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How do you like the riding in your area?

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Road Cycling “It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.” -- Ernest Hemingway
View Poll Results: How do you like the riding where you live?
Delighted - all the hills and mountains!
9.77%
Delighted - it's flat - no hills to slow me down!
1.50%
Delighted - plenty of both hills and flat - whatever I want!
60.15%
Indifferent - not much flat, but no big deal
6.02%
Indifferent - no hills, but that's OK
6.02%
Indifferent - there's some hills around here somewhere
9.02%
Unhappy - too many steep hills
0.75%
Unhappy - too flat
6.77%
Voters: 133. You may not vote on this poll

How do you like the riding in your area?

Old 03-05-17, 08:23 AM
  #1  
kbarch
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How do you like the riding in your area?

Although real mountains nearby would be nice, I feel very lucky with the variety of roads available where I live. However, reading various threads I wonder how happy others are with what's available to them; whether it's flat, hilly, or varied; and whether they have strong feelings about it. Hence, a little poll.
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Old 03-05-17, 08:40 AM
  #2  
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Originally Posted by kbarch
Hence, a little poll.
where is the poll?
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Old 03-05-17, 09:23 AM
  #3  
kbarch
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Originally Posted by noodle soup
where is the poll?
you're too fast...
You must have seen the thread before I was finished creating the poll. You know, you don't get to generate it until after you post the topic.
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Old 03-05-17, 09:27 AM
  #4  
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I've got it all where I live. Fairly quiet country roads, views, mountains, a lake to ride around, etc....

This view has the road that is part of my basic daily route. So I get to see this everyday.



And then this shot is of the climb up the mountain in the background of the first picture. This is a category 2 climb. There is another category 2 out of this valley, a Cat 1, and then the crazy HC climb up the 4th climb out of our valley.



More views on my base route.







Yeah, so I am definitely delighted.
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Old 03-05-17, 10:01 AM
  #5  
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I only really do longer rides in the summer around here. Most of my riding is to work, which is 40 km RT. It's flat, mostly. I don't really care much for hills one way or another. I don't avoid them, but don't go out of the way just to ride them.
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Old 03-05-17, 10:04 AM
  #6  
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I've got Category 3 climbs all over the place, a nice Cat 2 about 15 miles away, Cat 1 and beyond would require a short drive. And of course plenty of flats if that's what I fancy. Couldn't be better. Maybe one day I'll be man enough to try the Hors catιgorie climb up Palomar Mountain's south grade
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Old 03-05-17, 10:05 AM
  #7  
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I have some roads that could be great for cycling very close by Hollister, CA where I live. Some flat and some hilly. The problem is some have no shoulder area and too many cars, others have little traffic but extremely beat up surfaces. This could be a bicycling mecca with some better roads; especially this time of year when the hills are green.
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Old 03-05-17, 10:09 AM
  #8  
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I love the riding where I am (Chester county, PA), gorgeous countryside and lots of shorter hills (typically 2 miles or less). No long climbs but that's ok.
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Old 03-05-17, 10:32 AM
  #9  
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I like it a lot.

Of course, today, things in the environs look more like the next pic:
Attached Images
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Emerald-Bay.jpg (95.3 KB, 320 views)
File Type: jpg
snow.jpg (97.5 KB, 313 views)

Last edited by Scarbo; 03-05-17 at 10:42 AM.
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Old 03-05-17, 10:44 AM
  #10  
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You should have had an option for "In misery. Too much traffic on treacherous roads"
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Old 03-05-17, 10:49 AM
  #11  
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I'm pretty happy with the riding around here. It's possible to ride into the mountains and the roads are mostly good quality. My only complaint is there aren't enough roads.
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Old 03-05-17, 10:53 AM
  #12  
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Originally Posted by mercator
I'm pretty happy with the riding around here. It's possible to ride into the mountains and the roads are mostly good quality. My only complaint is there aren't enough roads.
Poor baby. You must feel so deprived.
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Old 03-05-17, 11:08 AM
  #13  
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Good. It's dead flat here. Here is a typical ride: 38 miles, less than 300 feet of elevation change. That's just up and down levees. https://www.strava.com/activities/887801661

It's an hour ride or 20 min drive to hills. Hour and a half drive to proper mountain roads.
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Old 03-05-17, 11:10 AM
  #14  
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I really like my area - There really isn't THAT much flat area, but I'm counting small hills in the "flat" category.
Hills are plentiful - small and large, steep and shallow. I haven't yet done the climb up Hawk Mountain, but I figure I'll give it a go in the next couple of years. I've seen it listed as a Cat 3 - I know from driving up it in my car that it would be quite the test on a bike (for me) - about 2 miles at about 9% avg.
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Old 03-05-17, 11:55 AM
  #15  
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Northern NV is hard to beat. I grew up in the Midwest, but I live here for a reason. I used to live in Reno less than 5 miles from two really good climbs- 16 miles at 5% and 7 miles at 5%. The first one led to Tahoe, then the other one led to some other climbs, some with some very steep sections. There are also plenty of flat routes to be had. The weather is just about perfect in the summer and fall.

I recently moved to a smaller town where I'm 9 miles away from 9.5 miles at 6.5%, and from there I can descend down into what is pretty much climbing paradise in the summer time. I'm also close to some very good mountain biking less than 5 miles from my door.

Here's my problem lately- this winter has been absolutely terrible. I'm tempted to move to Tucson or somewhere like that.
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Old 03-05-17, 12:38 PM
  #16  
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I love riding here, (Narragansett Bay and Buzzards Bay). There are not many hills and what hills there are, are no longer than a mile of so. Just enough to wake up the legs. No mountains but many views of the littoral. There are also many country roads with light traffic, farms, wild flowers by the roadside and friendly, curteous drivers.
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Old 03-05-17, 01:27 PM
  #17  
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No flats or mountains around me. Just rolling hills, and more hills, just constant hill after hill, but it's not difficult, no mountains.
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Old 03-05-17, 01:32 PM
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Originally Posted by DXchulo
Northern NV is hard to beat. I grew up in the Midwest, but I live here for a reason. I used to live in Reno less than 5 miles from two really good climbs- 16 miles at 5% and 7 miles at 5%. The first one led to Tahoe, then the other one led to some other climbs, some with some very steep sections. There are also plenty of flat routes to be had. The weather is just about perfect in the summer and fall.

I recently moved to a smaller town where I'm 9 miles away from 9.5 miles at 6.5%, and from there I can descend down into what is pretty much climbing paradise in the summer time. I'm also close to some very good mountain biking less than 5 miles from my door.

Here's my problem lately- this winter has been absolutely terrible. I'm tempted to move to Tucson or somewhere like that.
I think that moving to Tucson would introduce other challenges to your riding enjoyment. The summer heat is much more bearable where you're at--Reno, Carson City, Carson Valley area.

This year has been awful as far as weather goes. But California desperately needed all of this rain and snow. Small price to pay.
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Old 03-05-17, 03:16 PM
  #19  
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I'm in San Diego so I voted "Delighted - plenty of both hills and flat - whatever I want!".
The only real downside around here is traffic.
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Old 03-05-17, 03:20 PM
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I love riding in my area, The Golden Horseshoe of Ontario between Toronto and Niagara Falls. There are plenty of hills to go around (I hate hills) and there are a lot of sparsely used country roads with some beautiful scenery. Riding up into the hills you can look back down onto Lake Ontario or ride along the lakeshore for days. I rememebr thinking, before I moved up here from New Jersey, that this would be a great place to ride. I was not wrong about that. Twice I have done a big charity ride from Toronto to Niagara Falls on some of those roads and was awestruck by some of the scenery I missed from the car.

I am sure there are other places that are better than here but this is the best riding area I have ever lived in.

Cheers,

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Old 03-05-17, 03:32 PM
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My area eats it.
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Old 03-05-17, 03:32 PM
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I've got mountains (Onyx Summit is a 20 mile ride from my door,) hills (I can climb 800ft in 3.5 miles just by heading North,) flats (sort of, my "flat" days are usually ~35 miles with 800ft of elevation,) and a variety of scenery. We have a good deal of variety. The downside being that many of the roadways are literally crumbling, and with a flat broke county and state, they aren't getting fixed any time soon.
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Old 03-05-17, 03:36 PM
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Originally Posted by baj32161
I love riding in my area, The Golden Horseshoe of Ontario between Toronto and Niagara Falls.
It's a nice ride too from Niagara to Fort Erie.
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Old 03-05-17, 04:19 PM
  #24  
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Originally Posted by jamesdak
I've got it all where I live. Fairly quiet country roads, views, mountains, a lake to ride around, etc....

This view has the road that is part of my basic daily route. So I get to see this everyday.



And then this shot is of the climb up the mountain in the background of the first picture. This is a category 2 climb. There is another category 2 out of this valley, a Cat 1, and then the crazy HC climb up the 4th climb out of our valley.



More views on my base route.







Yeah, so I am definitely delighted.
That is really beautiful country. I've actually ridden quite a bit in Utah and I love it. Where is that, exactly--is that off of HWY 6 (Helper, Price; or down around Mt. Pleasant)?
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Old 03-05-17, 04:30 PM
  #25  
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Originally Posted by Scarbo
I think that moving to Tucson would introduce other challenges to your riding enjoyment. The summer heat is much more bearable where you're at--Reno, Carson City, Carson Valley area.

This year has been awful as far as weather goes. But California desperately needed all of this rain and snow. Small price to pay.
Heat doesn't bother me as much as cold does, thanks to being 138 pounds and having a little extra metal in my body. Tucson is probably too big of a city for me. That's the bigger issue. I'm trying my best not to overreact to an unusually bad winter, but it's tough right now.
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