Anyone else find that after a while they get really bored of having the same first 10k and final 10k of every ride? because there's only a very finite number of roads from home to places worth cycling?
Yes. The first/last 5km of mine count double because of Birmingham drivers. And an annoying ridge that you've got to climb over at some point to get in/out of Birmingham.
I find the annoyingness of the first bit (it being slower in the uphill direction) is proportional to the overall length of the ride. What's bad is when it's winter and miserable and you don't want to be out for more than an hour or two. Or worse, if injury limits your total ride to 20km or less.
One solution is a cultural exchange; go and ride somebody else's boring bit. Which is how
this happened.
Another approach is to deliberately go and ride the roads you *don't* normally use on that first/last bit, if only to remind you why.
New bike toys help take your mind off it, of course, but it's not very sustainable.
Riding in the dark has a certain novelty factor, unless it's also part of a winter utility route.
But I mostly just get on with it. The hardest part is getting out of the door, and Primrose Hill (B38) is nothing if not Good Training™.