Wylde06

Im lucky that I can just go out my front door. I live right next to a bike trail...plus im pretty much out in the country.

kleinboogie

I live in the city and the main roads are scary. So, I drive 10 mins to my favorite lake loop.

2manybikes

99% of my rides start at the house. Last summer I did a lot of riding with others that take the car to a long way away to start a ride. It was fun but, I got sick of starting a ride with a car pretty fast.

bmxsykes

For those that drive to ride, I hope that the bike ride is longer than the car ride. I used to drive to a 20 mile club ride and was in the car a bit over what the ride took. I now ride to and from the ride. I add only an hour more to the day but increased my milege to 60.

nahh

...what? there's mtb trails everywhere. just some are better than others.

jfmckenna

I am lucky to have nice country roads right out my door. Takes me about 15 minutes to ride the MTB to miles and miles of trails in the mountains. But where I ride I often take my road bike down some nasty gravel roads. Are you saying you have gravel roads where you live and cannot road ride?

spoke50

Nope... but the little 18% for a quarter mile back to the house will kick your ass!

saratoga

Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Riding by myself, no I'll ride from the house. There's about a two mile stretch of two lane high traffic road that I have to ride on, but after that it's all country roads with little traffic.

There are some group rides on the weekends that require driving to however. The Sat ride is 42 miles round trip and usually takes 1h50min if I drive the 15 miles out to it. Nice to do if I'm in a hurry... get a good hard ride in and I'm home by 0930. If I have more time, I can ride from home, leaving around 0615 to meet the group on the road by 0700ish. Complete the ride with the group and head home... works out to be about 65+ miles and takes right at 3 hours.

My preferred Sunday group ride is about 30 miles N in a hilly part of the next county north of where I live. It's not practical to ride out to that from where I live to make it up there for an 0800 start, so load up the truck and off I go.

invwnut

I do both. I live in Indianapolis where I do ride on city streets for my local training ride but I can take the MUT and go about 10mi north and be out in a rural area. For me it depends on where I feel like riding. I usually drive to my team rides but this year I will be trying other training rides to vary my training. I work 30mi south so there is a country training ride nearby.

mrvile

I don't. I live in the middle of the city so there are a lot of bike trails and MUPs within a couple miles from my house. However, I do live smack on the middle of a huge hill, and the College Hill part of Providence is, well, pretty hilly, so last couple miles back to my house always provides a nice ass kicking. I always need to keep a couple gallons left in the tank for the ride back home.

Doohickie

I ride.

I ride to work... 17 miles each way.

I ride to the meeting point for my club's group rides... 8 miles from home.

I've ridden to other rides and meetups when possible.

I think there have been three times I've driven the bike to a ride- The Turkey Roll in Denton (50 miles away), a bike show in Dallas (50 miles away), and to downtown Fort Worth once (10 miles away, but only because I was shoe-horning a group ride into an already packed schedule). I try to ride to wherever I'm going whenever I can. The bike rides on the back of a car if a ride is a long ways away (and I do very few charity rides as a result), or to be dropped off at the shop.

I live on the edge of Fort Worth and most of my rides are toward the city center. I actually got bored because EVERY ride started out with the same few miles because I only knew one practical route to get into town. I've discovered another route, though, and developed several variations on the two exits from my neighborhood.

We are beginning to think of moving to another house and one cirterion in our selection will be either getting closer into town, or closer to the main MUP that goes into town. Or both.

But I very rarely drive to ride.

alpha_bravo

Too much traffic right on a very busy street outside my door. Unfortunately I have to load my bike in the vehicle and drive about 2 miles to an abandoned ranch road to get most of my training in. Long rides require me to drive a bit further and park at a local high school.

noisebeam

Well over 8k of miles from my doorstep last year.

tardman91

I can ride around my neighborhood if I wanted to, but usually I'll throw the bike on the back of my truck and drive to the Suncoast Trail (~10 mi.) or Starkey Wilderness Park (~3mi.).

liquefied

I don't have a car.

SF is a great city to ride in though. Plus I have Marin and Sonoma counties within riding distance.

graphs

I don't drive, so I never drive to ride. Though it would be nice sometimes to not have to battle traffic for 20km+ to get to some open roads.

Doohickie

When I mentioned that most of my trips are "into the city", they are almost all "down to the river" as well. So the end of every ride is an uphill climb. Not severe, but some routes back to my neighborhood have some significant rolling hills (they are actually ridges that run across neighborhoods, so it's difficult to miss them). Like I said, not severe, but when you're tired at the end of a ride... yuck.

My workplace, incidentally, is about as far from the river (on the other side) as my house is. The typical elevation profile looks like the mouth on a smiley face. So EVERY commute consists of several miles of generally downhill easy stuff followed by several miles of steady climbing. Literally..... uphill, both ways.

StephenH

Ride from the house.

If you have an SUV or pickup where you can just put the bike in and go, with no disassembly, wouldn't be any problem to drive and ride.

If you're far off a road, I'd look at a mountain bike.

caloso

90% of my rides are from my driveway or office, including my next one. I do drive occasionally when I need to get some hill work in.

Machka 

This is what I'm thinking of doing, but I need to find out if there's a place I can store my bicycle when I get there.

crhilton

I disagreed with you calling it suicide (you presented it as a choice between driving and dying). I see that you've backed down from that and now say that you're not comfortable with it. I stated that I have no problem with that. (See how, "I don't think it's a good idea" and "you'll die" are different?)

I didn't realize you were a minor. That does present a difficulty. I'm sorry that your parents have chosen such a poor location to live. I really am. It's nice to live in a place where you can get out of the city, and where the city isn't filled with idiots who hate each other.

Machka 

Dirt/mud track then gravel .... then finally several km away paved roads.

Machka 

So for those of you who drive to your rides, do you go to work, come home, change, drive to a starting point, and then ride in the evenings? Or do you ride from where you work?

crhilton

I'm curious why you ride into town to ride. I don't live in your area (hence the curiosity) but I usually ride out of town. Riding in town seems stressful and slow (and I don't live in a city with all that much traffic, we think congestion is falling below 20 around here).

Is it the trails? Or do you mostly commute rather than ride for leisure?

stripes

Out the door - I don't own a car so all of my traveling is on the bike, commuting, running errands, and just plain old riding around.