I love riding on the road, especially quiet roads and it's a great sensation when you're all riding in group , following each others wheels and moving more like a body than a group of individuals. The flowing feeling is great.

But at the same time the idea of going 'off-road', getting to ride along side nature, rather than kerbs and getting muddy really appeals to me. Must be the kid in me but any excuse to go out and get dirty. It's the perfect anti-dote to having to wear office clothes 9-5 all week.

On another note, where we live the mbt trails have loads of loops and twists, so if you can't keep up / want to take it easy you can simple take the shorter loop while others do a longer and all meet up again pretty easily. If we road ride this isn't as easy to do round here, where the road routes have less opportunity for taking short cuts.