[Closed] Right bike for where you live

Orange 5 Northern England ...apparently it has the wring size wheels though

Very much so. Chilterns. Slightly race orientated full sussers or hardtails seem to fit the bill.
Of course you could manage on a CX or find places to ride your big bouncer, but the geography would say XC

I don't know... the area I began riding (S. Devon) had it all. Foresty ST, Dartmoor, disused railway paths / smooth bridleways, jump spots, seaside towns with street furniture almost tailor made for trials.

I guess location did influence me as I believe gears are good (strong headwinds up big open hills), hardtails make sense in sandstone areas and where only half the trials 'need' full sus. A lack of trail centres meant jumping and other bigger, man made stuff didn't exist. So, yeah, a med travel hardtail with lots of gears and 26" wheels for zipping through trees is perfect.

With so much upping and downing, most bikes you see are XC'ish. Not too much travel and efficient at covering long distances.

I bought a trail bike as I prefer to ride trail-centres and travelling to ride stuff to justify the bike rather than the other way around.

I wouldn't say a rigid ss would be best suited to my local area, the bike I have is overkill for sure.

North wales ..wet 99.9% (wetness just varies from appalling to mildly moist) of the year so for winter I have a hubbed hardtail, for everything else SC Nickel, Alps/Snowdon/LLandegla/Clwydians/Local stuff...

Riders in the peaks tend to use steel chainrings! Well the ones I ride with do!

Yup, buy a bike for the trails that you ride most frequently.

Here, South Downs rolling singletrack, some lumps, some forests, some coastline.

SS29er.

Northern Pennines - my Ghost 6000 ltd, hard tail and only 100mm up front, good for weight, but not ideal for lumpy moorland tracks. I persevere, and enjoy it when I'm honking a long farm track up a hill.

I live in norfolk . So I can safely say this is a county that takes the mountain out of mountain biking. However we do have plenty of bridle ways and the twisty singletrack of thetford forest. I would say its the perfect place for a steel 29 er, possible rigid and SS.

You can find some reasonable hills in Norfolk if you look for them. North Norfolk coast and Backton spring to mind. But yes, a 29er hardtail is pretty much perfect.

north east Essex some hills short and sharp and lots of wooded singletrack so tend to see lots of hardtails and shortish travel fs but not many 29ers yet!!

me I run 100mm travel hardtail but going to upgrade to trail fs very shortly

Very much.

Surrey Hills: 29er hard tails in my crew, sometimes rigids, some singlespeeds. Oh and 1 650b. 26ers are in the minority.

Something fitted with an immobiliser, proximity alarm, and a gps tracker.

Derbyshire here, so lots of short but steep hills, a huge variety of terrain, Peaks on the doorstep, Cannock Chase 40 mins away, less than an hour to North Wales (if traffic is kind and you don't mind driving at naughty speeds), so I'm covering all my bases with a 140mm full suss AM 29er. It does all those jobs brilliantly.

Haldon forest & lustleigh - long travel hardtail singlespeed.

Dartmoor - rigid, hub gear and BIG tyres

West Berks,ridgeway territory and swinley forest, I have a 29er spearfish, ideal for the riding I have

Orange Alpine 160. The Alps. 😉

Chilterns / Swinely /northern fringes of Surrey and Hampshire so and XC race styled FS would be quickest, so what do I have? A Pitch*!

*and a cheep SS rigid steel 29er which gets about 5x more use

Hampshire, sussex, wiltshire and dorset

Trail riding best suited to something light and fast. I have a late 90's racy hardtail tahts good for this. Geared or ss but my considerably heavier, 140mm forked 456 is every bit as good although the fork rarely hits the stoppers other than on out of area trips. Used to ride a 5inch fs bike round here. It just wasnt as much fun on the more flowing non rocky terrain I normally ride.

If I lived in the peaks or s. Wales there is a good chance I would be having something slacker of the fs variety.

Peterborough, edge of the fens so pretty flat. I spend my time between my rigid 29er single speed and a my carbon forked 29er 1x9 scandal (to emphasise how flat it is the scandal runs a 38t up front!)

It's less about where you live and more about what you like to ride.

Within a 15 mile radius of my house I have everything from field bridleways, miles upon miles of singletrack, two trail centres, (almost) world cup DH, vast distances of open moorland and forest and everything else in-between.

I ride a 456Ti, but if I was buying now, it'd be a slack 29er HT - as based upon the guys that now run 'em, it'd suit me and my riding better. But it'd have to be light, as we've a lot of long (and steep) hills.

Conditions make a big difference for me here in the Surrey hills. I ride rigid SS in the winter and the wet and longish travel hardtail in the dry.

It's so varied here (mendip) pretty much anything that pedals ok, works. You could do a lot worse than ride an LT HT. But if you day trip away, so much more is available where FS is helpful.

South Lincolnshire, Scott Plasma 🙁
A lot of travelling is requireed to go anywhere which justifies use of an MTB, I feel horrendously overbiked on a rigid SS.
used to live in Fife, near Lomonds and Breas of Angus and Ochills, my Marin AT got a lot more use there

Definitely ride the bike to suit where you ride, that of course gives you permission to buy other bikes for when you ride elsewhere !

British steel 120mm hardtail. Worked fine as only bike for mainly riding the peak, the north pennines, the dales, lakes, sherwood and the flat lands, trail centers, scotland...

I run out of fitness, talent or bottle before bike. Some weight shedding and stem tweaking wouldnt go a miss.

Yup, moved next to Delamere, and after a couple of rides around, bought a Singlespeed.

Peaks here - currently a full suss Singlespeed, soon to be paired with a fully rigid Singlespeed - they are both bikes and go up and down hills - job's a good 'un.

Lowestoft. Norfolk/Suffolk border. Soul. Never tried 29" so don't know if that might be better.

It's less about where you live and more about what you like to ride.

And how you like to ride it.

Chilterns. Ss Brit steel hardtail rigid fork + ti hardtail. On my own i prefer the ss, with the gang I need the hardtail to keep up on the flats.

Depends...My local riding isn't bad at all so I've got all bases covered - a steel hardtail on Pikes, a 120mm full suss and a 160mm AM bike.

I tend to rotate between all three, I've timed the rides and there's nothing in it so its down to personal preference as to which one I want to ride the most.

West Berkshire, chilterns, swinley now and then.

Geared 456 with 4" fork and a dropper. And a 26" rigid SS for when its wet. About the right bikes IMO... But then there's the DH bike and jump bike and Bmx. Not so appropriate and hence used less.

Mine are influenced by my locals but they seem to work everywhere... I guess we have pretty varied riding!

Long travel HT with adjustable fork for me, because that's just what I like riding.

I have recently switched to a Ti Frame though and went from coil u-turn Lyriks to DP Air Revelations last year in a bid to lose some weight.

I ride Thetford / Norfolk mainly and I am nowhere near as quick as the local XC Whippets, but I prefer the downs to the ups.
The group I ride with tend to hammer the technical stuff and cruise the fire roads and climbs to recover.

I would like to try a proper light rigid 29er, either SS or 1x9 just to see what the difference is though.

I bought the one I thought looked cool that got good reviews and was relatively cheap (Spesh Pitch). Turns out it's reasonably well suited to where I mostly ride: Lakes (now), Scotland (sometimes), Calderdale (soon to be local).

Lakes/Calderdale/Peaks = Orange 5 (and yes that's 26" please)
or Alpine 160 if you insist on riding something "different"

trails around brighton - 4" full suss.

short light but burly enough for the odd fun bit available. soft enough to take the edge off on all-dayers.

Bristol: 180mm adjustable travel AM bike. Probably a lot of bike for the well known trails, but for the unknown ones it's a different story, and of course, it's been set up for a ton of other places further afield..... 🙂

Live in the lakes and have just got myself a carbon nomad. Can't wait to get out on it.

I live in Northants and work near Woburn Sands so I have a few different bikes. Road bike and bmx for local riding, 160mm "freeride" FS for Woburn and a hardtail for a bit of everything else. I never ride mtb locally, it's so crap round here and I'd rather be on the road bike or at the skatepark/jumps on the bmx.

My corner of Leicestershire has all the hills for the whole County, so the majority of my riding is in a relatively small area. It consists of wooded singletrack with a few jumps/drops and a more open almost Moorland area (almost like a Mini-Peaks) which is steeper (climbs) and faster (descents)than the wooded bits.

I currently ride a 140mm 26er hardtail with a Slack HA, a Ragley Blue Pig.

Works reasonably well round here and in my preferred Away Day ride location of the Dark Peak.

However I'm considering either getting the same sort of bike but in 29in flavour or a rigid 29er next year.

The thought around a rigind 29er is that I could ride further afield from my door but on less technical terrain.

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TBH honest I could do with more travel, not less.

trailofdesctruction - did a night ride round there a couple of weeks ago - love it. Not sure if the travel is the biggest factor or the 36mm stanchion Vans I have on it now but my bike feels brilliant on those bouldery Lakes descents.

I guess night riding there is fine... providing you know whats coming up. Going down there too fast and not being ready for that, is going to leave you with some interesting bruising.

I had a Cotic Soul, which was a lovely, lovely bike. However, it was built up with 100mm Sids, and lightweight wheels. Regretted selling it, but it was just completely unsuitable for where I ride.

Everything there is rideable on a hardtail, but FS bikes are much better.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/trailofdestruction/sets/72157634040351303/

I guess night riding there is fine... providing you know whats coming up. Going down there too fast and not being ready for that, is going to leave you with some interesting bruising.

First time on that trail I tried to jump off that slab and messed up the landing - went over the bars and hit my face on a bit of moss-covered rock. In a bit of a daze I wondered if the squidgy feeling was due to my cheek bone caving in before I realised it was the soft moss. Happy days. 🙂

Most of my 'proper' riding is on Dartmoor (plus quick blasts around Haldon) and my Soul with 120 Rebas does me poud. Not saying a FS wouldn't be great fun as well but as a 'one bike to do it all', the Soul's pretty damn close.

@grum - you see what happens kids when you get over confident, you end up like this man. 😆

That sounds like a lucky escape there. Non-moss covered rocks really hurt, m'kay.

Southern Hampshire -- I own three singlespeeds.

........oh, and a 140mm ful suss 'holiday bike' that gets ridden twice a year if it's lucky.

Malvern Hills - Intense 6.6 Coil shock & forks

I could easily get away with a 100mm hardtail (used to ride a rigid) but, as I'm getting older, I'm enjoying the downs more than the ups so would rather have a bike equipped for that side of things and uplift days etc. Still keep up with my younger mates on the climbs too so maybe it is the right bike?

Ride mostly in the Highlands.

Currently on a Dialled Alpine hardtail with 140mm up front, running 1x9.

Probably unlikely to buy another full suss unless I move to Surrey.

The trails you ride pretty much entirley determine the type of bike that would be best suited. And the geology of the area determines how the trails end up. Chalk country down south for instance makes for very smooth trails, so a hardtail for instance would be great.

Where I live in South Wales there's lots of sandstone which breaks up into big ish square edged rocks, so you get lots of rocky loose climbs and a FS works well. The hardness of the rock also means you get steep hillsides and hence steep trails both up and down. When I had a HT I found it much harder to clean some of the rocky climbs on it.

Currently ride mostly on an Orange 5 and a Patriot.

North Hertfordshire here. I have a totally unsuitable 150mm LT steel hardtail.

It does everything I could want. I do more riding at Woburn than anywhere else, I do the odd trail centre day, and when I do want to buzz round the relatively flat bridleways of Hertfordshire it does it fine.

So I guess wrong bike for where I live, right bike for the sort of riding I do.

I live in the Alps - an Orange Patriot for when the lifts are open, and a Yeti SB66 with Marz44s for everything else. But to be honest, I'd like something a bit lighter than the 66 as when the lifts are shut, the hills take a lot of time to climb 🙂 Some faster rolling tyres are on their way to ease that particular pain.

Main bike is a 100mm travel FS which suits riding in the south east but doesn't get out of its depth in Wales or the Peaks (unlike the rider).

Tyneside - I reckon a tourer is probably the best thing for round here, assuming you mean riding from the door. Sure you can drive half an hour to first rate mountain biking but the access to some absolutely stunning cycle paths and long distance trails is second to none.

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Living in Northants, for most of the year, anything less than one of these^^^ and you're not going anywhere on the XC routes!

But i also have a 160mm AM, and a 140mm HT, and an 100mm XCR just in case........ 😉

North Downs and Surrey Hills here; Dialled Alpine with 150mm Marzocchi Z1 ETA on the front seems to be my bike of choice at the moment.

Lakes and Scottish Border trails here:

180 FR / 140 AM / 120 XC FS'ers and a cheeky 100 HT pretty much covers all bases for me.

Malverns/FoD/Wales. Solaris is sometimes a bit too little and Rocket is probably a bit too much but love riding them both. I probably need a 29er FS then 🙂 Still alps in two weeks so glad to have the Rocket then.

New Mills end of the Peaks I use my inbred. For big days out in the Peaks proper, Calderdale or the Lakes I use the Turner Flux.