Gnarboots

When I say "Hometown", I leave it up to interpretation: Where you live now, where you've lived the longest, where you grew up, you choose.

Mine is Leucadia, CA, and the best things about it are:

85/65 degree highs and lows in the summer, 75/55 in the winter.
Beautiful beaches with consistantly rideable surf.
The best Mexican restaurant in the country.
My parents.
The fact that rampant So.Cal. development has, for the most part, left Leucadia alone.
Long bikerides up and down Highway 101.

Worst things:

That my folks could rent a 2BR house here in 1980 for $200 and that now I can't afford to live here.
The sick tract-housing/mini-mall/golf-course development over the hills my brother and I used to ride BMX on as kids.
Bumper-to-bumper traffic on the I-5.
I guess it all comes down to too many people who want to live in Paradise. The dystopian saga of Southern California...
Oh, all the Tri geeks and weekend warriors on their $4000 Orbeas kinda bug me, but I won't hate on 'em. Unless they throw that puppy in back of a Hummer to drive back to L.A...

joshuastar

tallahassee, fl (aka TLH)

worst things:
- the giant-tired trucks with Truck Nutz on them.

-the dropped hoopdies with Truck Nutz on them.

-the heat in summer.

-the fact that fsu brings idiotic people to town. we have plenty of our own, thanks.

-lack of good affordable housing.

-lack of good food after midnight.

-the rain.

-the bike lanes.

-the roads.

-the hills. why can't we be like the rest of florida in this respect?

-big daddy's. worst venue ever.

-floyd's. second worst venue ever.

-wal-mart. worst everything ever?

-the music scene from 97-01. it makes today seem crappy. for that, i hate it.




best things:

-spring

-fall

-summer

-TLH parks and rec. (apparently voted #1 in the country) especially tom brown park. racquetball courts and frisbee golf.

-gallie alley. so awesome, i proposed there.

-skeeterville depot. RIP.

-the mega rock arena. RIP.

-the thunderdome. RIP.

-vinyl fever.

-pocket sandwich emporium shows.

-club downunder

-frank lloyd wright built a house here.

-joe's bike shop.

-krank it up bike co-op.

-railroad tracks.

-the fact that fsu brings lots of cool people/bands/ideas to town.

-the fact that we're the coolest city in florida.

-central locality to atlanta, pensacola, jacksonville, orlando, tampa, savannah, birmingham, the beaches, the mountains, the lakes, the rivers, the ponds, the woods, the country, heaven.

-my friends.

-the good old days.

operator

Wait... why are bike lanes bad?

cosmo starr

dallas

-H2's
-no bike infrastructure
-public transit
-no mountains
-no public lands
-suburbs
-brutal summers

+mild winter
+flat
+'drome in frisco
+i dont live there anymore

AJC

.....scituate massachusetts

the worst:

-the cost to live here bought my house for $125,000 ten years ago and it's valued at $950,000 now
-the commuter train to boston
-the isolation of living in a small town

the best:

the isolation of living in a small town
beautiful coastal new england riding routes and fantastic mt bike trails
warm, clean water
beautiful beaches
1/2 hour to cape cod
1/2 hour to boston
2 hours to the white mountains of nh skiing....yay!!!
the seasons
tommy

lima_bean

Chicago -- Where I live now

best:
+ Awesome bike community
+ Can get everywhere I would ever need to get on my bike
+ bike progressive/friendly
+ Awesome public transit
+ very good theater/comedy/art/culture
+ big city feel, never need to be bored.
+ Liberal city, liberal state.
+ tons of veg food.

worst:

- Worst. Weather. Ever. Seriously, the weather is ****ing terrible. total dealbreaker.
- Middle of nowhere. nothing to do anywhere near Chicago if you want to leave the city.
- People here are obsessed with alcohol.


Austin --- my True Home Town.

best:

+ Perfect Weather. Hot in the summer, warm in the winter yeah....
+ Barton Springs, best place on earth.
+ decent bike culture
+ Awesome food, cant eat enough tex-mex.
+ good social scene.
+ Whole foods the size of a city.
+ tons of cool trails and locations and cool destinations around and in the city.
+ very liberal city

bad:
- suburban sprawl.. **** sprawl. **** **** sprawl.
- absymall public transit.
- can be hard to be car free.
- way conservative outside the city limits.

joshuastar

bike lanes in tally are almost always dirt/glass/rocks filled, cross right-turn lanes, start and end in random, usually useless places. i'll use one if it's there and it's clean, it doesn't cross a right-turn lane and i don't anticipate having to cross lanes later on to make a turn or something.

supposedly the infrastructure is going to be more bike friendly...in twenty years.

kemmer

SLC, UT

Worst:
*Liquor laws.
*A bit small.
*Too many ultra conservative types trying to legislate morality (see liquor laws).
*No ocean.

Best:
*Nice, Clean downtown area.
*Good roads.
*Great access to beautiful mountains.
*Proximity to Moab.
*Good snowboarding.
*Close to home (Denver).

cointelpro

NYC

Best thing: 67 degree weather forecast for Jan. 6. Keep burning those fossil fuels!

Worst thing: Cops will arrest you for riding your bicycle on the street. Wha?

celephaiz

so it's bad that your house is worth 9x more after 10 years? that's the worst? ask people who bought houses for 125k and couldn't sell them for 50 now. See if they agree with you.

*edit: more than 7x not 9.

ianjk

Duluth, MN

Best:

Ice/Rock climbing.
Music.
Lake Superior is a 2 min. ride from my door.
The 3 months of summer.
Living on a hill.

Worst:

Rednecks and drunk college kids who think it is fun to run you off the road/cut you off/yell/honk at/scare you.
Soccer moms who don't realize how big their SUVs are and don't know how to drive around cyclists.
The "Ghetto" (got beat down/bike stolen this summer).
Living on a hill.

Aeroplane

Bristol, CT
+ Small
+ 5 miles from awesome tech singletrack
+ 15 miles from one of the best freeride spots in CT (maybe even NE)
+ A couple decent shops
+ Weather (especially this winter, 55 degrees and no snow yet)

- No scene
- A billion stop lights
- A bike? On the road?! Call the freaking cops!!
- 15 miles of traffic to get to the highway

Fixxxie

Original Hometown
Santa Barbara, CA
Best
Everything about it
Worst
there is nothing bad about the place aside from the fact I can no longer afford to live there

My Adopted Hometown
Whitter, CA
Best
Mtn bike trial in my backyard
So Cal weather
San Gabriel river trail and tons of great places to ride bikes nearby
Great food
Wonderful neighbors and friends
Hollywood/downtown LA nearby
Surf in early AM ride bikes mid morning ski in the afternoon
Worst
Smog
Expensive (although looking back I should have just stayed in my house)
some gang stuff but it's not that bad

Current hometown
Houston, TX
Best
The ONLY thing Id say best about this place is I got a *****en-ass mid century mod house for CHEAP
Worst
EVERYTHING where do I start
Weather
Roads
Bike lanes (piss poor excuse for bike lanes full of glass and junk)
Right wing nuts everywhere
flat as a pancake
Enough about that

Future hometown
Longmont Co
Don't know yet but I cant see much negative about the place

Hope I didnt ramble on too much
Later
R

Rancid

I think I'm going to take a tour out there by fixie in early spring...would need someone to show me around a bit though, you game? I got a place to crash already

I'll claim my current town: Spokane, Wa

The Good:
Beautiful scenic area
Close to snowboarding & mountain biking
Low cost of living
friendly bike shops
lots of fun dive bars
nice summers

The Bad:
No other fixie riders seen yet
No alleycats
No messengers
Lots of college kids
****** ****** winters (pure ice for 4 months on side streets)
rather conservative area
traffic is too well managed and lanes too wide to make riding riding technically as challenging

12XU

Born and raised: Batavia, OH

Umm...there is absolutely nothing remarkable about this town; I've never ridden my bike more than a mile anywhere in the area, there is no culture, it's too far from Cincinnati to be considered a suburb and too far from the country to have any remarkable scenery. Worthless place.

Currently living: Oxford, OH

Much more tolerable in regards to scenery, bikeability, and "culture", although the culture here consists of little more than drinking at parties and some alright bars. I've made some good friends here, but most of the students are just abysmal.

Potential adopted hometown: Pittsburgh, PA

Small enough to have affordable housing, lots of dramatic scenery (hills, a confluence of three rivers, etc), great cycling sensibilites, amazing scene where most everyone interacts, good food, good sports. I'll likely move there once I save some money and find a job...

sniks

Albuquerque,nm

worst:
goatheads

the city inability to clear the streets of snow and ice.



best:
mild winters....oh wait it snowed a foot and it won't melt

red and green Chile

sunsets

mountains.

roadfix

Echo Park:

Bad:
Too hilly....I need to walk my bike (fixed gear) the last 1/8 mile to my house.

Good:
Good food and close to everything!

Revolution Smmr

Holy ****... you live in Bristol? I am at work in Southington as I type this! I'll assume you work at ESPN or else you wouldn't bother living in Bristol in the first place.

3MTA3

brighton, mi
+ gus' carry out
+ good mtb riding
+ champ's bar
- nowhere to ride road
- lu & carl's
- cars don't know that bikes are allowed on the road
- cars don't look for bikes in traffic

bloomington, in
+ dragon express
+ commuting
+ road riding
+ sink the biz
- frat boys @ kilroy's

gregg

Chicago has alot of good stuff going for bicyclists. Two velodromes close by, awesome Lake front path, most "bike friendly city" in 2005 or 2006, lots of cool people ride bikes and get together to do it.

The crappy part? Some ****e streets, lots of accidents

Fixxxie

DUDE
I would KILL to be able to live in Echo Park area.
BAXTER street..... a little steep for a fixie huh? or Fargo Street yeah like 90 degrees straight up! ! ! ! ! !
I Love that area
Later
R

pitboss

Chicago

+s:
velodrome
yojimbo's
the real Maxwell Street Polish
CBF
decent sized cyclist population
the lake
awesome food options
browing microbrew population
if you want out of the city and into the woods, it is not a hassle
I love the history

-s:
I am currently in the burbs

Rugen

That's typical in CA.

I would think it would be bad because property taxes would be a biotch, and a lot more than you expected when you bought the joint.
It also changes the quality of the neighborhood.

kyle!

what mexican place do you speak of? just curious because i'm usually only up that north on long bike rides and to go to lou's.



and word up on the long rides up and down the 101. i usually start from my house(utc/la jolla area) and go to encinitas, carlsbad, or oceanside depending on how far i wanna go. haven't done it fixed yet, though. that torrey pines hill is gnarcore.


and it's rad totally wailing those tri geeks you speak of. yeah some of them are hardcore and rad, but a good lot of them are fartheads.



for sd...


best:
weather
ocean breeze
some(not many) good places to eat ie POKEZ
the ocassional rad bikepath
the hillcrest/downtown area, pretty bike friendly
lou's records
the county is big and i like just riding wherever sometimes.



worst:
the drivers
pacific beach
bros
hoes
east county(santee, lakeside)
it's too spread out here, it's cool to bike places, but sometimes fun is just too far
most of the cops

Da Tinker

Lafayette, La, where I currently live
Best:
Ride year round. A cold day is anytime the high is below 50 DEGF.
Lots of back roads
Active bike club, fair number of riders
Considerate drivers
Flat
Beating a summer thunderstorm back to the house

Worst:
HOT summers, but not too bad if you head out early, like at dawn.
Many roads in poor condition
Idiot drivers
Flat
Summer thunderstorm beating you to the house.