David9694 wrote:One day my wife and I are going to retire to dream house, somewhere in the uk. If cycling, on and off road was the only consideration, where would you choose?
... patchworked, rolling countryside, interesting villages and market towns (a bike shop would be just peachey!), a rambling network of little-used country lanes, the occasional B road, and unbesmirched by things like major rivers, big cities, escarpments, motorways with limited crossing-points, just touristy enough to have a few campsites, minor attractions, but not so remote as not to have any garden centres or other coffee/cake outlets.
Where can I find this paradise?
Based on your exact requirements if I was an estate agent in the area I would be putting together a portfolio of properties in the Yorkshire Wolds.
I love cycling in the Dales and on the Moors, but if I was to retire and spend my final years somewhere to do my road and off-road cycling I think the very many more route options - and choices of terrain - would swing it towards the Wolds.
Though the Yorkshire Wolds aren't as obviously hilly as the Moors or Dales, when Simon Warren wrote his regional hill climber's guide to Yorkshire he included seven of the 75 from the Wolds. Some of the seven are relatively tame - others not included are stiffer still - but it is possible to steer around them or go looking for them and you can pretty much do as you please such is the range of route options.
There are a range of stately homes, market towns, numerous villages, a few bike shops (you're not far from Hull and York in which there are very many bike shops), garden centres, camp sites and cafes in the Yorkshire Wolds area (and at the southern point of the Yorkshire Wolds Way there is the magnificent Humber Bridge - still the longest single span suspension bridge in the world that you can (legally!) cycle over).
Earlier this month I rode the North Yorkshire Selby Three Swans sportive for the first time. Its route is not far from the Wolds, but could almost be a world away. The 102-mile route took us through some fairly small towns, with a minimum of uncomfortable main road riding, but we were constantly held up by traffic lights and railways crossings - including one within the last couple of miles that are unknown to much of the Wolds. There are no motorways on the Yorkshire Wolds and it is very easy to plot, say, a 200km route without a single traffic light or railway crossing. Read about such a ride written by a chap who moved to the area to take up a new role:
http://balancingontwowheels.com/2016/09 ... enge-ride/
