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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
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
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
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.
[img][url= https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7670/27038656596_3f8f4a5579_k.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7670/27038656596_3f8f4a5579_k.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/HcjbAq ]Aeris Meets Dartmoor[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/74971491@N05/ ]jruk*[/url], 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.
Im a bit hard done by
end of my drive is this
and no I cant jump
end of the road is this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDgzzduP8X4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8YQY-I6Tl8
plus some nice guys have just built a bloody pump track!
its pretty rubbish around here tbh 🙂
I deliberately became self-employed and moved to the edge of the Peak District for this very reason.
10mins from home:
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15mins from home:
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20mins from home:
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Not much round here, we have lots of bridleways and NCR1 runs close by a couple of miles away. There's a disused quarry about 30 minutes' pedal and some woods alongside that are good fun to mess about in but nothing massively grr or gnarly. There's a nice loop, 5 miles or so, from our house down to the coastal path and back up again that has some nice jumpy bumpy bits though.
I was feeling little despondent, although only 45 min from Dartmoor and less from Bodmin, I was missing trails that didn't require a car journey or cheeking about on the SWCP . 8 months of dogwalking and perusing local maps I began to piece together a network of ancient farm tracks which range from deep slop to rock gardens and most inbetween. Cornwall is a land of missed opportunity when it comes to connecting summer singletrack. A lot of the tracks I find are marked as roads, for example the one below is a mile from my doorstep, a 'road' on the map, now it's miiine, alll miiine! It's often worth looking that bit harder but can take time. Dog-walking is a therefore a good way to recce possible local opportunities. Can't help for London tho 8)
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I've been moderated 😥
Get down to Bispham, The paths down to the beach are slightly steep, they've probably not been resurfaced in years so will be pretty torn up. You might get 5 seconds of gnar!
There isn't any gnar down here in Wimbledon either. The common and Richmond park are nice enough for a short pootle around. There's only one or two bits that go downhill enough off road to even create any excitement. My GF actually holds the QOM on one.
Gnar nearby?
Well I can ride from home to this:
For those that don't know it, it's currently top of this weekends' Tweedlove Enduro riders 'worry' list 🙂
Just North of Reading, nice bridleways and singletrack, but not much gnar. I did pass a loose flint the other day, but apart from that there's not much rock or hairy descents. Happy to make the best of what I have though.
Despite being in Hk I live out by the airport on Lantau Island, this is about 30 minutes riding/hike a biking from my apartment
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For another 45 minutes and 350mtr of climbing I can get to the Chi Ma Wan peninsula for some excellent trail riding.
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For DH shuttle fun or some good AM riding, its all of 30 minutes in a van to Tai Mo Shan country park.
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Its also a 2.5 hour flight to Chiang Mai or Taiwan, so not too bad.
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 dunno, have you been recently?
Even if you've not then i'd argue that sections of the Red (well, mostly the first bit of 15 and 25 downhill) are well up there in terms of technicality with any trail center in Scotland/Wales, especially as they're doubles rather than tabletops.
That combined with the new Freeride area which basically seems to have taken the idea that people might ride it and crash and sue, and to avoid that happening simply made it unrideable for all bar the experts.
It's all getting a bit........big
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If it was me building that bottom jump I might have been temped t remove some of the deathkillskewers from the trees.
This type of stuff is about a 15min ride from my place.
Anything other than 'natural' trails is a 2hr drive north.
Pentlands Death Steps 2 minutes from my door. Shonky dh trails built by mad yoofs about 10 minutes ride. Not bad.
1.9km from the nearest legal trail. 200m from the nearest cheeky one. Nothing longer than a minute descent but can string together a lot of little ones in an hours evening ride from my door.
Got a set of wood boarded steps I'm eyeing up but waiting for them to dry a bit as they look bloody lethal at the moment.
In fact there's three sets of steps of increasing difficulty to go at, each more evil looking than the last and all arse-twitching on my 26" hardtail
Photo doesn't really show it well, but there's a series of rock drops weather-worn out of a gully with the odd fallen tree to negotiate for about 100m descent.
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Not ridden it in a while as 1) last time I did I met a bunch on MX bikes coming up (and getting stuck) and 2) there's a much nicer route around the side of the hill that is mostly off-camber through the trees with the odd rooty bit/fallen tree to deal with.
Part of a little 8 mile loop from the doorstep that also has stream crossings and a river if you're feeling bold and it's warm enough. I've only cleared the river 3 times I think.
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I suppose this is the closest to me. About 5 minutes drive.
(not me riding)
Plenty stuff I can ride to though.
Well this has just made me increasingly jealous! As much as I love looking at biking pics, seeing people doing evening rides in the Lakes or posting pics of their "after work" blasts on Instagram can be quite frustrating.
I've started to think about getting some sort of cx bike for pootling around on locally, especially whilst the little one keeps me occupied!!
Next time I go out for a quick blast round here, I'm gonna go up to the promenade, see if I can find some steps and drops to practice on
Local trails:
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Sucks round here.
Leicestershire - a soupçon of gnar if you know where to look...
About 5 minutes drive.
Why would you drive 5 minutes when you are about to ride a bike?!
15 mins from the Irish EWS trails, which is nice.
Nothing much. Just an 80+ mile loop through the mountains or two...
Like mtb? Live in Scotland.
A whole forest about, ooh 3 minutes ride from my front door without even going on a proper road. A load of bridleslaying local too
Living in the Derbyshire Dales on the edge of the White Peak is a bit of a chore trying to find any decent riding 😉
This is one of our regular rides (not my pic), but I'll have to admit, we have to drive 20 mins to the start. Plenty of excellent riding from our doors though - wouldn't live anywhere else...
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Stanage/Higger Tor/Blacka/Lady Cannings - all in one ride - one of my favourite places for sure. Absolutely love the techy rocky stuff. I've taken that photo many times - unfortunately, I'm always behind the lens!
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All that stuff in Matt's article is about a mile or two north of where I live. Fortunately a hundred metres in every direction of where I live are awesome proper trails 😀
Couple of miles from my house, on the South Downs. Doesn't look like much in that picture but you can get some serious speed up going down them hills!
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OP - you know you should move. 😉
Local ride from door to all of Stirling, Bridge of Allan and Dunblane residents are things like Darn Path, Mine and Uni Woods, Dumyat, North Third, and Ochils. Even our local park at the end of the road (the Laighills) has gnar.
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Drive to Trossachs or North for 20-40 mins, you have a few options including Munro's...
I'll just leave this here. This is the easiest trail locally that's hand cut. 15 minute ride from the house, after riding past Glentress on the way.
And yes, I totally ride like Gary Forrest.
matt_outetc, great picture.
ir_bandito too. BTW, the frame in my photos is the one you sold me, all those years back.
painey- you rate the F29? Considering another one in the stable.
matt_outandabout - Member
OP - you know you should move.
I would like to, but there are a few things keeping us here! Maybe in a few years we'll be on escape to the country 😉
I spent a blissful couple of years being able to ride the whole of east Dartmoor from the door..
Now we're back in town, I've ditched suspension which livens up the rooty singletrack in the woods and makes the coast path pretty fun too
painey- you rate the F29? Considering another one in the stable.
Yes I rate it very highly. The BB isn't the best as you tend to get through the bearings but it's a 5 minute job to replace them and they're not expensive. Headset seized which was a pain to resolve.
That aside, it's very comfortable for a hardtail. The flexy seat stays and seat post really do work in that respect. It's also a fun bike to ride downhill as well as excelling at long distances. I did the South Downs Way last summer and felt like I could have carried on for another 50 miles when I got to Eastbourne.
BTW, the frame in my photos is the one you sold me, all those years back
Oh yes! I never actually built or rode that as I found a Ti Voodoo shortly after I bought it. Nice to know its being properly used though.
This is about as gnar as it gets for the North Cotswolds, a few short runs, I swear they feel steeper than they look though!
Kicak trails, top is about 30 mins ride up from the city centre
I live in Somerset, pretty much on the coast (the sea is 1 mile due west) in one of the only areas where the Somerset Levels reaches right out to the coast. So on my doorstep its flat, very.
Approx. 25 mins south I have the Quantocks - where I ride the most and 20 miles north I have the Mendips. I've been there a few times now and am heading out with a medium size group there today.
I gotta say. (Triscombe aside) it seems so far that the mendips have a lot more 'gnar' going on per mile in much more smaller fragmented spaces than the quantocks, but they're also muckier (drain less well) and a [i]lot[/i] more technical.
I *love* bombing quantocks combes and singletrack but so far my mendips experiences show up some huge differences. Apart from going up the hills I'm as quick as these guys on the quantocks and getting fitter & faster all the time, but on their own, more technical turf i've a hell of a lot of catching up to do.. make of that what you will!
Being a mountain biker in S.Wales, living where I do, I'm very lucky. Can ride in any direction from the door onto trails and hills.
This place is 5mins from home and incredible to ride (when dry lol) , plenty of gnar also lol.