You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Maybe I’m alone here and I’m certainly not preaching environmentalism but……… As someone who spent 20 years obsessed with cars / internal combustion / speed / power / noise but am now old, sensible, environmentally minded and unlikely to drive enthusiastically on public roads. My questions is, what other ways are there of getting the same enjoyment? MTB, obviously. But what else? Jet skis? Track days?
Ideally something fun but not ruinously expensive or perilously dangerous! Does such a hobby exist?!
Where does the socially and environmentally minded petrolhead go to have fun these days?! Or do I accept that life just less fun!?
Go karting?
There was an article on electric Motorsport the other day. The fast scooters looked fun.
Ideally something fun but not ruinously expensive or perilously dangerous!
Rules out MTB then…
Rules out road biking too, had more acidents on the road bike.
Skydiving?
I used to love modified cars, massive money sink, but massive fun.
Now I'm older I'm more into custom PC and mountain biking.
Both can be just as expensive but cheaper than cars.
Can I interest you in some carbon fibre fishing poles?
Rock climbing is fairly safe & won't wreck the planet,likewise some whitewater stuff
Skydiving involves aviation,Greta won't be happy....
Cheese rolling?
Ideally something fun but not ruinously expensive or perilously dangerous!
I came into MTB's after two of our motorcycling 'crowd' went to jail for speeding, it shocked us as we hadn't really seen jail as a 'consequence'...
Hooked within the year and my ZX9R was replaced by a Fazer 1000, as I'd stopped racing on the roads and just needed a commuter. My pal who also bought an MTB parked up his RSVR soon after and it's not moved since (15 years now).
And bicycles are cheap, my OH has horses...
What's E-bike racing looking like these days?
Or do I accept that life just less fun!?
Yes.
Morris dancing?
Kitesurfing. Not particularly cheap I admit but once you’ve got the kit it’ll last you (I’m still on kites getting on 10 years old). Great fun, no environmental impact other than getting to the beach.
"Skydiving involves aviation,Greta won’t be happy…."
Then Base Jumping Perfect Eco credentials!
Dinghy sailing? Find a local club and have a go.
+1 kitesurfing, windsurfing
kayaking/canoeing?
Paddleboard?
MTB ie XC, gravel, bikepacking?
Change of pace - take up simple bushcraft/bivvying?
Taster of Honda Cub/postie-bike adventuring? https://www.thegarbagerun.com/postie-bike-adventures
(I’d like to import, run, customise one of these 190mpg chicken chasers
https://www.cycleworld.com/story/motorcycle-reviews/2021-honda-trail-125-review/
as a useful back-lanes adventuring alternative to the cash/petrol-guzzling grandad GS fetish)
Go old school vintage motorcycle 2 stroke... if you are only riding a few miles a year the impact is negligible
You will spend more time fixing than riding.
Restore an old Classic.
Polish it on the weekend, take it to a few shows over the year. Turn the central heating off to compensate.
Somebody mentioned dinghy sailing. If you want something insanely fast and a bit unusual look at foiling moths.
Please don't get a jet ski. In the eyes of many (I'm a sea kayaker) it's the maritime equivalent riding a motorbike on a footpath.
kite surfing is probably a bad idea, my mate used to be into it. Hes's probably got more metal than bone in one of his legs, and can no longer walk straight.
Dinghy sailing? Find a local club and have a go.
I mean you could get a foiling moth... But equally you could get a skiff... 12ft should do you for the "shit shit shit the front is lifting and we're out of control" feeling.
But if you really want big crashes it's got to be 18ft skiffs.
kite surfing is probably a bad idea, my mate used to be into it. Hes’s probably got more metal than bone in one of his legs, and can no longer walk straight.
Quite difficult to break bones kiting. Tendon injuries are much more common. You might be able to get some cheap kit from him though!
Quite difficult to break bones kiting. Tendon injuries are much more common. You might be able to get some cheap kit from him though!
He wasn't kiting, he was basically parasailing...
Jeez man check out the RC car or Airfix threads!
Then Base Jumping Perfect Eco credentials!
Might struggle with the "not perilously dangerous" clause...
Ideally something fun but not ruinously expensive or perilously dangerous!
Is "MTB" not enough? Do some XC, trail, enduro, downhill, racing. You'll soon run out of time/energy/money.
Parascending or paragliding.
Please don’t get a jet ski. In the eyes of many (I’m a sea kayaker) it’s the maritime equivalent riding a motorbike on a footpath.
Those people are of course wrong. Riding a motorbike on a footpath is illegal and no matter how considerately you do it pretty inconsiderate. Whereas there is a general right for anyone to navigate the sea even with a jetski. They are however often driven by incompetent arrogant idiots so you will get tarred with that brush and find it increasingly hard to find somewhere you can launch. They are also expensive to run - the fuel economy will make any car you've owned seem like a prius! And many people report getting bored fairly quick.
(Frankly if you are a seakayaker encountering problematic jetskis regularly you probably need to broaden your range of destinations - after all once you are away from the beaches there's no one to show off to so most jetskis are not found in the amazing remote locations a seakayak can be so nice to use).
Or do I accept that life just less fun!?
Lofty - I think you probably need to distill down what it was you found fun about them. The speed/adrenaline, the tinkering to keep it running/make it better, the polishing and comparing your pimped up banger to another? meeting friends with similar interests? something competitive or something else?
Beaten to it but, I was going to recommend R/C cars.
Not so much gluing and painting bits of plastic (for me anyway) more spennering them together then driving / racing.
If you are into the mechanics of cars, not just speed, you'll probably appreciate scale models and driving slowly through woods etc to give the real feeling.
Sounds very odd if you don't get it but once played with they are challenging and great fun.
If you're an out and out speed and adrenalin freak rather than mechanically sympathetic etc, a good R/C bashing trip with friends is immense but does get expensive when you start getting stupid (which you will)
Petrolhead
????¿????
https://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/committees/senate/community_affairs/completed_inquiries/2004-07/petrol_sniffing/report/c02
Sailing; either dinghy or keel boats (yachts), can be expensive, it all depends on how big the hull and sails are, and certainly can be exciting.
Targa Rallying: Very limited modifications, cheap entries, competition is off the highways, tends to suit smaller, nimble cars (K11 Micra, MG ZR/Rover 214, Toyotas etc), so could be seen as recycling old cars
Track days and MTB. Track days can be done a relatively (for motorsport) low cost (older Clio or Civic already track prep'd) and you are only driving for a few hours so not burning too much fuel.
Kites are fun. As is paragliding if you want to take it even further.
Was going to suggest track days. Done a few, both car and bike, immense fun.
Could get a cheapo kit car off the bay and that'll keep you busy when you're not on track.
If that's still too environmentally impactful there's the electric motorbike from Segway that looks tremendous:
or the electric/hydrogen hybrid they're bringing out next year:
Apparently sub-£8k
Winging. Its a hybrid of foil and kiting.
Less kit, smaller, big wind envelope
Or windsurfing, going 30knots off the wind strapped in is a good rush. The special bit is the wind might only be 20knots, so the sea is flatish
Classic british bike? Old Triumph or Norton
Rebuild a landrover from a chassis up
I used to be very much into cars and did lots of trackdays, sprints, hill climbs, drag racing and an annual trip to the Ring. Mountain biking has pretty much taken over, more exciting and a huge amount cheaper! I still do the odd trackday with friends, often in something pretty fast, but an uplift day would be much more fun 🙂
I’d like to import, run, customise one of these 190mpg chicken chasers
One of my motorcycling mates has done just that… 190mpg is a bit optimistic (more like half of that), but he says it’s huge fun and surprisingly capable of road!
Isn't MTB enough? For me it's the best place to get speed thrills whilst not actually travelling that fast, so when you come off it's not usually that bad. The steeper and more tech it is, the slower the speeds required to be challenging.
Maybe I’m alone here and I’m certainly not preaching environmentalism
Nope, not alone. And likewise I'm not preaching environmentalism either.
MTBing will be enough of a hobby for me once I've relinquished my PH card, hopefully with more hillwalking once the kids are a bit older (although both have a couple of munros bagged already). My car's far more than strictly necessary for A-B private transport and I increasingly feel it's not the right thing to have. Not STW-SUV levels of hatred but not far off. Too many utter twunts call themselves petrolheads nowadays that I'm ashamed to ever associate myself with that term now.
Track days worth looking into, although it's never been about the speed/racing for me - more an interest in interesting cars.
I do like the idea of R/C cars.
Windsurfing for me, it does take a little while to get used to it so that it becomes fun rather than just bobbing about.
The good thing about it is when you crash the water is usually soft when you hit it
Track days and MTB. Track days can be done a relatively (for motorsport) low cost (older Clio or Civic already track prep’d) and you are only driving for a few hours so not burning too much fuel.
You'd be surprised, I go through 50 litres of super in a day on track on a motorbike.
At the time of writing this thread has been active for 15 hours and has 42 replies. Its a sign of the maturing attitude on here that nobody has suggested coke and hookers yet, I'm impressed.
so, coke and hookers.
I would recommend, Snowboarding, great rush and so much fun.
Wake boarding, again a lot of fun and physically challenging
Both of those are quite seasonal
I have got into RC in a big way.
I have a TRX4 crawler for the scale driving and requires plenty of tinkering
I have a Baja Rey for blasting about and boosting jumps in a scale way - love trophy trucks and pre-runners.
I have a RWD drift chassis I use on carpet indoors at tracks, so much tinkering and lots of fun.
Defo satisfies the tinkering itch without laying on the floor under a car.
My brother goes sprinting. The hot ticket in the class he sprints in is an old MG ZR 1.4. His most recent car cost him £300 and he does about 12 events a year at Curborough Sprint Course on the varying layouts of the track. Sort of like track days, but you get the competitive element plus chatting with likeminded car nuts.
He wasn’t kiting, he was basically parasailing…
Ah, yes. I've seen this movie before.
Mate of mine bought a new Blade (high-performance kite). He let me have a go.
I thought "I've flown Blades before, I know what I'm doing" and flicked it straight up into the centre of the envelope (so from parked, directly to max power). I then learned a few things in a very short time frame:
1) This was a larger kite than the last Blade I flew;
2) This new model was considerably more aggressive than the old one;
3) What Kite Killers are for;
4) Sand doesn't taste very nice.
The thing bit, hard. Blades are traction kites, they're designed to pull and by god do they. I literally went flying, in the blink of an eye. I don't quite know how high I went but fortunately it was more distance than height. I dropped it to full brake, hit the ground lengthways and was still being dragged bodily across the beach in something of a panic with the spiteful bastard thing pulling like a train.
Oh yeah, Kite Killers! I let go of the handles, the straps round my wrists pulled the lines to collapse the canopy and I slid to an ungraceful halt just before several hundred quid's worth of kite embedded itself into spiky rocks and thorn bushes.
That was a bracing few seconds of my life.
Quite difficult to break bones kiting. Tendon injuries are much more common. You might be able to get some cheap kit from him though!
Give it a go on land.... Number of twisted ankles, bruised ribs, etc....
Great fun, though.
The wind is free and maintenance of gear is pretty cheap.
Still take my old Flysurfer out in the snow using my snowboard (Reschensee). Much more fun than a day on the slopes. Far fewer people and way cheaper.
[url= https://i.postimg.cc/BQZnNvS3/DSCN3479.jp g" target="_blank">https://i.postimg.cc/BQZnNvS3/DSCN3479.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
The UK is pretty good for kiting. Lots of wind, never that far from a decent beach and most towns have a large, grassy rec area to fly.
Yeah, skydiving (apart from the danger part).
I was actually going to suggest getting hold of a classic motorbike and doing a DIY EV conversion on it. I really like my Suzuki Bandit (despite a not so hidden desire for a Ducati 1098) and if the bike dies bigtime, I'll be looking at turning it into some sort of EV commuter bike (and then buying a 1098s)
FPV RC planes? More immersive than RC cars, and the level of kit geekery is almost limitless..
Video gaming. The proper kind, not the new-fangled FPS, RPG, immersive, job-simulation, take-this-object-there-to-get-another-thing-that-has-to-go-somewhere-else, oh-you-died-that's-no-problem-here's-a-respawn-point guff but stuff that's really ****ing hard. Three lives, no continues, beat the high score. Old school style shoot 'em ups are brilliant for a quick adrenalin buzz and add in newer style bullet-hell stuff for some proper flow-state fun.
And, ok, right, don't laugh, but racing round the Nurburgring in Forza Motorsport 4 in whatever virtual car you fancy on an old xbox 360 gives me the same sort of rush that motorcycle trackdays used to give me.
Or just do more biking from your door maybe? There must be any amount of stairs and stuff close by you can send it down 😎
Isn’t MTB enough? For me it’s the best place to get speed thrills whilst not actually travelling that fast, so when you come off it’s not usually that bad
Tell that to Gee Atherton. 😉
There must be any amount of stairs and stuff close by you can send it down 😎
I'm so glad that I live in south Wales if this is what MTB means to the rest of the country. 😀
I’m so glad that I live in south Wales if this is what MTB means to the rest of the country. 😀
Well, yes, smartarse, not everyone has the luxury of actual mountains to chuck their bike down so you just do what you can do and it's better than driving somwhere to ride, isn't it?
Give it a go on land…. Number of twisted ankles, bruised ribs, etc….
That’s why I stick to kitesurfing on water! I’m even twitchy on flat shallow water which a lot of kiters are attracted to, great for doing flat water tricks but not so great landing in shin deep water from a trick gone wrong and breaking your ankles. I’d much rather be outback in the waves where I’ll never hit the bottom but might have a bit of a swim once in a while.
Well, yes, smartarse, not everyone has the luxury of actual mountains to chuck their bike down so you just do what you can do and it’s better than driving somwhere to ride, isn’t it?
I can't post proper emojis here, but you are absolutely correct, I'm being a smartarse! 😀 (And it rains far too much around here - the sacrifices we have to make for living somewhere with trails..)
Car track days are dull too many rules on overtaking. Motorbike track days are fun I’ve done over 400 and 10 years of racing. But having got properly into my mtb riding 3-4 years ago I do one or two a year now, with an average Trackday costing £3-£400 for the day, tyres and running costs with a fast bike it is expensive. By comparison mtb is peanuts, a day in the peaks costs £10 in fuel to get there and food in a cafe, even a day at a trail park is only £50 all in. Spares are cheap and tyres are throw away. The adrenalin is the same, but with mtb the freedom to ride how when and where I want is priceless. Follow a few simple rules and no one bothers you anywhere. I worked out a while back that the adrenalin buzz of being on 2 wheels was what I enjoy and it doesn’t have to be a motorbike.
Please don’t get a jet ski. In the eyes of many (I’m a sea kayaker) it’s the maritime equivalent riding a motorbike on a footpath.
Those people are of course wrong. Riding a motorbike on a footpath is illegal and no matter how considerately you do it pretty inconsiderate. Whereas there is a general right for anyone to navigate the sea even with a jetski. They are however often driven by incompetent arrogant idiots so you will get tarred with that brush and find it increasingly hard to find somewhere you can launch. They are also expensive to run – the fuel economy will make any car you’ve owned seem like a prius! And many people report getting bored fairly quick.
(Frankly if you are a seakayaker encountering problematic jetskis regularly you probably need to broaden your range of destinations – after all once you are away from the beaches there’s no one to show off to so most jetskis are not found in the amazing remote locations a seakayak can be so nice to use).
Yes, I also detest jet skis. And I am a seakayaker too. The problem is that for me to avoid jet skis I have to avoid the beach I live next to…. For a weekend paddle that’s fine. I can paddle away from the beach where most of the Jetskis are messing about and explore the rocky coast beyond. For a quick evening paddle I am stuck with the sods as the noise and kerfufffle dominates the bay. This has led me to take to my pack raft which can be launched from more remote Rocky coves i can walk or ride to.
Mind you, I thought Gower was bad for jetskis until I went to Lydstep in the summer.
Fast, green (well electric) get one of these;
https://trampaboards.com/trampa-sotul-quad-kart-4wd--nuts--using-the-very-best-of-trampas-modular-equipment-were-making-the-very-best-dirt-kart-money-can-muster-please-follow-the-progress-if-you-like-fun-p-32413.html
Just so I can have a shot!
For me mountain biking totally took over from motorbikes, I just didn't have the time and money for both and I'd rather do mountain bikes.
But then I needed a car so I got a fast estate 😛 But generally speaking mtb is pretty much the closest equivalent.
I do find RC cars have some of the same appeals, but obviously very different in other ways.
Gluing your face to a road ?.
Be quite ironic and even slightly dangerous.
Motorbike trackdays, just like car trackdays but are actually fun 🙂 and not a procession of cars behind a really bad driver who does not look in his rear view mirror and has 2000BHP to use down the straight bits 🙂