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 – **** 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 – **** 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 **** 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 – http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/attention-upvc-door-owners-major-lock-vulnerabilities

Simon Ralli – Member

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.

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.