Originally Posted by CAMPYBOB .
The riding around Asheville is awesome. It has the terrain you seek and the racing scene on the seaboard is pretty good.. It sounds like you won't be hanging around any one place too long. Good for you! Travel as much as you can while you are young and enjoy the road.
The Charlotte area is also fantastic for riding. Charlotte, itself, not so much. Kevlar and a CCW piece syndrome again. Better secondary and tertiary road system than the Ashville area.
I won't hit all those places, I'll get a job and settle in for a year. Traveling isn't ideal for training, and this really is about trying to become the best I can become in a year (mostly) dedicated to getting fit. This past year was my first of real training and I went from bottom of the barrel Cat 3 to now halfway to a 2 upgrade. At peak this past season 20 min power was 4.8 w/kg, so part of this whole experience is taking the time to train and eat properly without screwing over school for me and see if I have the genetics and drive it takes to eventually "make it."
Quote: Originally Posted by
daveryanwyoming .
Good list, you might want to add Walnut Creek California, Dublin or other places near but not in the top rent district of NorCal. You'd be right at the base of Mt Diablo with an hour plus continuous climb plus plenty of options heading back towards the Berkeley Hills and flats extending in several directions including out through Morgan Territories and the Livermore Dublin area to other great climbs including Mt. Hamilton or routes over Altimont Pass, Corral Hollow and more. Add to that a very full racing calendar and great weather and it's hard to beat.
But realistically it's hard to go wrong with any of the places on your list.
-Dave
Walnut Creek looks awesome, and again able to find a room to rent for a reasonable price (500-600/month). The weather in the Bay Area is pretty hard to beat, was in santa cruz, san francisco, and santa rosa a couple years ago while on vacation. Riding was awesome all around there, Santa Rosa has tons of climbs but no single massive one from what I can tell, Santa Cruz had fabulous mountain biking, and riding over the Golden Gate bridge and up Mt Tam was awesome. Most of those climbs are almost all climbable year around too, whereas in Colorado as far as I can tell lots of stuff can become unrideable seasonably. Both seem to have a great racing calendar.
I also have to consider what I'm doing for school in the future with all of this, cause I'll likely settle somewhere where I can gain residency and not go back to Rochester but still finish up school. Somehow the few people who ride there love it, but the racing scene is small to non-existant and school + training is remarkably hard if you don't love your bike trainer. for that reason, I was originally focusing on Colorado, could finish up my degree at a number of schools there and race in a great collegiate conference with a sizeable team to race/train with.