I'll drive to the start of a ride that is 13 miles away when I need to be at the start early enough (6:30am) that it would require me to ride from home at 5:45am in the morning darkness, which I don't like to do, This type of driving occurs more often in early spring and late fall, when the daylight is less.
When the temps get down to freezing, I'll often drive the 13 miles to the start of a group ride, since I can only seem to be in the freezing cold for the duration of the group ride (about 120 minutes in the winter), and not much more before the fingers/toes start getting permanently cold. Riding to the start and back would add another 90 mins total, which was just too much time in the cold. But I recently invested in some Pearl Izumi cold weather windstopper bib pants, which might allow me to ride the full 3.5 hours.
I'll drive to special courses and gran fondos (2+ hours away) that are worth the drive since it contains a significant hill or mountain.