Moving out of London

A somewhat grim aside to this: I grew up in Gloucester, on Weston Road, just across the park from Fred & Rose & Co. Their kids (well, most of them) went to my primary school, with Stephen in my sister's year. Heather also attended, was a couple of years above my sister. Heather didn't make it past the age of 16 alas. St Paul's Primary was on the corner of my street so we used to see Fred piloting a pushchair most mornings past our house with a range of kids in tow. We'd moved away by the time the awful revelations came out, which is a round-about way of recommending Edinburgh, where I subsequently went to uni and have lived for the past 22 years.

I believe @bazschmaz is here too, so has already outlined some of the great reasons for relocating here, but I'll fire in my tuppence-worth. Having lived in about 10 different areas from the New Town to the Southside, from Stockbridge to Broughton, we finally pitched up in Leith a few years back and love it. It used to have a bad rep back in the 90s - Trainspotting was usually the standard point of reference, and some of it still applies - but it's easily the most multicultural part of the city. Leith Walk is the main thoroughfare from Princes St down to the Shore and has largely avoided a lot of the gentrification that's hit other parts of the city, so expect Chinese/Mediterranean/Polish supermarkets, a whole slew of pubs from vaguely-hipsterish joints through to your total spit-and-sawdust places which are probably the most fun – certainly the cheapest – way of spending a night out. Loads of parks, The Shore is full of decent places to eat, there's a local market every Saturday for your vittals. We've a slew of local breweries, independent coffee places etc. Glasgow tops Central Edinburgh for nights out for the most part, principally due to Edinburgh Council being fuds when it comes to live music venues and there are far fewer tourists or stag/hen parties, and the Festival can be a bit of a false representation of the more permanent cultural scene here.

I'm not sure what line of work you're in, but I've worked in the creative industries for 16-odd years, and faced the opposite dilemma: move to London where most of the work is, or stay here and build up a client list from a significantly-smaller pool. I'm glad I did, principally because, despite competition from down South, there's a wealth of talent up here that manages to do pretty well.

In terms of riding, you can pretty much do a version of Paris-Roubaix on most streets, there's a very good cycle network that cris-crosses most of the city. Inevitably, riding through town will often destroy your faith in mankind due to a fair amount of knuckle-draggers driving about, but it's hilly and I've managed on 48x18 fixed for the last 6 years with no bother.