Best place to live / ride?

[Speed addicted]

nunpuncher said:

Yup, the midges are a pain. However, they aren't an issue when you're on the move. Only if you are camping or working out doors. Also, Avon skin so soft really is the best repellent. A few squirts of that and they don't come near.

Or walking to the bike, or to the pub, or being outside, or having the window open because it’s warm.

I think there are two types of people. Ones that the midges find tasty and ones they don’t. My wife isn’t hugely bothered by them but I get eaten alive!


I love the west coast but couldn’t live there.

[LF5335]

I like where I am now. We drive on the left, the police leave us alone, roads are fairly quiet and we can have some fun. We only get about 25 rainy days a year, although the summer months are realistically too hot. My only problem is that I’m too old and creaky to fit on a decent sports bike nowadays.

An example of a bit of fun for us. I’m in the group, but not on camera.

https://youtu.be/Ei3WvpfDcBE?si=qqe9Z77KmcrgHHMX

[Marquezs Stabilisers]

Where's that, Cyprus? Even allowing for kph you lads aren't hanging around...

[Marquezs Stabilisers]

OldGermanHeaps said:

The midges around loch ness are the worst i have come across. Skin so soft didnt work for me.
Really took the shine off stopping anywhere, but fine when you are moving.

You want smidge, or 50% DEET. Fort William and Kinlochleven are worst I've known. Did a uni field trip there and one day a friend of mine, an avowed vegan, suddenly shouted "got you, you little fker!"

We turned round thinking Kirsty had found the outcrop we'd spent the last half hour trudging round the hillside in the rain looking for. Instead, she'd proudly squashed a midgie in her field notebook. To make her do that she really must have been at the end of her tether!

[LF5335]

Marquezs Stabilisers said:

Where's that, Cyprus? Even allowing for kph you lads aren't hanging around...

Yep. It’s pretty much an open racetrack here and we do abuse it I’ve limited myself by getting a naked this time round. I’m missing the sports bikes, but having squeezed onto an R1 for a little play a few months back I realised why naked is the way forward.

[crusty]

I have recently moved to Andalucia in southern Spain

The riding here is 10/10 I honestly can’t imagine it being any better

[ujio]

crusty said:

I have recently moved to Andalucia in southern Spain

The riding here is 10/10 I honestly can’t imagine it being any better

So jealous of you Crusty! Makes you think how wasted most your years of riding in the UK have been in comparison.

[ClipperTri]

Shropshire is great. Loads of great biking roads across shropshire and the shropshire hills. Roads are quiet and mostly not plagued with being downgraded to 40s and 50s yet , most are still NSL. Then when you fancy a longer ride and you are only a short ride from Wales straight into mid wales or Snowdonia or Black mountain in south all within 2-3 hrs.

I have tried derbyshire but the roads are too busy and too many lower limits - also I have to go through Staffordshire to get to it and good lord is that county a pain in the arse for cameras and limits going 40-50-40-50-40 within 3 miles . Same goes for Gloucestershire and herefordshire and worcestershire - even in last 12 months I have seen NSLs drop to 40s and 50s.

But if I really got the choice I'd probably go Northumberland, similarly quiet and similarly mostly NSLs but you get easy access to North Yorks etc as well if you want to go further afield.