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best cities to live for motorcycling


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I am really not sure where this post belongs ... feel free to move it.

Along the lines of "where should I convince my wife we should retire?", what are the best cities for motorcyclists? My primary interest is the USA, but bring on the world.

My thoughts on things to consider to make a city good for a motorcyclist specifically (outside of the usual stuff a non-motorcyclist would value):

  1. lane splitting OK (plus for California)
  2. weather - not too hot, but especially not too cold (frozen water kills the whole venture). Sunny days for riding.
  3. the law is not ridiculously harsh (Virginia - 20mph over could mean a year in jail!?)
  4. day trips: <1 hour, access to nearby rural areas for scenic rides, including some twisty enough for fun.
  5. multi-day trips: close to multiple mountainous and wilderness destinations for longer rides, twisties, camping, hiking, destinations like national parks. Ideally the fun (back roads, scenery) starts almost immediately as you leave town.

I am in San Diego California. I live north of I-8 and just east of I-15. I am sort of on the edge ... within civilization but there are no freeways between me and the San Diego back country. SD satisfies 1,2,3,4 pretty darned well (hello Palomar!). But we're in the corner of the country; excluding Mexico (a different kind of adventure) it just takes a long time to get anywhere, and you generally have to go through the loathsome greater Los Angeles / San Bernadino / Riverside complex to get anywhere (no offense intended, mates!). Still, in about 4 hours I could be at the southern Sierra Nevada or highway 1 along the coast.

All and all, I'd have to say that San Diego is pretty good. But the grass is always greener ... it must be greener somewhere. I've always been in SoCal and dream of smaller towns ... Boise or Spokane come to mind but I've never even visited and I worry about the winter. Where should I fantasize about? Is this the best there is?

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It sounds like you want to live in SLO. Or Eureka, maybe? Both are surrounded by incredible riding.

Ventura isn't bad if you still want to be close to civilization. It's on the NW edge of the LA area so it's pretty easy to escape and avoid LA altogether.

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Winter in Boise is not bad, but there is some snow. Bend would be similar, not sure about Spokane.

Parts of western Oregon offer year round riding if you don't mind a little rain: Medford, Eugene, Corvallis. (Salem and Portland, though nearby, oddly get more snow.) 

Utah allows filtering now, which is not exactly like lane splitting in CA but it's a start. 

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Western North Carolina would be my first choice. Anyone who has spent much time riding in that area knows the abundance of great mountain roads.  The Appalachian mountains are loaded with great twisting roads in all directions where NC, TN and GA share borders.  These roads are easily accessible from any number of towns and cities in the area and real estate in most places is reasonable as well.   

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Winter= perfect time to do upgrades/repairs without any downtime from riding... 

I have lived in California and Michigan for a good chunk of my life and Michigan pretty much has it all from were I live... Fishing, hunting, outdoor stuff to do year round... Awesome racing facilities from dirt bike to road courses... Traffic is a breeze to compared to California... 

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I'm a northern CA transplant to Knoxville TN, only about 45 minutes from the famed "Dragon". I think NorCal has better roads and certainly better weather. If you'd like to live near civilization, Redding would be decent. Plenty of access to phenominal roads on either side of the valley. If you want to be further out, pick any one of a dozen mountain towns and have nearly unlimited access to great uninhabited roads.

image.thumb.png.b8f010c8e4ace31b242e74de9905db24.png

 

I'm sorry the Dragon's 313 corners in 11 miles doesn't have shit on Hwy 36 out of Red Bluff. 


n0kf3BjAGRBITNfElT04dAfzk5-B9-dzQAF_GnB4M38QbVHjLqi7lY2ji9zY4vXg2flQg-HBqnVaGlL8qX85fhF8GK-HANA18TC47I23wuWXi0DxsJ7ZG-44zSv6EItwvgG6QS6a7IQEz3VGsCEc7Z6UdT4-ZsloEpjex96UVhp1ytSKhOS_e-ghbi8YAW7YnV5vPEW04aagPFzLpHqJGnrxX8k9eRytleJb91_VxN763e0Q-hm1H-MzsRdSGA3lS4smmWxGjMXuytwiY7qPghmfYmCHkfTgR0cYYDcl73hhcK9jINnr8N-gmfkz1OCSYtx4H5dSJmyUDT8X0I8th7hyMdkT_SE1mer5QabQ3lRqoKjQELecC2qj-PTfvaI1g7tfKAsTjIvVDFehAvKD3nPzYNuisi1Bt529Atju-zdaVfrKgUniAxbpeJWckeBvtQ7C9nQ3fOxeCe_H7nlwbnAG9CD7kWF5bRbD-ieOWpSISrKoOguJ30EGTOtS7YPy_DRkBQecUhMm-Q1pGA09BaWOaItdsxd3BcPeikCBAzvA1-v8Cmgh6xNGtANYpVN7HL3I3JSfRr2lXLsDxMF_IIO6KuEcfozRfScjWwlp5JzQs6OviGQ2Cd47nmrE8XXy8ZCWFIcX0VdpaLODN13gyee_c1Fyx58=w769-h767-no

 

That being said, the politics, cost of living, fewer people, and lack of forest fires makes Tennessee more appealing overall. 

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The Pacific Northwest is my playground. You have mountain passes - Snoqualmie Pass, Stevens Pass, Blewett Pass, Cayuse Pass, Chinook Pass, White Pass, and the North Cascade Highway up north.

If you ride to the east of Seattle, you have mountain ranges stretching from the Canadian border down to Bakersfield California.

If you ride to the west you can ride the Olympic Peninsula,  is with breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean on one side and the mountains on the other, or head down the 101 on the pacific coast all the way to Mexico.

Cross the mountains from Seattle to eastern Washington, and you hit warmer dryer weather,  and plenty of roads through wheat fields and agricultural lands. A multi-day trip will get you to Idaho with a whole host of mountain passes including the Rocky Mountains, the Bitterroots, and Seven Devils ranges. 

Weather - Wet Winters, but still rideable, and hardly any snow.... Spring, Summer, Fall great riding weather....... 

Hard to imagine any other area having so much good riding, but if you know of one, let me know.........

 

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Not sure it exists. Have done a lot of the bucket list, top 10 stuff, in and out of the states. NorCal is still my Mecca for pleasure riding but not sure I want to live there. There are worse places than the San Diego area (have done a lot of all day runs from Big Bear to Tecate and back). When work no longer means staying close to a large urban area could see living near Paso Robles. Maybe western Nevada. Anything with a day's ride access to the Sierras and NorCal in the summer. Reasonable access to OR, WA, UT, and CO. 

This summer's big trip is fast approaching. North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Colorado and Utah roads for days. Then over to the Sierras. 

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14 minutes ago, chitown said:

Anything with a day's ride access to the Sierras and NorCal in the summer. Reasonable access to OR, WA, UT, and CO. 

This summer's big trip is fast approaching. North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Colorado and Utah roads for days. Then over to the Sierras. 

We just got back from a 7 day ride in Northern California, its an annual tradition now!!  We rode South of Lake Tahoe to Markleeville/Monitor Pass, then to Sonora Pass on 108.  AWESOME RIDING!!  Sonora Pass has sections that are 26% grade - too much fun!

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4 hours ago, keithu said:

Winter in Boise is not bad, but there is some snow. Bend would be similar, not sure about Spokane.

Parts of western Oregon offer year round riding if you don't mind a little rain: Medford, Eugene, Corvallis. (Salem and Portland, though nearby, oddly get more snow.)

 

My buddy lives in Bend and for day rides he is within riding distance to the coast, Hells Canyon, Columbia River Gorge and Northern California. 

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11 hours ago, wanderer said:

I am really not sure where this post belongs ... feel free to move it.

Along the lines of "where should I convince my wife we should retire?", what are the best cities for motorcyclists? My primary interest is the USA, but bring on the world.

My thoughts on things to consider to make a city good for a motorcyclist specifically (outside of the usual stuff a non-motorcyclist would value):

  1. lane splitting OK (plus for California)
  2. weather - not too hot, but especially not too cold (frozen water kills the whole venture). Sunny days for riding.
  3. the law is not ridiculously harsh (Virginia - 20mph over could mean a year in jail!?)
  4. day trips: <1 hour, access to nearby rural areas for scenic rides, including some twisty enough for fun.
  5. multi-day trips: close to multiple mountainous and wilderness destinations for longer rides, twisties, camping, hiking, destinations like national parks. Ideally the fun (back roads, scenery) starts almost immediately as you leave town.

I am in San Diego California. I live north of I-8 and just east of I-15. I am sort of on the edge ... within civilization but there are no freeways between me and the San Diego back country. SD satisfies 1,2,3,4 pretty darned well (hello Palomar!). But we're in the corner of the country; excluding Mexico (a different kind of adventure) it just takes a long time to get anywhere, and you generally have to go through the loathsome greater Los Angeles / San Bernadino / Riverside complex to get anywhere (no offense intended, mates!). Still, in about 4 hours I could be at the southern Sierra Nevada or highway 1 along the coast.

All and all, I'd have to say that San Diego is pretty good. But the grass is always greener ... it must be greener somewhere. I've always been in SoCal and dream of smaller towns ... Boise or Spokane come to mind but I've never even visited and I worry about the winter. Where should I fantasize about? Is this the best there is?

Went back in 2008.  There are way too many people in southern California for me.  Question...How do you know that you are old?  

Answer.....When you go back to MCRD and find a single Quonset hut preserved as a museum piece.  

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7 hours ago, koth442 said:

I'm sorry the Dragon's 313 corners in 11 miles doesn't have shit on Hwy 36 out of Red Bluff. 

Dragon is only one very short road that gets too much attention.  The mountains beyond there hold hundreds of miles of great riding as I am sure you know.  

I would love to live in a place with weather like California where I could ride all year long.  Had an uncle who I used to visit in Del Mar and it is very nice!  But all things considered I would still choose NC over California in a heartbeat.  

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There is nothing like spending a day riding with friends in the grip of a shared obsession.

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1 hour ago, johnmark101 said:

But all things considered I would still choose NC over California in a heartbeat.

Me too, hence I'm here and not there haha. 

However, the OP asked specifically about motorcycling areas and NorCal is better. Until you spend a lot of time in the area, it's difficult to grasp how big NorCal really is. It's huge. That 140 mile road I posted? That's less than half the state wide. Let alone up, down, and the other side of the central valley. Let alone if you wander further north into Oregon...

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9 hours ago, DavidS said:

The Pacific Northwest is my playground. You have mountain passes - Snoqualmie Pass, Stevens Pass, Blewett Pass, Cayuse Pass, Chinook Pass, White Pass, and the North Cascade Highway up north.

Hard to imagine any other area having so much good riding, but if you know of one, let me know.........

I have to agree, this whole corner of the country, WA, OR, ID and N. CA leave us pretty spoiled with variety through mountains, forests, deserts and canyons.

Anytime I ride over one of the mountain passes or even through the Columbia River Gorge, I feel fortunate to have this right in my back yard, within 1-2 hours away.

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9 hours ago, betoney said:

My buddy lives in Bend and for day rides he is within riding distance to the coast, Hells Canyon, Columbia River Gorge and Northern California. 

True. And I know I'm the one who brought up Bend. But in reality the lower Willamette Valley has a longer riding season than Bend. They get enough snow up there to make riding pretty sketchy November-March. Meanwhile down here in Albany I still ride to work most of January. 

Bend is beautiful, no doubt. But winter sports are a big deal there for a reason.

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