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Nicely varied riding from my East Devon door 😁
240m high ridge covered in woods 5mins ride away. Loads of singletrack, BWs and various trails within a 10km radius.
Miles of country lanes, unmettaled roads, and gravel.
Dartmoor is a 35-40km cycle away, as is Exmoor, so I can do a 100-150km road ride and take in some proper hills and wild countryside.
I really only drive to ride if it's visiting mates further afield or maybe MTB on the Quantocks or Dartmoor. No more than once a month I'd say.
*Edit...Just looked on Strava. 2 rides I've driven to in the last 6 months. Quite pleased with that.
Another thing not mentioned is you can get a really really long way from your front door if you include an overnight bivvy, b&b or hostel. Keep gear minimal and that could open up all kinds of interesting trails without touching the car or even a train.
This time of year is a GREAT time to start planning such shenanigans for the spring/summer
but I don’t live in an MTB Mecca now (Reading) so it’s mostly gravel and road bikes
Yeah it’s shit. There are some decent routes heading north from Sonning but, not great this time of the year.
You can get to Swinley/Crowthorne woods in about an hour mostly off-road, with one cheeky footpath from Shinfield. If you can be arsed.
I find it hard to believe anyone lives in such an urban wasteland that riding from the door is ‘impossible’…
Riding from the door may not be impossible, but in many cases it's likely to be undesirable. When I lived in Manchester for example I did little riding because it was such an utter ball-ache to get to. It just put me off. When I worked in Birmingham it was grim too.
Yeah it’s shit. There are some decent routes heading north from Sonning but, not great this time of the year.
You can get to Swinley/Crowthorne woods in about an hour mostly off-road, with one cheeky footpath from Shinfield. If you can be arsed.
There's a bit more about than just that, I'm the other side of town from sonning but do get over that way riding with mates from Earley regularly, it's very much roadie territory, but yeah I make do with what I have nearby, I doubt I'll bother with swinley before spring now (and it's only a half hour drive away 😉 ).
I don't think anyone has mentioned the bike yet.
I'm about 15 miles from Innerleithen, so can ride there in about an hour on the XC hardtail, which is fine, loads of trails to ride between here and there, and around there.
However, getting to the Golfie on the big bike with a full face and pads is a pain (I'm not very good on the steeps so I need them!) and I often drive that. I feel guilty about driving such a short distance so tend to make an overnight of it, sleep in the van and get two days riding in to ease the guilt a little.
I'm looking to move to Inners or Walkerburn for proper 'from the door' riding, I'd use the big bike a lot more if it was truly on my doorstep. And having the river in the village would be great, kayak in van, drive upstream, kayak back to house, get warm and dry, ride to fetch van.
I live in Liverpool city centre. No chance I can ride from my door. I do the odd gravel ride from my door, but roads are horrendous, nearest decent mtb is North Wales. Even road riding isn’t particularly nice from my door.
I generally drive over to the girlfriends in North Wales / English border and we take the gravel bikes to Delamere or ride gravel rides from her door. River ride over to Chester is ok for us to bimble around and then back roads home.
Would love to live nearer real mountain bike territory, but work and family mean I’m stuck here for the foreseeable.
We should all chip in to buy a small property or caravan in Swindon. That way we can take it in turns to go ride the fabled trails behind the Nationwide.
But who would run the uplift 😉
Lack of MTB worthy riding is why I mostly ride a gravel bike. It literally makes the trails come alive™
I stopped driving to ride during COVID and haven't really felt the need to other than on a few occasions
I think it'll depend on where you live almost 100% but are riders just starting out in cycling now choosing the bike suited to their surroundings rather than when we all started when pretty much it was road bike or MTB?
I bought a road bike solely because, on a personal basis, I just cannot imagine really driving somewhere just to ride my bike around. That said, living in Manchester I still have to "commute" on the road bike through the suburbs to get to the nice lanes and hills.
I don't mind driving for an event of some sort though. I've driven up to an hour and a half (each way) to 'cross races and trail races and stuff like that.
Gravel bikes just don't interest me at all, but looking at objectively they could make a lot of sense where I live- I used to ride my old XC hardtail along canal towpaths and the mersey river to get to the trails in Marple and Hayfield so I expect a gravel bike would be great for that, though perhaps avoiding some of the more gnarly trails when I get there.
The Solaris is good but a BFe wouldn't hurt🤣
Might be the ideal compromise between the Solaris for getting there and the Rocket for being there. Hmm...
Riding from the door is mostly ok-ish XC but a 15 minute drive gets us to the edge of Galloway Forest.
I think we do drive more than 'local' but there are always 2-4 riders in the van and my total annual mileage on my (only) vehicle is less than 10k a year.
I live in the FOD so yeah 90% of my riding is from the door. I moved here specifically for that from Bristol back in 2020.
I feel like this thread is going to separate the STW Richlist from the normals. It must be incredible to be able to choose where you live. I, like most people have to live in the only place I can afford and cling onto it.
The only fortunate thing for me is that me and my girlfriend work from home now, so as long as we're within an ok driving distance from the office to go in once every month or two, we can live wherever. It actually works out so much cheaper too. We were both on 30k when we moved - so far far from 'richlist' - and for the price of a crappy 2 bed flat in Bristol, we were able to get a 4 bed detached house with a garage and garden in a little village in the FOD.