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Perthshire
Best - access to the countryside and lots of fresh clean air
Worst - no decent fruit and veg shops or markets = expensive food
devizes wilts. best thing:- close to pewsey vale,the ridgeway and salisbury plain. worst thing:- there is no decent record shop in town,(but 500 hairdressers!!!)
Borders
Best - the natural trails.
Worst - ****tish drivers on their way to kitty litter trail centres.
lincoln - best, theres not a lot of crime compared to other cities. its a decent, quiet place to bring up your kids.
worst, theres not a fat sight of inspiring stuff to ride straight out your door.
Bristol,
Good: actual riding to be had <1 mile from the city centre, great hub for all sorts of riding in all directions.
Bad: Bike crime.
Near Welshpool
Pros - low crime, you can leave your doors unlocked and the keys in the car and nothing happens, people sell eggs at the roadside with an 'honesty box', 1 hour from all main trail centres plus heaps of natural trails on doorstep
Cons - Its the 'Valley of Death' average age here is 80, they all like things 'just so', bungalows are for 'old people only' (really?!), ambulances and funerals.
Mid Wales
Good: Sea, Mountains, Trail centres and natural remote trails starting from the doorstep.
Bad: ?
Leith
Good -Everything you need in a city but can ride a bike into the countryside in under an hour
Bad - expensive - £3 a pint, property is expensive, no decent veg shops around
Fremantle, Western Australia
Good: Sea, beaches, weather, work, riding, 3 million people and so much space and some great tasting ales.
Bad: Price of bikes and kit, useless eBay, Aussie drivers, hardly anything open on a Sunday, slack shop staff and "laid back" approach to everything, terrible websites, family and friends back in UK, price of beer.
I'm only here for a max of 4 years though so no doubt it'll be a chapter in my life I'll look back on with great fondness.
Basque country.
Bad - lack of a decent curry house.
Best - Mountains/Sea/city/countryside right next to each other.
Ulverston
Good - Pubs... and the Lake District is just over --> there 😉
Bad - If you go just over --> there, the tourists really get on your nerves by driving everywhere at 20mph and slow for every corner and oncoming vehicle (or stop if it is larger than a Micra... on a normal single carriageway road ffs - if it was a singletrack lane I could understand it!)
leeds
worst is it's leeds
best are all the road's out of it.
Best - the natural trails.
Worst - ****tish drivers on their way to kitty litter trail centres.
Goan - so - err - we wont be seeing you on 26th Kirroughtree and 27th Dalbeattie then? Or are you at least able to NOT include Vauxhall Meriva drivers? 😀
Bicester, 10 miles north of Oxford
best - mmmm not sure I can think of any!!!
worst - no sea, no proper Welsh hills, the only place to buy food is frigging TESCO! I could continue ......
Small village near Stafford
Best - cannock chase within spitting distance, peak district an hour away, great network of lanes for road rides, great apartment, 80 min on the train to London, 4 airports within an hour......
Worst - The phucking shameful and VILE climate, village shop closes at 5pm, best pub is a mile and a half away - that's it really. Love it.
SimonRalli - I'm busy doing family stuff that weekend.
I'll discount the locals from the ****tish drivers bit, they at least know what to expect round the next corner.
Ulverston...
best...Lakes is just a bit that way >>>>>
worst...Barrow-in-Furness is just a bit that way <<<<<
8)
Tamworth
Best thing...nowt
Worst thing see above.
Dundee
worst: the wind, lack of decent eating
best: proximity to the rest of scotland
Norway
Best - it's Norway
worst - not much of a social life and beer is 7 quid a pint but more importantly my family and friends are somewhere else
Hampton
best - London near, seaside not too far, some riding nearby
worst - mountains, what are they?
Stockport
Best thing(s) - I can ride into the Peak District on lovely roads or off road with about 2 miles of tarmac in total between my house and Edale. The River Goyt is just down the road, ace for kayaking.
Worst thing(s) - 1970's architecture and the councils desire to paint everything it owns an awful colour green.
Couldn't agree more with ton!
I'm in Boroughbridge,
Best, 7 pubs & 5 takeaways
Worst, none of them deliver.
Near Oswestry
Best: Loads of riding not too far away (some from doorstep too)
Worst: Oswestry, horrible place
Tavistock, Devon
+
right on the edge of dartmoor. Great Climbing, kayaking, riding
awesome DH tracks five minutes away
north Cornwall coast is only half hour away
pasties
-
it rains. A lot.
Nottingham
Best: - peaks is right on the doorstep.
Worst: - have you ever met the locals?
Purbecks-
best- good riding, scenery, countryside, close to coast
bad- overinflated property prices due to holiday homes, tourists
Balerno(near Edinburgh)
Best - access onto nice trails and good roads without having to drive anywhere
Worst - TJ can make it to here in less than an hour.
Hope, Derbyshire
Best hmm the deserted trails come 3pm on a sunday
Worst still dabbing on The Beast after 5 years
geneva, switz.
best beautiful scenery great rides, mountain trails everywhere
worst the french
Hairychested - used to live in Hampton. Can't believe you have not mentioned Monafs!
Munge-Chick - used to live in Buckingham - you have Bicester Village there I guess.
Druid - used to live in Balerno - in the 70s the best thing was that bouncy thing inside a big plastic dome like in that Rolling Stones video - but there seems to be a big secondary school now built where the park was.
Onzadog - heh - was at Uni at Nottingham - some locals there are quite special (well one of them anyway) 🙂
Ton - used to live in Leeds - there's loads of great things about Leeds - great night life away from the big obvious places.
Raceface - used to live in Chapmanslade not too far from Devizes - at least you have lots of pretty crop circles around you, the aliens must be digging some bits 🙂
Jambo - not good news - am about to move to Devon! If you bump into me out on the trails say hi!
As for Dumfries where I am right now - well simply tons of both natural riding plus the Stanes which are all weather and can be ridden in all this rain no probs.
Worst - well maybe there is quite a drug problem, and the town seems to be dying right now with one heck of a lot of shop closures, but hey, I've lived all over the place and it's not that bad a place at all to live really. Maybe the worst is that in 2005 I tried to look for work here but there was absolutely nothing for me.
It rains almost as much in totnes....
Balerno (near Edinburgh)
Best - Pentlands on our doorstep
Worst - Druidh lives here too (only joking, never met him)
Worst - the only competitor to the Scotmid supermarket is the smaller Scotmid supermarket
Stratford (as in Shakespeare not London)
Best - wherever you go for a weekend's riding away you know the trails are better then here and you'll have a great time. Near Leamington or Redditch if you want a "fun" night out. Two hours from a lot of decent riding. Good lbs.
Worst - most knarly trail is riding off a kerb. Try to get a value for money tradesman? That's if they'll even turn up. Friday/Saturday nights are full of stuck up locals* or "outsiders" looking for trouble. Day times are full of tourists.
* these locals are people who've moved here and think they're better than anyone else 'cos they're "posh".
Best - low crime, nice area.
Worst - two cars stolen from the drive the other night. Out-of-area tea-leaves though - [url= http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/attention-upvc-door-owners-major-lock-vulnerabilities ]http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/attention-upvc-door-owners-major-lock-vulnerabilities[/url]
Simon Ralli - MemberHairychested - used to live in Hampton. Can't believe you have not mentioned Monafs!
Munge-Chick - used to live in Buckingham - you have Bicester Village there I guess.
Druid - used to live in Balerno - in the 70s the best thing was that bouncy thing inside a big plastic dome like in that Rolling Stones video - but there seems to be a big secondary school now built where the park was.
Onzadog - heh - was at Uni at Nottingham - some locals there are quite special (well one of them anyway)
Ton - used to live in Leeds - there's loads of great things about Leeds - great night life away from the big obvious places.
Raceface - used to live in Chapmanslade not too far from Devizes - at least you have lots of pretty crop circles around you, the aliens must be digging some bits
Jambo - not good news - am about to move to Devon! If you bump into me out on the trails say hi!
As for Dumfries where I am right now - well simply tons of both natural riding plus the Stanes which are all weather and can be ridden in all this rain no probs.
Worst - well maybe there is quite a drug problem, and the town seems to be dying right now with one heck of a lot of shop closures, but hey, I've lived all over the place and it's not that bad a place at all to live really. Maybe the worst is that in 2005 I tried to look for work here but there was absolutely nothing for me.
If I may ask a personal question, are you on the run, Simon?
Me, Sierra Norte de Madrid.
Best: 300+ days of sunshine and dry riding, great riding and few people.
Worst: erm? erm? Sometimes it rains/snows...
Don Simon
Nah - just moved around a lot. I was thinking about contributing to that Scotish thread. As a kid I had quite a Boarders accent, and if I claimed to be English people would have mocked me. Now my accent has totally gone, and if I claim to be Scotish people will mock me so I just tend to say I am British.
I also had 4 years in Ipswich, some time in Holyhead (Anglesey), India, plus the 2 years in Gibraltar of course. Now Gibraltar IS a country with limited singletrack, but it took me over a year to find!
It will be interesting to see where I end up after Devon - I will also be living in Peru for a few months too next year in "my house" I donated some money for in the rainforest.
I live here
I live here
Copenhagen: fantastic architecture, cafes, bars, restaurants, shops, and it's the world capital of totty.
But it f***ing expensive.
Best: It's down south, lots of forest singletrack rather than double track, dreary no-skill required moorland.
Worst: There's some Northerners around 😉
Wrexham
Best things: Close to countryside an on the right side of the border 😉
Worst things: Full of chavs who want to fight everyone
Midlothian
Best thing: Fab woodsie singletrack on my doorstep.
Worst thing: Bloody cats sh1tting evrywhere.
Stoke-on-Trent
Best bits good riding without resorting to the car and some great riding a little bit further afield.
It's friendly.
Against;urban decay
It can be very unfriendly if you stray into the "wrong" areas.
Some wag will say,that's all of it then....oh how we laughed
Bookham, Surrey
Best: A short ride to the best riding around London
Worst: A bit of a pain to get the train to London