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Sheffield is great for biking and climbing. Some great pubs and bars, with local breweries all around. There's heaps of high tech industry closeby, in part due to the good local universities. Sheffield is a bit like 7 towns bolted together, so it feels quite quaint for it's size.
I'm looking to move back to the UK and Sheffield is number 1 on my list. However, my missus was more impressed by Leeds and Liverpool, because they feel like bigger cities.
Which city/towns around Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield would be a similar size to Exeter?
Thanks
My eldest thankfully only has a slight Cardiff accent, but unfortunately she has started saying 'I done' instead of 'I did'...
Being completely biased I'd say Leeds/Huddersfield/Sheffield would be great.
But... I've been spending quite a bit of time down in Nottingham recently. I've no idea what the riding is like but I know there are a lot of companies based there I could easily move to (not so sure about engineering) and it seems on the face of it, a really nice place. And I've not been shot to death there once.
Stay in Bristol and live in one of the cheaper areas.
+1
Cardiff is good also, if you live somewhere easy to access the Taff Trail from.
Only downside to Cardiff, for me, is that the road riding isn't as good as some other places
Seriously?! For sheer variety of road riding I don't think I've lived anywhere better: quiet lanes in the Vale to the west/Flats to the east, all the climbing you can shake a stick at in The Valleys, Beacons/Monmouthshire/Wye Valley if you like quiet and picturesque.
I live in Cardiff but to buck the trend I'm going to say Sheffield. Or if not there, Cardiff 😉
I have lived and worked in much better places, so maybe I am spoiled.
The Vale - it's ok, but you have to cross Cardiff to get there unless you live out West. It's also hemmed in by towns.
The flats to the east - a few lanes - nothing.
Monmouthshire - nice, but you have to go through Newport which is a pain, and it makes the rides quite long and the first 10-15 miles is generally the same.
Wye valley - nice but a ride taking it in from Cardiff is a sodding long way! And you still have to go through Newport AGAIN...
The Valleys - some great climbs but a hell of a lot of busy bypasses, roundabouts and strip towns, and the lanes up there are a bit thrutchy, like MTBing on a road bike.
I've worked and hence ridden a lot in Surrey/Hampshire/Berkshire and once you're off the main routes you get as many miles as you can handle of deserted roads through bucolic beauty.. old woodland, waves of golden grain blowing in the wind, picture perfect village greens etc etc.. like I said the road riding from Cardiff is ok but not this good!
Mol you do have a unique view on things, crossing Cardiff is hardly a chore.
Plenty on the flats, St Brides into the Port then down to Goldcliffe and all the way to Chepstow/Severn Bridge. Wind can be a git though.
Valleys has all sorts of road riding, you need to get out and explore a bit, but it is all of 20 miles, that is a long way 😉
Which city/towns around Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield would be a similar size to Exeter?
Chesterfield? housing is probably cheaper there too and still close to the peaks, closer to white than dark but still lots of good riding.
Valleys has all sorts of road riding, you need to get out and explore a bit, but it is all of 20 miles, that is a long way
I've ridden plenty of it, trust me. I'm not saying there are no roads to ride, I'm saying that most of them aren't that much fun.. at least not compared to the places that are really good.
I do get Molgrips point on road riding from Cardiff as it isn't as good as other places. Oxfordshire for instance has some amazing road riding on quiet lanes with brilliant scenery and plenty of decent cafes to stop at.
Cardiff doesn't have that, although I did always enjoy riding around the Vale and the Valley climbs are a great test of your legs.
Which city/towns around Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield would be a similar size to Exeter?Thanks
[url= http://www.lovemytown.co.uk/populations/TownsTable1.asp ]population list[/url]
Inverness!
A bit further north than you had hoped but you could fly down to visit family.
he population of greater Inverness grew from an estimated population of 51,610 in 2003 to 62,470 at the time of the 2011 Census.[1][5] Inverness is one of Europe's fastest growing cities,[6] with a third of the Highland population living in or around the city[7] and is ranked fifth out of 189 British cities for its quality of life, the highest of any Scottish city.[8] In the recent past, Inverness has experienced rapid economic growth - between 1998 and 2008, Inverness and the rest of the central Highlands showed the largest growth of average economic productivity per person in Scotland and the second greatest growth in the United Kingdom as a whole, with an increase of 86%.[9] Inverness is twinned with one German city, Augsburg and two French towns, La Baule and Saint-Valery-en-Caux.[10]
Inverness College is the main campus for the University of the Highlands and Islands.[11] With around 8,500 students, Inverness College hosts around a quarter of all the University of the Highlands and Islands' students, and 30% of those studying to degree level.[12]
In 2014, a survey by a property website described Inverness as the happiest place in Scotland and the second happiest in the UK.[13]
If I recall, Sheffield came out top in that survey 😛
It's just a bit of a pain in the arse when it comes to railway connectivity, compared to Manchester and Leeds.
Abergevenny, Town not a city but in a good spot, nice place to live and easy access to stuff you like.
Which city/towns around Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield would be a similar size to Exeter?
Halifax and Huddersfield are two that spring to mind and close to both Leeds and Manchester.
It might also be worth considering Bradford and the Aire Valley towns such as Bingley, Baildon or Saltaire - good riding from the door and easy access to Leeds and Bradford.
Don't move to the South West, there are no mountains and I've yet to find any technical riding outside DH trail centres. Dartmoor is mostly grass with a few tiny bits of nice woodland trails.
Get thee sen oop north!
[url= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/11769047/The-best-places-to-live-in-Britain-for-you-and-your-family.html ]summarised by the tory-graph[/url]
innit_gareth - Member
A little smaller than Cardiff, obviously, but Swansea is great. Gower on doorstep, great beaches and good riding (road) and with trail centres and natural stuff pretty nearby. I'd hate to move back to Cardiff now. Fairly bereft of culture though if that's your bag
The natural stuff isn't pretty nearby, it's inside the city limits. 😉 I'd suggest that if riding is the main concern then Swansea is hard to beat. How many cities can boast a range of techy DH style trails just a 15 minute ride from the centre, or waymarked trails 15 minutes in the other direction? (The advantage of lots of ex-industrial land being left to return to the wild.) I can ride my Mtb from the door every day of the week and barely repeat a trail, connecting them up with plenty of cycle paths. That's before thinking about getting in the car for a short drive to Afan, BPW, Brechfa, or any of the other trail centres or natural trails up in the hills.
Like Cardiff it suffers from being on the coast though - there is no riding at all to the south!
And lack of culture? Dylan Thomas, Harry Secombe, Bonnie Tyler, Man? What more do you want? 😆
Wind Street on a Friday, more culture than you can shake a stick at 😆
Ulverston, Cumbria. Pretty nice little town with a nice alternative feel, decent house prices, lake district on your doorstep for lots of gnar (maybe better than the peaks) and a tonne of jobs working on the submarines in Barrow - they are recruiting pretty hard at the moment and you could even get in on contract £30-70 p/h potentially through one of the agencies such as Jam recruitment, matchtech or faststream.
Smaller, but still a City, what about Plymouth? We are possibly being posted there from Birmingham. Dartmoor, the coast, plenty of semi cheeky trails on your door step, relatively cheap to live, what's not to like?
Chesterfield?
I think following Chesterfield with a ? is quite appropriate. As in Chesterfield why?
I'm an engineer not a prostitute haha
What sort of Engineering?
I live in Leeds, It's good. I have an irrational dislike to Manchester, not really sure why (I'm not naturally from Leeds and don't support Leeds United so it's not that).
[quote=Scamper ]Smaller, but still a City, what about Plymouth? We are possibly being posted there from Birmingham. Dartmoor, the coast, plenty of semi cheeky trails on your door step, relatively cheap to live, what's not to like?
plymouth?
the area is nice but plymouth itself is a bit of a dump.
A curve ball, Derby ... quite a nice place to live
Really?
I'm working in Cheltenham at the moment, quite taken with it really - well the surrounding area anyway.
plymouth itself is a bit of a dump.
A lot of the post-war suburbs are a dump but you'd have no reason to go there. It's getting a lot of redevelopment as well, in the two years I've been here it's gotten noticeably better.
The road riding is great, the beaches are great, the food is great but there are no proper hills or maximum nadgecore trails to be enjoyed if that's your thing.
Rents are very cheap too, on a phd student budget I [i]could[/i] afford a seafront penthouse or a flat in a Victorian fort that came with tennis court and boat mooring.
but there are no proper hills or maximum nadgecore trails to be enjoyed if that's your thing
i live 12 miles north of Plymouth, plenty of 'nadgecore' and real hills here...
Exeter's ace for a small city - great riding all around, loads of brilliant food and drink suppliers, beaches etc. Best of all, minimal chippy northerners or cocky southerners.
Best of all, minimal chippy northerners or cocky southerners.
Northerners, chippy?
Meh.
I quite like exeter. Nice place. Looking at rightmove, I wouldn't say that houses are much cheaper than bristol. This looks nice though;
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-35182920.html?premiumA=true