real" grid square) can be fun. You can get a useable map off Geograph
https://www.geograph.org.uk/mapper/combined.php#17/55.94629/-3.09448
Also get your local core paths maps down from council sites and ride them. See what you can get away with if in England or Wales.
(I'm a hill bagger - 4000+ of the blighters, but am still buzzing after a few of the multi pitch VS routes done in the past).
I'm with BWD, I ride to get away from pointless and arbitrary tasks/list/schedules. I couldn't think of anything worse than making a list entitled "Bike Rides To Do"
Getting one proper ride in at least once a week😉
This is to help with that! Having a goal, and having more planning done in advance.
If you’re a subscriber then you could start with the 153 mag routes. Then maybe whittle down that list to a “single track mag top 100”. Or maybe separate lists for England, Scotland and Wales.
This sounds good, much more interesting than trail centres or bridleways. The first 100 or so will need some digging through PDFs though https://www.komoot.com/collection/933328/-the-singletrack-magazine-classic-rides-collection
The down side is that the loops are defined, so for some removes the fun of planning.
This is fine by me. Avoids the uncertainty of what's likely to be rideable, boggy, etc.
We have the simple pleasure of riding bikes unencumbered by arbitrary and essentially meaningless lists?
This isn't what I proposed. What I said was use such lists and then curate it down to things you want to do.
In the map below, orange is 2023, blue is 2022, purple is everything before that.
What do you use to view all those loops together at the same time?
I’m with BWD, I ride to get away from pointless and arbitrary tasks/list/schedules. I couldn’t think of anything worse than making a list entitled “Bike Rides To Do”
Fair enough. So if you read about a route in the mag and liked it, you'd just hope to remember it? Or if you saw one on Strava or YouTube. And if you're looking for something to ride this weekend, just go from what you remember seeing or find something from scratch every time? With my sieve memory such an approach would miss out a lot, add a small planning obstacle, and tend to cause trail centre rides or repeating a handful of routes.
She’s also very attached to the Veloviewer thing where you basically tick off grid squares and try to build a big block of the things. I don’t really get it:
I thought about suggesting this. It has the advantage of coercing you into little pockets of land (and water) that you might otherwise have avoided and there are often small gems of landscapes, ruins, waterfalls etc. However, it definitely works best if you are prepared for lots of hike-a-bike or, even better, exploring on foot.
So if you read about a route in the mag and liked it, you’d just hope to remember it?
No, I stick it in Komoot as a route, I have a library of them. I just don't feel the compulsion to 'have' to do them. If a route looks good, and its an area I'll be going to, I know that there's probs something that I can ride in the library, its just not a list of rides "to do".
I couldn’t think of anything worse than making a list entitled “Bike Rides To Do”
Just something to do isn't it. A different way of approaching rides and motivating yourself.
I'm slowly ticking off the Wainrights. It means every time I'm walking in the lakes I do a new route. It doesn't have any other impact on my life but adds variety and purpose to the days out.
I'd happily do something similar on the bike - best rideable summits, best descents, best rides etc.
Quote
This sounds good, much more interesting than trail centres or bridleways. The first 100 or so will need some digging through PDFs though
Quote
Would anyone be interested in plotting a few of the older routes? It just seems such a waste that they aren’t catalogued and in gpx format. I’d happily do a few. I’d rather not work against the magazine here so ideally our efforts would end up in the members area and Komoot list
nickc, I think we're doing much the same thing really.
Mine is perhaps "want to do", yours might be more "would do".
The gpx files go back a bit further than komoot, but there comes a point where they're just pictures of maps iirc.
I seem to remember stw said sometime in the past year they're working on digitising older issues, they did issue 1 I think but not heard anything since.
Well you've already said you only want to do the best stuff, so why not identify which of the Wainwrights, Munros or whatever they do in Wales are supposed to be good on a bike, and then do them?
And some of them will have multiple good descent options, e.g. Helvellyn.
What do you use to view all those loops together at the same time?
QGIS. It's not trivial (steep learning curve) but once you get the hang of it it's quite powerful.
We have the simple pleasure of riding bikes unencumbered by arbitrary and essentially meaningless lists?
There's a balance between (re)riding stuff you know you like and exploring new stuff. For me at least, both have appeal. Sometimes a list nudges you to try something new; sometimes a list is the last thing you need.
MBR used to do a monthly rides thing where they'd print an "MBR Loop" every issue and then offer prizes for people who rode them all. It did become quite a thing for a while - you could guarantee that the week after they published (eg) a Lake District route, there'd be hundreds of people out there on Marin Mount Visions or Orange 5's with map boards attached to the bars, following that month's MBR Loop (this was the pre-GPS days).
Also, they'd all be going the wrong way - MBR were famous for rarely riding their routes in the correct direction. 😉
You could create a sort of directory like that - one "big" ride a month, all linked by some central theme if needed.
Trail centres is the obvious one but just seems to be a way of requiring a shedload of driving.
Roadies have those 100 Climbs... series of books - I know @samuri rode them all a few years ago. Maybe create something similar for MTB (although it may have to be 100 Greatest Descents....)
Something about seasons? The same route at different times of the year with pics to show the landscape?
When you put your list together, use a random number generator to assign "next months task". That should keep everything fresh and takes the decision making out of your hands 😄