Isle of Wight named top cycling spot in the world

I love cycling round Isle of Wight. However, the real reason it just cannot be the best is the awful state of the roads. I would never take my best bike carbon wheels because you could actually lose a wheel down some holes. Good on an MTB!

For geology-ically minded - they have a problem with some sort of slippy clay movement but the council should have a larger budget than the £20 a year they seem to spend!

Big Mick - Tenerife the best place to cycle? Its the 'best' place, not the most 'brutal' place! My wife and I cycled there a few years ago - brutal. A few wrong turnings up Teide and your climbing a 2 mile 10-15% gradient. Still the weather was great

I prefer Mallorca or Lanza

Elephant & Castle roundabout

Mountain bikers go to Wales, roadies to French Alps and
"young and trendy Londoners" to Isle of Wight

There seems to be a bit of a boy racer scene especially around Newport but with some lovely countryside, steep hills and a great road along the south coast it's certainly worth visit. For non-roadies there are good off-road cycle routes as well. (I'm not from the IOW tourist board - just realised this was starting to sound like an advert.)

Isle of Wight = chavs and wind. I will never trust The Lonely Planet ever again.

Tenerife is the best place in the world for cycling for sure.

We head down for our annual Fleet-Freshwater-Fleet ride every midsummer - get there for 9 o'clock on a Sunday morning and the roads are gloriously quiet and the blast along the Military Road to see who can get the cafe at Freshwater first is an absolute blast!

Not sure I'd put it up there with a ride in the mountains or Tuscany though.

I really like the Isle of Wight, in fact I live here. And I cycle around the place almost every day. But the best cycling holiday in the world? Surely not.

Whoever wrote that review didn't mention the truly shocking state of the roads, recently rated by the GMB union as the country's worst. There are some roads so appalling that I will not take my best bike onto them for fear of ruining the wheels. Potholes are not a winter phenomenon here, they seem to open up without regard to the season or weather.
There are currently at least two stretches of road deemed so dangerous that traffic lights are used to confine traffic to the better side of the carriageway. The lane near my house has a fifty-yard stretch which has been patched over sixty times; I'm not sure of the total as I'm tired of counting.

I have ridden in some developing countries where the roads are infinitely superior to Island highways and when I watch the Tour or the Vuelta or the Giro and compare their country lanes to ours I could weep in frustration.

Come and visit please, and bring your bike, but for goodness sake don't take your eyes off the road for a second.

I've only seen the Isle of Wight from the water, but for starters would suggest a place without cars.
Such as this Wikipedia listing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_car-free_places

Hmmm, the Isle of Wight is perfectly pleasant, but top place in the world to cycle? Ridiculous. You get a lot of locals driving like maniacs along the Military Road on the Southern side of the Island which spoils it somewhat.