JeffS

Well, I don't want to spend my whole life commuting... that's part of the point. I would like to live, work, shop and play in as small an area as possible. A move to a town as small as Boone would require a completely new way of supporting myself - which will eventually have to happen anyway. I'm not sure how many more years I'm willing to spend in front of a computer screen.

ken cummings

I vote for Beaumont, near the top of San Gorgonio Pass, west of Palm Springs. With the gentle slope to the east and the almost all year intense tailwind you could do the 28 miles into work in Palm Springs in less than an hour. Then take public Transit back to Beaumont.

chephy

I haven't travelled enough in North America to know what cities are bike-friendly and what aren't. Toronto where I live is very reasonable downtown but as you move further away from the core, the number of cyclists rapidly drops and nobody knows how in the hell to deal with a biker on the road. Go further, into the suburbs - and it's like this for cycling: .

I'm moving there!

kevink159

Madison Wi is great. Our winters are not that bad, I've ridden in a car exactly twice in the last 2 years because of weather.

HardyWeinberg

Maybe San Diego. I'm actually 100% perfectly happy w/ where I am. Any place w/ better weather would have to have worse drivers/traffic/whatever (setting aside the 'no job for me' thing). Rural Brit isle maybe.

rustisamust

Bloomington, IN, is my choice. I live there now, and bicycling is the greatest here. You can get almost anywhere on small residential streets, the pavement is fair, hills mild, and best of all, there are tons of bicycles on the roads, so drivers actually know how to react. Overall, much better than Louisville, KY, where I lived previously. Plus, Bloomington is just a cool place, and fairly cheap to live in.

rog

Well, that limits it to ... lets see... Anywhere in the USA. Or do you mean you need a place where there is no chance of ever running into someone who speaks another language?

Heh...oh yeah, while I'm at it...

Santa Fe, NM, or Portland, Oregon.

Falkon 

If here, downtown for sure. Anywhere else in the US, downtown Nashville.

LCI_Brian

Here in central and southern Orange County (the "OC"), there's lots of newer suburbs with lots of bike lanes. And the temperatures rarely go below 40F.

Oh, sorry, with a median home price of around $620,000, I guess that doesn't meet the "afford to live" criterion!

donnamb 

Yes, but the blackflies are nasty there.

I-Like-To-Bike

Then again, if you are looking for a place with good bicycling condition where everyone is capable of speaking English properly- go to The Netherlands. When you hear English spoken loudly and poorly there (with every sentence full of "ah," "like" "basically" and vulgar four letter words) you can be reasonably sure you will be amongst fellow American tourists.

al-wagner

anywhere except Vermont

chipcom 

I don't get why so many folks are thinking Santa Fe. I lived in NM for 10 years and Santa Fe wasn't exactly bike friendly.

JeffS

For us, Santa Fe has the appeal of being an artistic city. I've heard that it's a little tourist-overrun lately, which makes it less attractive than in years past.

As far as bike-friendliness. I have to think that nowhere's going to be any worse than where I am now.

chipcom 

Yeah, 'the city different'. If you want artsy and much more bike friendly, try Taos. Can't help you with the tourists, they seem to have become a permanent fixture throughout the state.

sbhikes

Santa Barbara is nice, but the median price of a crappy little house is a million dollars. I have never owned one and never will. If you are willing to settle for MUCH less you can live here and enjoy mountains, oceans and your choice of flat or hilly cycling plus all the adventurous sports you could possibly think of involving land, air or water.

Next best might be Ventura or Oxnard. I can't say they're the greatest for cycling but it's flat if you don't like hills and there is a great bike trail to Ojai plus lots of really long bike rides you can make that go into the back country mountains or along the coast or both.

pinkrobe

I visited Portland a few months ago, and my wife and I agreed that if we could find jobs we'd consider moving there. The biking is easy, with few hills [except that big one west of downtown], lots of cyclists, lots of bike parking, polite, friendly...

I could also live in Nelson, B.C. It almost never goes lower than -15C, the entire town is on the side of a mountain so I'd get really fit, and the entire place shuts down for powder days.

Farther afield, there are the obvious places in Europe like Spain, most of the U.K. and France, Portugal, BeNeLux and Turkey. I would consider S.E. Asia and South Asia, but only where I could get far enough from the equator. Beijing sounds pretty cool except for the pollution.

rydaddy

Davis, CA... the land of 1/2 million dollar "starter" homes (hey half the price of SB!)

https://www.bicyclefriendlycommunity....ommunities.htm

notfred

I wanted to live in San Francisco, so I decided I'd get a job and apartment there... and I did. I'm actually in the process of moving right now. As soon as rush hour is over, I'm going to take my final carload of stuff to my new place.

While I plan on commuting primarily by bike and public transit while I'm there, I certainly didn't choose to live in SF because of how I plan to get to work everyday. I actually think it'd be kind of sad if I thought, "Wow, that place would be perfect to live, I'll get to use method X to get to work!"

San Francisco is a city with a beautiful climate full of culture, and just generally a place I like to be, regardless of how I commute.

Edit: For the guy above me -- I'm moving to SF from Davis. Davis is easier to bike in than SF. I don't care, I like SF better as a place to live my life, not just a place to bike to work.

rog

Climate, mainly...although it would be weird for me to live so far from an ocean (Jersey shore is a half hour by bike), I check their weather from time to time when it's nasty here, and it's always 60-80f, low humidity. Sign me up.

rydaddy

Good luck in SF. Its an awesome city. I moved from the Bay Area to Davis to raise a family... not because of the biking. Its nice to walk out at night and not worry about getting jacked. The public schools are good in Davis as well. SF is always there when I want to go visit. I ride from Davis to Sac so I do get some city riding in. Nothing compares to those hills in SF though!

notfred

That's cool. There definitely are some nice things about Davis, like the fact that I can leave my car unlocked and not have it stolen. But I'm 25, I'm not quite ready to settle down in a place like Davis yet, maybe in a few years I'll be done with the city and ready for somewhere a little quieter.

LittleBigMan

Gotcha. I've lived in Atlanta for over 30 years, and I'm not tired of it. I've bike commuted here for about 10 years, and love it despite the naysayers. One problem, I admit, is the fact we're growing so much that traffic congestion is impossible in certain places/times.

I figure that with the population continuing to grow as it has since I've been here, more cyclists will move here, and that will make it even better for cycling. I'm sure some people select a city based on cycling infrastructure/cycling culture, but many cyclists simply move where the jobs are. Once there, they bring cycling culture with them.

genec

How about island communities? Catalina (very expensive) limits the number of cars that are allowed on the island.

How about the east coast... what are the island communities like there?

And the west coast San Juans... I have noticed slow speeds and even bike turnouts on the roads on the islands there.

What about areas... townships, where the posted speeds are 25MPH everywhere?

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Counting the minutes 'til I leave this hell