I used to use YHA a lot in my younger days when there were many more "simple" hostels about. I was a YHA Youth Group Leader for a time and introduced many young riders to the joys of Hostelling. The number of Hostels has declined in the last 10-20 years to the extent that it's hard to find enough within cycleable distance of each other to be able to put together a tour. Add to that the trend to go up market and they have pushed their prices up into competition with the likes of
Travelodge and similar organisations.
It makes me very sad actually, but it's the change in regulations concerning charities and maybe general demographic changes altering people's holiday expectations which have made such organisations as the YHA more profit conscious. There are independent hostels and camping barns about but it takes time to find them whereas YHA at least was a wide ranging set up that made it fairly easy to connect with their Hostels. I don't recall a
cycle store being an optional extra. All the ones I knew had them. Maybe they are catering more for motorised holiday makers now. At the moment, in the shadow of COVID there seems to be a push to hire whole Hostels rather than rooms or dorms, certainly when I last enquired, which rather defeats the object for solo travellers or small groups.
I maintained my membership for years after I stopped regularly Hostelling as a gesture of support but the organisation changed so much from the experience that I used to value that I have completely lost contact now. For me, at that time, the YHA was tied in with my cycling club, the CTC and other such organisations. Fings ain't wot they used to be, indeed.
On the bright side, I too have heard that Travelodge are bike friendly, would be interested to hear of posters' experiences of this and similar hotel chains.