Pinkbike Poll: How Often Do You Ride Instead of Drive?
This person gets a free pass for driving to the trailhead.
Spring is in the air in the Northern Hemisphere, or at least in the parts where it's not currently snowing, raining, or tornadoing, which means more and more riders are heading to the trails. And by heading I mean driving, at least based on how busy the parking lots around me have been lately. I'm always surprised by how reluctant mountain bikers are to ride to the trails, even if they only live a few miles away. Granted, if you don't drive you won't be able to show off that snazzy lifted Sprinter van, or the rooftop tent on your Tacoma, so I guess there's that.
It's almost as if there's a collective amnesia that causes mountain bikers to forget that their bikes are also a means of transportation, rather than solely being expensive toys to ride around in the woods. In many cases riding doesn't take that much longer than driving, but it does require committing to not immediately reaching for the car keys when it's time to ride.
I'm not oblivious to the fact that in some areas trying to ride to the trails simply isn't worth it due to the amount of traffic and a lack of bike-friendly infrastructure – playing in traffic is often more dangerous than mountain biking, especially considering the inordinate number of distracted drivers out there.
I wish more parking lots looked like this.
What about other tasks, though? Do you commute to work? Ride a bike to the grocery store? A cheap commuter bike is a great complement to that fancy (or not-so-fancy) mountain bike. It can take a conscious effort to commit to running more errands by bicycle, but trust me, it's worth it. Putting the obvious environmental benefits aside, getting out of those metal and glass boxes is good for the brain – my thoughts are always much less scattered, my frustration levels much lower after a little spin around town.
We've done variations of this week's poll question, but I'm always curious to see where the general sentiment of Pinkbike's readers lies. At the end of the day, if I'm able to convince even a few people to ride their bikes more often and drive their cars less I'll consider this small soapbox rant successful. For the record, I do occasionally drive my car to go riding, but try my best to ride whenever possible, especially if the trailhead is less than 5 miles away.
How often do you ride a bike for tranportation / utility purposes?
Select all that apply.
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Member since Feb 1, 2009
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Why can we only choose one other type of bike we use?
Why is there no option to see the results to the last question if you use the bike to get to the trails if you don't want to click a wrong answer?
You can hardly say you do something if 80% of the opportunities you just don't.
I also ride to the trailhead as the extra exercise is good for an old fart like me so no option there also.
Pretty poorly thought out poll
to it dont matter what you ride here and its to petty for the po poes to even care about.
With these rules I never had a bike stolen in my life and only lost a quick-release front wheel so far. Compared to the city I think the risk of theft at races or bikeparks is much higher because security is lower and most likely professional thefts at work.
You can come out to your $25 bike and it'll be gone or just a frame in a matter of hours.
The trick to not having your bike stolen mainly comes down to having some security(no need to have the most expensive gigantic lock there is if the thief has all the time in the world to get a grinder out and cut it), and then having a bike that does not appear to be the nicest in the parking area (It doesn't mean that bike has to be shitty. It just needs to look shitty. Decals half pealed off, paint chipped, poorly spray painted parts, dirty frame, rust, worn mtb tyres, etc.)
That being said, most people in the USA live in suburbs where car commuting is so dominant that other options are highly unappealing, though certainly doable.
More cycle paths separated by physical barriers please.
Exactly, I drive and it's much more pleasurable, for me and everyone else.
What is a trailhead? If i ride from home, there is nothing like a trailhead - i just ride on existing paths and trails that just start from random places.
If i go somewhere specifically, e.g. Lenzerheide or Davos etc., i wouldn't call the mountain station of the gondola a trailhead.
Yes, we are very lucky here in Switzerland to have hiking trails that mostly are legal to ride here in Switzerland.
Nowhere is perfect, Switzerland is pretty incredible but Coastal California means riding bikes all year, Oceans and Mountains close-ish...I'll take it.
Still, where's my damn train to Tahoe?!?!
Third question needs a "Because road is garbage miles" response.
But there are some nice trails starting 250 m from my house. There's not much elevation and not very technical (for the most part) but they're still fun.
The lack of hills is a trade-off indeed. But I'd rather just ride my bike everywhere and not have the most amazing trails nearby than to have the most amazing trails but that it'd be outright dangerous for my kids to go anywhere. At 10 yo, they can happily ride home from a friend 10km away and at a much younger age they could do that with me riding along. If that's not possible because of the infrastructure and the cars, there is something horribly wrong.
And I completely agree about it being better to be able to ride everywhere (work, shops, ...) and having to take the car to a bike park instead of the other way around.
To be clear, we're on the sharrow lane for all of 100m before getting to a bike path, there's an elementary school down the street, and its got speed bumps all over.
The fleet of rentable bikes all around town makes riding around on clear days super convenient though. It's rare to be more than 10 minutes by foot away from a blue bike which you can drop off almost anywhere in town when you're done. I almost enjoy doing small chores and errands on those
Trying to get to Middlesex Fells, Blue Hills, or Cutler Park from Allston at rush hour after work on my mountain bike is way more of a dicey proposition though
though and do all my commuting via a bike. I did in the earlier days learn to drive in a triumph dolomite with
overdrive and did so illegally, occasional run ins with the plod had me lying my arse off with, just bought the car
my name is fred, getting written producer in 7 days, then things got computerised, anpr etc so I grew facial hair
and went back to the Raleigh maverick and muddyfox explorer and moved on.
For once none of the options in the tick box apply to me, wahooo I'm an oddball, suckers! : )
I have a couple of leisure bikes, sure, but also a cargo bike for shopping and big loads, and a folder for taking train to cities - and the pub bike of course
Pack the emtb on the back of a truck to drive 20 miles to ride at my local spot? GFY
I ride to my trail head most days because it is three blocks from my house.
I only ride Park!! (have so wanted to say that)
I don't ride any other kind of bicycle, except an MTB.
When there are no cars on roads, I will ride a bicycle to work.
live in a decent-sized city; don't own a car; have an extensive transit system to get me to a whole range of excellent trails (or anywhere else I want to go without a bike!); gravel bike commute a reasonable distance as near to 5 days per week for as near to 50 weeks per year as I can (stopped by extreme weather, injured/sick/bleugh-days, special after-work social events, too much shit to carry on the bike, etc); also have an enduro bike, all-rounder HT for easier trails/bikepacking/crap weather commuting/loaning and pub bike to just go places.
Lots of that list can't be recorded by the above questions and options despite being fairly 'normal' (my situation, obviously, not me...)
How often do you drive to ride? Maybe once or twice a year.
Which bikes do I own? All of them, plus fat bike.
What's a trail head? People like me who think life is best when I'm riding or hiking a trail?
Also, Pickup trucks and vans are not a thing in Europe, as in you don't own one unless it's something you need for work. You either have a Renault Clio (Europe), or a massive electric SUV (Norway).
> How often do you ride a bike for tranportation / utility purposes?
"Very often." - it's not covering my case. I do not have car at all, always commute by bike to work and use trains if I need to get to a trail.
I did live in Northern California for a while. Commuted by bike every day. I loved it when people looked at me puzzled and asked: 'but what if it rains?'
For this to be a useful survey of PB users, "none" needs to be an answer to this, otherwise you're missing out crucial context-making data.
2. You didn't ask how far away people's trails are in connection to whether or not they bike (which would be useful data).
3. You didn't include fatbikes in the "other bike" category! The frozen north disapproves. Where is the fatbike field test where you force Levy to suffer?
Add the crappy trails, the 2 bridges and fighting cars it's not worthwhile to ride to work. I'd rather save the time and effort and go to a local park / mountain afterward
This poll is a total fail for anyone who’s a frequent bike commuter.
Bike theft is hands down the #1 reason I wouldn't even if I could.
Also, my closest trailhead is 200m from my front door, so driving to it would be more hassle than riding
kinds of bikes to ride.
When I’m not on my prime MTB
I ride my old Bianchi cyclocross bike as a road bike and gravel bike and commuter.
Not just talking about “carbon footprint” from buying/mfg our bikes. But more like idling diesels at the TH, trash, and trail etiquette.
(can't commute or get groceries in the winter by bike)
Poll: A. Hand Polished
B. Wrapped
I have 2 kids I need to drop off and pick up from school on the way to and from work.
UCI garbage, new products, podcasts, beta,
the annoying English guy. Actually have you
Heard of waki.com? Best site for relevant
Bike related content. Good bye pinkbike-
You’re outside overlord has crushed you.
NO options or thoughts for that to chosse.......
Very foten by Italian standards is every day, whatever activity is the topic.