The only place I lived where I had to drive to ride the trails was in Virginia and to a certain degree, North Carolina. I VA, I had to drive 45min to hour to get to decent mountain bike trails. I drove out to the trails alot but only because gas back then (90s) was cheap. Then when I lived in NC there was one decent trail within riding distance but it got old after a while and it was in the sand hills of NC. So I drove up to the RTP area for better trails. Usually on weekends at a hour drive each way. When I rode my Bianchi, I just headed out from home on the local country roads or the roads out in the training areas of Ft Bragg (no traffic other than the odd, military vehicle)

Fast forward a couple years and I found myself in the Bay Area of Norcal. There were some trails within riding distance but better trails if you drove a half hour to an hour to get to. The mountain biking out there is primo. For road rides I just hopped on my bike and did a big loop somewhere on the Peninsula.

Here in Germany I just hop on a bike (mtb or road) and head out. Not much singletrack in these parts so the mountain biking is more on gravel / cobblestone with very short portions of singletrack. I have to travel an hour or more out for decent singletrack so I'll be taking several mini vacations to hit the primo singletrack here in Europe.