Well I’ve just come back from a 33 mile ride around parts of the Surrey Hills

You call them hills? 293m is the highest point in the SE. We’ve got higher speed bumps than that.

Up north all the trails are straight line double track

not universally true – but generally yes

was recommended an epic route up north

rode it

all straight line double track.

North has better hills but South has better trails!

not universally true – but generally yes

was recommended an epic route up north

rode it

all straight line double track.

😆

RichPenny – gated communities and complexs are definately the way to go. Once people move into them they wonder how they ever lived “on the outside”. The biggest secure development in JHB (and its the size of a small town), currently under construction, is in Midrand – it’s called Waterfall Park. There are houses, shops, petrol stations, pubs and restaurants, sports facilities – all behind a 10 foot wall with an electric fence and guards.

Urghh – mind you it’s probably a glimpse of what the UK will be like in 20 years or so.

North has better hills but South has better trails!

You don’t know where your riding. Tons of single track rideable from my house.
Not to mention both Snowdonia and the Lakes are only 1 hours drive 😀

hey hey.. c’mon guys..lets not get bogged down in the details.. nowhere on this green and pleasant island is more than a cycle journey away from anywhere else..

why not get together and show each other what we’re missing..

That’s not an invite to come here though BTW.. this is a local place for local people..

That’s not an invite to come here though BTW.. this is a local place for local people..

Too right. My trails have a fraction of the bike traffic of ladybower and I’d like to keep it that way!

Yes we have sh!t weather.
Yes beer is £3 a pint (at least).
Yes house prices are ridiculous.

However,
We generally don’t have earthquakes of any consequence, tidal waves, volcanoes etc.
Very many animals that can cause you serious harm.
The beer is good. (not rubbish generic lager or that rubbish white beer).

The best thing has to be, we must be one of the last Western nations, who do not arm the police on a routine basis.

You can keep your razor wire and attack dogs!

Yes we have sh!t weather.

Don’t underestimate how much of a factor this can be.

Practically everyone in IT should be working at home by now

Tell that to my employers 🙁

Oh and can everyone who thinks the trails are crap please get a life? There’s some great riding in the SE as there is in most of the rest of the country. It’s a bit different to the North but it’s still great. There’s more than one kind of riding.

You Northerners who keep banging on about elevation are making yourself look like idiots, and painting all Northerners as narrow-minded stick-in-the-muds.

I used to live in Helsinki, the highest point in the local woods was about 80m – the riding was fantastic.

Spekkie,

If I where you I’d stay there for now( though I am not to keen on GP even Zuma admits it stands for Gangsta Paradise). Though use the good financial time to save up. Keep as many funds outside of the country(RSA that is) as you can so that you can split easily if you want too(Malema times).

Worked mortagage example at 4.5% for uk 8% for RSA quite realistic I think.

Cost of living my five cents:
UK more expensive
Shopping say RSA times 1,4 ish
Going out to eat say times 2 or 2.5 so thats gonna suffer a bit.
Housing browse online but keep savings as explained earlier in mind is more expensive but not as horrible as on first sight.
The Maid, the gardenes euhm times 10 they will become distant memories
Bike parts here you will save a lot although RSA has improve +UK is still al lot cheaper and Chain reactions is a lot faster to your door.

I left Durban two weeks ago so comparison is quite recent have been spending my last year inbetween UK and RSA.

Ernie,

If both have that income it does cost of living is so much less you get wonderfull houses for 100K GBP or 150KGBP in the more expensive area’s.

About the 1.25 USD that’s not the reality for a working minmal wage is higher it will get to 100 GBP a month or so. My experience lots of those who don’t work just don’t wanna work or have not many skills. Also many on low wages have (very)low productivity just hang around and don’t work too much IMO you need to put out to earn.

Have you ever lived in Southern Africa? Its an eye opener, I used too sometimes feel sorry I definitely don’t anymore and aid money is only making it worse.

I suppose it must just be how I ride then. I’ve always thought of mountain biking as involving the odd mountain. Tough climbs and big descents – hard work and reward. That for me that is mountain biking. And I get pissy for a bit when I come back from Wales and Scotland to my “little hills”.

I accept it isn’t everyone’s idea of cycling. But without elevation it isn’t mountain biking. It’s what we call “tootling about” 😀

(o.k deliberately twatty last comment. Couldn’t resist it!)

But without elevation it isn’t mountain biking. It’s what we call “tootling about”

In that case, I <heart> tootling about 😀

About the 1.25 USD that’s not the reality for a working minmal wage is higher it will get to 100 GBP a month or so

That’s a very good article in the New York Times which covers the effect of the minimum wage in South Africa, and the lack of its implementation. It’s well worth a read :

Wage Laws Squeeze South Africa’s Poor

Quote :

“The sheriff arrived at the factory here to shut it down, part of a national enforcement drive against clothing manufacturers who violate the minimum wage. But women working on the factory floor — the supposed beneficiaries of the crackdown — clambered atop cutting tables and ironing boards to raise anguished cries against it.

For over a decade, the jobless rate has been among the highest in the world, fueling crime, inequality and social unrest in the continent’s richest nation. The global economic downturn has made the problem much worse, wiping out more than a million jobs. Over a third of South Africa’s workforce is now idle.

But most agree that the roots of the crisis lie deeper, in an apartheid past that consigned blacks to inferior schools, drove many from their land, homes and businesses and forced millions into segregated townships and rural areas where they remain cut off from the engines of the economy.“

….lots of those who don’t work just don’t wanna work or have not many skills. Also many on low wages have (very)low productivity just hang around and don’t work too much IMO you need to put out to earn.

Strangely enough it’s exactly the same here – many of the unemployed are unskilled and just don’t wanna work. Even more bizarrely, they seem to get particularly lazy when the Tories get back in government, and even more people become too lazy to look for work. Despite the Tories having a very strong reputation for cracking down on work-shy cheats.

I reckon they do it on purpose just to embarrass the Tory government……they’re all Labour voters, needless to say.

I’m going to design a new bike, a TX bike (Tootle-cross). I’m going to build a shed load and sell them right across Surrey.

To answer the OP…

It’s good. I’ve no intention of leaving unless for work reasons. I get paid enough to go visit other parts of the country… enjoy the terrain and experience the rain… then I come back to 20 deg heat and I’m happy.

Off to go and drink Pimms round a mates… toodle pip. 🙂

The N/S thing is always fun isn’t it? They got bigger hills, we got the sun 😀 We ride lots of hills in a day, they ride one. We wear T-shirts, they wear wetsuits. Tell you what gwj, when you’ve finished the bike, I’ll swop ye for one of these:

Tell you what gwj, when you’ve finished the bike, I’ll swop ye for one of these:

My bike would be wasted down there, it’s got more travel that you have elevation. What you want is a TX bike 😀

I’ve always thought of mountain biking as involving the odd mountain. Tough climbs and big descents – hard work and reward

Have you ever actually ridden in ‘the South’ ?

Funny to hear southerners boasting about the weather. Just because it’s marginally less shit than the north doesn’t exactly make it the south of france. 😆

@molgrips

I doubt there is a county left I haven’t took my bike to. My sister has been a London based MTB’er for years, my uncle lives in Weybridge and still rides.
Been out with them to their favourite trails plenty of times. My other sister was in Sussex for a while – christ that was like Holland.

Used to take my bike to Devon, Dorset, Cornwall regular when surfing.

So yes, I’m not just talking uneducated bollocks (for a change).

You must be very closed minded. Elevation is not mandatory for a good ride.

I love riding at Swinley, which is dead flat. If you think it’s easy you’re certainly not going fast enough. I find it a great workout because there’s no let up, it’s balls out all the time without 5 mins of coasting when you finish a climb.

Of course, if you’re a pansy then you can just trundle it and not get out of breath.. if that’s your thing 🙂

This looks like fun, and I wish there were more trails like that around here.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uslwIp48Bw[/video]

There I said it.

But then I don’t think I’d swap it for easy access to this

Hellvelyn Mountain Biking (4 of 5) by Grum Wynne, on Flickr

Lonscale Fell – Lake District by Grum Wynne, on Flickr

@molgrips – just to give a visual sense of what I’m on about, if you look at that picture I posted on page 1. Centre-ish left there is a farm house – directly up from the green shed. That house is roughly level with the top of Leith Hill. Then look up to the top of Kinder Scout.

That’s what I’m talking about. It’s really noticeable to me when I go down south, as it is when I come back here from Scotland. You make the best of what you’ve got.

(any scots on want to tell me my hills are mere pimples? It’d be fair comment!)

North has better hills but South has better trails!

This made me laugh out loud, ya gotta love the optimism of southerners…

Whats funny is you are debating about down south and really far down south. No one who has posted on here comes from anywhere north. Oh – and Edinburgh has more sun than most parts of the south as well.

So what, I love rain, not too keen on sun. And scottish women are pig ugly by comparison (and I am half Scottish).

Oh, the joy of IT consultants arguing pointlessly on the Internet, both determined that they’re the only one capable of deciding what is right.

you are debating about down south and really far down south.

😕 Eh ? There’s only “south” everywhere else is “north”…….there’s no such place as “really far down south”. Evidenced by the fact that they speak funny in places like Birmingham. As a kid we went on a scout camp in Belper, none of natives could understand a word we spoke. That’s when I first discovered how grim it was up north.

what about east then? or west? or even south east?
Racist!

That’s what I’m talking about.

I know what the riding’s like around the UK. I’ve lived (for shorter or longer periods) in the SW, Wales, the West Midlands, the North, and also stayed for a while in the SE. I have to admit that when I worked in Aldershot I was immediately surrounded by greater volume of biking than any of those other places. I live in Wales normally, which means I get to race Gorricks and Welsh races.

It’d be a shame to ride in any one location all the time and miss the rest, but really – I love it all! 🙂 A flat out blast around Swinley is massively grin inducing (if you’ve the legs for it), as is a 30 min fight-in-silence climb followed by a warp speed drop off the side of a mountain 🙂

what about east then?

East is crap, everyone knows that 🙂

East is crap, everyone knows that

+1

East is utterly pointless.

Unless you’re a pig farmer…

East is crap, everyone knows that

+1

East is utterly pointless.

Unless you’re a pig farmer…

I’m very liberal.. and open minded.. but I have to agree with that..

Bits of it are quite nice.

Or so I’m told, never actually saw any in the 20 years I lived there 🙂

Tell a lie, the sailing off the east coast is good. Does that count?

hofnar – where were you? North coast or South coast?

I think you’re right – for the moment we’ll keep working and keep saving. We’re on good money and we don’t have huge outgoings.

Long term – who knows what little Julius has planned for the whites in SA? And he certainly has the ear of the youth.

I’ve looked at a few properties over here this week and once you re-remember how small everything is, there are actually some quite cosy little places at not too much money 🙂

Not sure I could settle up north though . . . lol