Best place to live for Bike sports? And more Qs

Norskie

Hi everyone

Im New to this forum but hoping to become a regular as I have a long journey ahead of me.
My husband and I have decided to move in pursuit of a better outdoor lifestyle for us and our young children (age 2 and 9 months).
We are looking to move to England, Lake District area, Lancashire etc and are looking for a place where you can step out of your door and (not far off) be on a dirt track. Beginners level and up.
From your own experiences where do you consider a dream place to live with this in mind? This is just a fun Question to open up our minds to possibilities

I'm also looking into buying a trailer of some sort for the babies until they can ride themselves.
The challenge ATM is what we can do now, until they are big enough to ride themselves? I'm a bit inpatient as I've been "cooped up" since baby #1 came along.
I've looked at weehoo trailers and don't know if a single or double would do. They need to be 2 yrs for the open seat but
My 2 year old is already obsessed with bikes and will take his balance bike off the road and on to any beaten track if he could :shock: which I of course let him if it's flat and safe lol.

I'm already considering getting him a pedal bike or should I hold off a bit longer?

What's the best/safest way to include the youngest?

Is there any other parents with 2 babies close in age that are taking their babies out on bikes and how do you do it? There's the going out on bikes for me part and taking them out for them/his part.

Many questions I know, but we are very new to this active family thing so I thank you all who want to share your experiences x

fenix

Will you be working ? Do you need to think about schools for the kids ? There's plenty of places out in the middle of nowhere if you want - but I dont think access to a trail should be the most important thing for you.

craker

It's a bit of a myth that living in the countryside gives you access to loads of it. Where we live in Monmouthshire is farms and woodland, it's hilly so cycling to the woods for the under tens is a non starter and then they find it hard to ride in. Plenty of folk who live in built up areas have access to better green spaces than that - a big park in a city is a great place for kids to learn to cycle for example.

Still there's loads of trail centres and cracking road cycling hereabouts, its not all bad :-)

fenix

Plenty of places have access to long distance bike paths - that might be better for the kids. Disused railway paths that kind f thing ? Look at sustrans.

If you want trail trails, then for 8 months of the year you might find yourself at the end of a very muddy path. That would be tiring.

Norskie

Good points
I've not given it much thought in regards to school, work, commuting etc it was more meant as just a fun question if you could go anywhere you wanted in U.K., where would it be?
So far we have lived on a remote Scottish island and know little of the places about in England. We have heard the Lake District is great for bikes but of course we don't want to be in the middle of nowhere.
Good/separate cyclepaths alone would be awesome, something we currently don't have. Only direct main roads or side roads in the town.

Steve-XcT

I'd think schools and jobs first unless you happen to have alternate sources of income!
School quality/availability varies a LOT.... as do employment opportunities depending what your skills and experience are.

We moved from one place that had excellent schools but not enough places ....
As craker say's the link between being IN the country and access to it is not simple....and perhaps even the opposite.

My Mum lives in (very) rural lancs (indeed i grew up there).... but I wouldn't let my 7yr old cycle around the country lanes..they have walls/hedges and blind corners. My 7yr old was a baby only yesterday.... at least it seems so

We can drive 15-20 minutes to Guisburn Forest from Grans and have a zero cars ride... but equally I live in a small town in the South and 20-30 minutes I have a lot of countryside and dedicated trails.... last Easter I was in Mansfield (near Sheffield) and again a town but lots and lots of places just a short drive...

I used to live in Olso and a short drive to Vinterpark and loads of trails ... moved to Stavanger and despite being "in the country" it wasn't like I really got more of it...

I think if you find a place with jobs and school you can then check out riding... and bear in mind in 4yrs or so that starts to change to them riding... and our cycle paths are universally rubbish but especially so for kids... its the lack of joining up and suddenly ending

D Max

I've move in a small rural town (not in England) where we have all we need for service, schools choice and stores. We can go everywhere in our town by cycling and I love it. I commute to work every day and my wife do a great number of activity with our 18 months old by cycling. We own a Thule Trailer (using it since our kid was 6 months) and now we are more into using the Weehoo Tagalong (since our kid was 16 months old). It's tons of fun and our kid love being tow around and my wife is getting in shape. It's so easy to use and we prefer this to taking the car. We also have access to all kind of trails; some in the city that our paved and around the city that are loose rocks. Great mix.

I would say that you don't need to wait until your youngest is 2 years old but 9 months old might be a little too young for the weehoo as it is. Though is you are creative and handy you can add to the seat to make it safe for the 9 months old. What is missing is some padding on the side make him snug and probably adjust the belt as it's might to fit a older kid. Planning to do that for when number 2 is about 6-7 months (depending how strong he/she is - number 2 is coming soon).

One thing about kids riding in trailer/tagalong is that I strongly believe in putting them well fitted helmet as 1. even in the trailer it doesn't heart to be on the caution side and 2. it creates good habits (my kid knows that before hoping in the trailer or on the Weehoo he needs his helmet). Also I've notice some people riding with a trailer and the kid is not wearing a helmet and the protective mesh is not there/no eyewear... rocks can fly from your tire or from cars around, kids need eye protection. On the trailer the mesh is always down and in the Weehoo we won't ride if our son takes off his sunglasses though it's no problem he wears them during the ride, but any other times he won't keep them for more than 5 minutes.

I say if it's important for you to have an outdoor life style way to go and put that on the top of your list. This was one of the top on my list too. I wanted to be able to go to work, grocery, activity, pool and more at a reasonable bike ride distance and we succeeded. We also have access to all kind of other outdoors activity; some by bike and some by car. We did luck up though as we had to go with job opportunities but if we didn't ended up here we would had to keep on looking to move in a few years time after I've done a few years of experience here. It's very important to be able to enjoy what you like to do (mostly when it's outdoors activities ) so prioritizing this in your new location selection is key for a happy life. When things are in your backyard theirs no excuses not to go out.

Oh and we LOVE our WEEHOO and would recommend it.

Steve-XcT

D Max wrote:

I say if it's important for you to have an outdoor life style way to go and put that on the top of your list. This was one of the top on my list too. I wanted to be able to go to work, grocery, activity, pool and more at a reasonable bike ride distance and we succeeded. We also have access to all kind of other outdoors activity; some by bike and some by car. We did luck up though as we had to go with job opportunities but if we didn't ended up here we would had to keep on looking to move in a few years time after I've done a few years of experience here. It's very important to be able to enjoy what you like to do (mostly when it's outdoors activities ) so prioritizing this in your new location selection is key for a happy life. When things are in your backyard theirs no excuses not to go out.

My experience over a few decades :oops: is that you need to work out what you are going to do outside of outdoor activity first.

Most of my MANY moves have been for work and all around the world and this in itself has often driven the types of outdoor activity you can do. I have a fairly narrow set of skills that to a large extent determines where I can work both globally and in the UK at least doing what I mainly do.

Other skills are more portable... but these are often less interesting jobs so it's a choice I suppose.

I view accountancy or similar as being a bit boring and given I spend most of my waking hours working I put some emphasis on that. A mate of mine got made redundant and landed a dream job working at an outward bounds place but that only really worked for him due to where he was living...

When I used to work in Oslo I did loads of cycling... cycled to/from work whenever it was above -10C and hit trails at weekend... when I lived in Tripoli (Libya) cycling wasn't feasible but I played lots of tennis and did a lot of windsurfing and snorkelling ...

When I lived in Paris it meant a bit more effort at weekends but really not that much. In Oslo I could cycle from my appt but in Paris I had to get a train or drive somewhere...same when I lived in central London

I now live outside a small town.... surrounded by heath and woodland but I still drive 30 minutes each weekend...not that different to when I lived in London...