Author Topic: Best city/town for bicycle lifestyle in FIRE?  (Read 5478 times)

mamagoose

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Best city/town for bicycle lifestyle in FIRE?
« on: September 16, 2015, 10:31:02 AM »
Our family of three loves to bike, and currently live in a somewhat bike-friendly neighborhood in not-so-bike-friendly Orlando. We envision always having one car (a Volt) and dream of biking most days during FIRE. I am curious for other biking families, where do you live and why do you love it? We have previously lived in Palo Alto which was wonderful for biking, hardly ever used our cars but out of our price range for FIRE. We are looking at areas around Denver, North Carolina, and possibly Southern California, seeking a milder climate where we can realistically bike year round. Any suggestions?

Gimesalot

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Re: Best city/town for bicycle lifestyle in FIRE?
« Reply #1 on: September 16, 2015, 11:29:40 AM »
Try searching the forum for a previous thread where someone posted a report about most bike friendly cities.

Edit:  I found it!

http://bikeleague.org/sites/default/files/ACS_report_2014_forweb_edit.pdf
« Last Edit: September 16, 2015, 11:33:17 AM by Gimesalot »

Eric

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Re: Best city/town for bicycle lifestyle in FIRE?
« Reply #2 on: September 16, 2015, 01:26:41 PM »
That's a pretty broad question.  What size city are you looking at?  What other factors besides bike friendliness and year round biking ability are you considering?  Can't answer for North Carolina, but there are so many year round bike friendly cities along the west coast that you'd need way more criteria to choose.  And of course you can bike in Denver year round, especially if you're a badass like MMM.

mamagoose

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Re: Best city/town for bicycle lifestyle in FIRE?
« Reply #3 on: September 17, 2015, 09:30:47 AM »
A modest size city, I like more grocery options than a super Walmart and like cultural options that bigger cities offer, but not a dense city like DC / San Francisco. I say this b/c my husband is a gearhead and part of his FIRE dream is restoring old cars, so we'll need a garage with a typical single family home setup. I guess I'm just asking for those of you who already do bike a lot, where do you live? I've read the lists online and they all say the usual Portland, Minneapolis, etc but I'm wondering if there are any cities that don't pop up on those lists where folks are living the bicycling lifestyle.

frompa

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Re: Best city/town for bicycle lifestyle in FIRE?
« Reply #4 on: September 17, 2015, 10:02:49 AM »
Hey Mamagoose - I know you said you want to be in a relatively warm climate, but I must say, here in our little city of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the bike scene is really fine.  Were it not for work (which is going the way of the dinosaur soon), I could get by without a car easily.  We have a lovely off-road path along the river that goes from Easton to Allentown (Bethlehem in the middle), more off-road paths under expansion throughout the northeast part of the state (see D & L Heritage Corridor path), a wide range of mountain bike options from easy-peasy to highly technical, and the roads are for the most part completely bike-able.  The terrain here is hilly -- it IS pennsylvania, after all -- but after an initial period of getting your muscles used to it, you won't even notice.  We notice that when we go elsewhere to bike, we are always in comparatively good shape because we do hills on our little day to day rides all the time.  We have a very active bike-ped advocacy group at work in all three small interconnected cities.  Our bus system is equipped with bike racks on all buses.  Although we get snow and ice, I bike year-round, and have done so for many years.  We are a college-intense community, with about seven colleges in our three-city area, so there's plenty of intellectual and cultural activity of the sort that usually goes with higher learning institutions. We have a a variety of grocery stores and year-round farmers' markets.  And we're an easy bus ride away for day trips to NYC and Philadelphia.  Give the Lehigh Valley some thought; it's a fine cycling place to live. 

jengod

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Re: Best city/town for bicycle lifestyle in FIRE?
« Reply #5 on: September 17, 2015, 10:16:55 AM »
Take a look at Fort Collins, Colo. I believe they have a very strong bike infrastructure.


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mamagoose

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Re: Best city/town for bicycle lifestyle in FIRE?
« Reply #6 on: September 17, 2015, 10:51:07 AM »
Thank you frompa!

pdxvandal

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Re: Best city/town for bicycle lifestyle in FIRE?
« Reply #7 on: September 17, 2015, 11:52:56 AM »
Eugene, Oregon, is pretty great if you can handle wet, gray winters (except last winter). Many people bike year-round. Lots of nice city trails along the river and good mountain biking nearby. Corvallis is smaller but also very bike friendly.

calimom

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Re: Best city/town for bicycle lifestyle in FIRE?
« Reply #8 on: September 17, 2015, 02:54:31 PM »
Davis, CA is very bike friendly, and lots of other fun stuff to do, being a college town.  Not sure of actual prices, but it is a whole lot more affordable than Palo Alto.  Decent weather year round, with of course some exceptions.

big_slacker

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Re: Best city/town for bicycle lifestyle in FIRE?
« Reply #9 on: September 17, 2015, 06:16:00 PM »
Portland OR should be mentioned, but you need to fit in with the culture and be ok or like rain. :)

Bellevue WA and Redmond wa where I live/work are pretty bike friendly. Expensive if you're not a techie but otherwise awesome

Dexterous

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Re: Best city/town for bicycle lifestyle in FIRE?
« Reply #10 on: September 18, 2015, 12:09:59 AM »
NC has some great mountain roads and trails for riding (examples: Cherohala Skyway, Tsali Recreation Area), but I'm unsure how suitable the towns in the vicinity are.  Also, I believe taxes are fairly high in NC compared to eastern TN... but that might have changed since I looked years ago.

clarkfan1979

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Re: Best city/town for bicycle lifestyle in FIRE?
« Reply #11 on: September 18, 2015, 10:42:14 AM »
Fort Collins for biking. For walking and taking public transit, I think DC has the best and cheapest public transit. Chicago has pretty good public transit, but the L sometimes smells like pee. DC is much cleaner.

Lots of people bike in Chicago, but many bikers get hit. People in Fort Collins have respect for bikers. People in Chicago do not.

Skalm

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Re: Best city/town for bicycle lifestyle in FIRE?
« Reply #12 on: September 18, 2015, 02:45:12 PM »
Boise, Idaho is the 4th most bike - friendly city in the States. Most streets have bike lanes, we have a walking path that allows bikes that cuts through downtown and goes both ways across the city, 26 miles long. Laws are pretty lenient to bicyclists. We have the Idaho stop, not sure if anywhere else has as well, where bicyclists treat stop signs as yield signs and red lights as stop signs.

And the CoL is reasonable. Rent for a 1br near downtown is $600. Winco is a great bulk food seller in the area. There's a good concert and art scene, lots of parks, and lots of outdoorsy stuff to do. One hour south gets you to an observatory ans sand dunes, one hour north and you're in the campgrounds of the mountains.

mamagoose

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Re: Best city/town for bicycle lifestyle in FIRE?
« Reply #13 on: September 23, 2015, 12:55:57 PM »
Idaho, now you're talking. I spent a summer near Spokane, WA and visited Idaho. It was a nice, quiet, small-town feel.

Thegoblinchief

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Re: Best city/town for bicycle lifestyle in FIRE?
« Reply #14 on: September 23, 2015, 02:49:48 PM »
Milwaukee and Madison here in WI are both quite bike friendly in the non-sprawl sections of the city.

Studded tires aren't a must have here but they'll make winter biking a heckuva lot safer and fun.