Cycling in Milton Keynes

Richa1181

Are there any cyclists on here from the Milton Keynes area at all? My job is quite possibly going to MK this year and I'm trying to decide if it's worth moving there or putting up with a lengthy commute in order to stay in the Cheshire countryside. Are there any decent clubs there, any opportunities for racing? Flat or hilly? The only things I've heard about the place are that it's very boring and grey (even the topic of this thread sounds insanely dull!) But these things I can live with as long as I can ride my bike..

Cloudy_Wheat

Its not to bad here very flat has a redway system which I use on a daily basis. There are a couple of Cycling clubs
http://www.teammk.com/ and North Bucks road club
http://robertsaunders.org.uk/northbucksroadclub.org.uk/
Team Keyne do a Sunday ride from Stony split into three to four groups.
If your into Moutain Biking there are plenty trails around Woburn and Slacey Forest.
As a whole Milton Keynes is flat with loads of roundabouts but your always close to the country side.
Hope this helps.

night_porter

I used to cycle in and around MK and it is nothing like people think.

The roads are boring and grey but the redways (very wide cyclepaths) go between the villages of MK without actually touching the roads using bridges and underpasses. You get to see lakes, greens, woods, etc and not a roundabout in sight.

Alternatively, the North Buckinhamshire and South Northamptonshire countryside is very picturesque as long as you like riding on winding lanes with little or no traffic.

I would suggest you take you bike and go there for a week or two and explore, I certainly miss the riding there and I live on the edge of the Cotswolds now (too much traffic here to enjoy properly).

CiB

I know the area - used to live there, still live close enough to visit the place regularly.

First up. MK isn't dull, or boring. It's different but not dull. It's got huge amounts of open space, a lot more green space than you'd think possible in fact, lots of parks and apparently more trees than anywhere else. Don't know what that means tbh, but it's there as a fact. The centre is pretty good - plenty of retail therapy opportunities in the main shopping centre, leisure centres dotted around the town, there's an excellent theatre, variety of restaurants, cinemas, a brill museum, decent art centre, the snow-dome, ice hockey team, MK Dons football team - it really is a good place to be. There are some good schools too. Don't be put off by the dismal 'gawd it's just roundabouts and concrete cows'. That's the view of people who don't know the place. As for being soulless - that's cobblers. Where I lived it was quite the opposite; v communial and friendly - summed up best by the woman from up the road who knocked on our door one morning and asked if I'd mind taking her kids to schools as she was running late. No probs - chuck em in. Not quite the empty soulless everyone-in-their-own-rabbit-hutch image that MK is portrayed with. I reckon that's MK's biggest problem - the image that outsiders have of it, often compounded by lazy journalists and comedians on Radio 4 panel shows who know that "Milton Keynes" = cheap laugh. Phah.

Biking. There are plenty of clubs. I'll find links tonight maybe but for a start Phil Corley's pro-team is based there. There's also 23C up in Stony Straftford - two top-end bikeshops with genuine riders at the heart of their set-ups. Towcester just up the road has a decent road club too - there's no shortage. For mass-market there's an Evans and a few smaller LBS outlets scattered around; Chaineys at Shenley, Roy Pink in Newport Pagnell etc. You're well looked after for bikes, and clubs.

Forget the redways. They're meant to encourage cycling but a lot of them run parallel to the grid roads; everywhere that there's a side road off a main grid road, the redway has a Give Way. You have to stop & GW every few hundred yards. If you're out for a pootle with the family that's fine, but not on the bike for a proper ride. Plus the redways are mixed use so you're sharing with kids going to school, dog-walkers, shoppers, poeple on their way to dump household goods on someone else's bit of redway etc. And they're not well-maintained esp around the centre - pot holes abound.

I always used the roads. They're quite good, it's a grid system so you're either going roughly east-west or north-south. I never had any problem; the dual c/ways were always ok when I used them. I took the view that the dual c/ws are twice as wide so we all have more space, and tbh a car hitting me at 70 isn't go to do a lot more damaage than one that hits me at 60. You keep your eyes & ears open and get on with it. At weekends the traffic is never a problem aay from around the centre at peak times, and even then it's just busy - MK doesn't do snarl-ups like other towns & cities.

The best thing about MK tho is that it's just a big town plonked down in the middle of the countryside. 10 minutes in any direction from the centre and you're in open countryside, with all the benefits that that brings. The area's reasonably flat, but it doesn't mean there are no hills; A local sportiv last October (The Brickhills Challenge) took in a whole stack of climbs in a short route (50 miles) just to the south of the town. And with nearby towns nice distances away, such as Buckingham about 12 miles, Bicester about 20, Bedford about 20 etc, there's plenty of target destinations to base routes on, either on main roads or the superb network of lanes.

+1 on the above idea - give it a go. Trouble is it takes more than a week to get to grips with MK. It's worth it though. I loved it there.

john74

i live in mk. as it has been said before the redways are ok to use but you have to watch for dog walkers stretching the dogs lead right across the path and brain dead teenagers walking along texting but the upside is you can get anywhere in mk without touching a road with traffic. as for stopping every 100 yards to give way is a bit of an exageration i suppose every half a mile to a mile.
MK is not that big, i live bang in the centre and i can be in the countryside within 10 mins so a nice little warm up first.
If your into the off road stuff at all there is woburn sands and bow brickhill woods which are very good for mtbing people do travel a fair distance just to ride woburn. also a well known mtb spot is 20 mins away at chicksands.
Personally i dont think MK is dull there is plenty to do especially since the xscape building has been built (indoor snow dome).
The down side to MK is that the car is king, drivers here are very rude and dont have a brain cell between them, imagine the standard of driving in London and then add that to a dualcarrage way and your getting close, especially BMW and Audi drivers.
Plenty of bike shops here to.
There are a few clubs for different levels also a mtb club www.cyclonembc.co.uk
hope this helps.

CiB

john74 wrote:

as for stopping every 100 yards to give way is a bit of an exageration i suppose every half a mile to a mile.

It would be. Luckily...

I wrote:

You have to stop & GW every few hundred yards.

Drivers are drivers - wherever you go you can expect drivers to be oblivious to cyclists. MK is no different really. What I was keen to get across though is that as a place to live it's got a lot going for it. And if someone's planning to relocate there they really do need the bigger picture, not just the cycling opportunities.

paulbox

MK gets a really bad press but the reality is very different. I've never lived there myself but grew up about 15 miles South. It used to have a cracking BMX track and that was 26 years ago! I think there is a different one there nowadays...

As has been said before, the cycle lanes in town are very good, easy to get around without using roads. Very easy to get out of town for some countryside riding.

As a place to live, it's pretty good. The snow dome & cinema complex are good, the Theatre is pretty good, lots of pubs and restaurants. Good shopping, and there is an excellent Indian restaurant.

There is a good bike shop on the outskirts of town, bought my first MTB there (Phil Corley) as well as an Evans in the Snow Dome.

john74

sorry i misread you post. my stupid brain thought you said every 100 yards. duh i need coffeee. :oops:
i agree the op does need more info on the area in general.
If i was in your position i would come and spend a couple of weekends exploring, its a bit like marmite you will either love it or hate it. personally i love it.
Obviously like everywhere it has some dodgy bits but if you decide to make the plunge im sure we will inform you which ones to avoid.
The shopping is also good everything is in one big shopping centre and there is plenty of parking all over the place some of it used to be free but i think that stopped this week.
The thing i noticed when i first arrived was the amount of green open spaces, if you have kids there are dozens of play areas etc.
Housing is quite expensive i used to rent a 3 bed semi nothing special £800 a month.

hammerite

I work in MK, so have to travel here every day, sometimes drive, sometimes by bike. If by bike I stick to the road, can't be doing with riding on the redways.

I'm not the biggest fan of the place, it's just a little too uniform for me. But the are lots of positives good local clubs, Team MK and North Bucks, good local bike shops - Corleys and Twenty3c, decent countryside not far from the city, lots of racing opportunities - a few clubs use the roads surrounding MK for TTs, MK bowl hosts a series of circuit races and cyclo cross. Some more challenging racing to the south of MK out towards Mentmore. Lots of racing in neighbouring counties too - an hour to Hillingdon, I did the regions CX league this year and rarely travelled any more than an hour to get to a race.

Away from cycling there's everything you'd get in a bigger city - shops, bars and restaurants. Trouble I find with a night out in MK is that it feels like you're going from bar to bar in/around a shopping centre!

If I was moving to the area I probably wouldn't choose to live in MK, but one of the villages close by. All of which you can get into MK reasonably quickly (30 mins drive for my 19 mile journey).

Lillywhite

The best place to find out about the cycling scene in Milton Keynes is to visit Phil Corley's shop in Stacey Bushes.

oldwelshman

There are miles and mile of countryside you can ride within easy reach of MK including the Chilterns if you want hills.
Plenty of racing at the bowl and road races within easy reach.

bartolli

I live in Buckingham but regularly ride around just south/east of Milton Keynes.

All of the countryside is beautiful and once you get off the main roads, there is hardly any traffic.

It's one of the reasons I really like living here.

MarcBC

I haved lived near Buckingham now for 6 months, coming up from London, and have joined Team MK. They now split their club rides into 4 ability groups, and the rides are on a Saturday, so something for everyone. The couple of rides I have done with them to date and the few I have done alone have brought up some great roads; there are actually a few hills.

I totally agree with Bartolli's view of the countryside and traffic too.

As a town, I do think Milton Keynes is architecturally very unattractive, however, it provides 95% of everything I need; is easy to work your way around and the traffic is rarely fouled as someone earlier has said. There are no skyscrapers and so it is also light and bright even during the winter days.

I found my house by accident and it was not where I originally wanted to move to, however, I do feel I have locationally landed on my feet.

There is also a huge amount to do away from cycling in the area. The Xscape centre not only has the snow dome, but also an indoor climbing wall and indoor skydiving. There are a couple of off road driving centres, Towcester Race track, Silverstone, Go Cart Tracks, the list continues and is pretty long.

There is also a lot of interesting history just outside of MK with towns like Stoney Stratford (where the phrase "a Cock and Bull story" comes from), Great Horwood, Singleborough etc in the Doomsday Book and still with Roman roads to walk down. All withing 9 miles of MK

bartolli

What is team MK like? I have been thinking about joining a cycling club as at the moment I just ride on my own, usually every Saturday.

I'm not looking to do any events or racing just for fitness at the moment, can you join in this way?

MarcBC

Bartolli wrote:

What is team MK like? I have been thinking about joining a cycling club as at the moment I just ride on my own, usually every Saturday.

I'm not looking to do any events or racing just for fitness at the moment, can you join in this way?

I think they are a good club and I joinjed purely for the fitness. The few members I have met are all good people and of various ages and backgrounds.

It is primarily a triathlon club but the club cycle rides on Saturdays are purely that. Irrespective of the weather these rides are very well supported with pre planned and different routes by the various group leaders.

There are four groups, A being the fastest who look to avge 20-22mph for, it seems up to about 60 / 70miles. B group around 18-20mph (I think) ,similar distances. C group 15-16mph between 40 and 60 miles and D group (this is really for the novice just starting out like me but there are also those who are there for the fun) who avge 12.5 mph for around 25-35 miles. There are also a couple of splinter groups who go out and also those that do a cycle / run combo.

mroli

I rode from Nottingham to Milton Keynes last summer and it was beautiful, quiet, rolling and countryside filled. MK gets a bad press, but seemed pretty good to me - we had some lovely beers in the sun when we got there - but I guess everywhere is nice in the sun!