General Cycling Discussion - Camarillo and Santa Barbara

We've just returned from a visit to Camarillo and Santa Barbara (California)! These are some fantastic places to live if you are a cyclist! Bike lanes just about everywhere! The Pacific coast highway is right there just begging to be ridden on! Oh boy! I've just got to move out there!

Anyone know how the job market is? :confused: Perferably in the Government Defense industry? :beer:

There are some jobs in Goleta, UCSB, Cal Poly SLO, etc., as well as some electronics and aerospace further south and east, toward the fringes of Los Angeles. Consider San Diego, which has equally good climate and bicycling facilities, but a much more diverse job market.

Viper, I use to live in Santa Barbara for about 10 years and use to race there and in surrounding areas. First thing you need to consider is the cost of housing. Right now to buy a run down fixer upper in a questionable neighborhood (believe it or not there are some rough neighborhoods there) you can expect to pay around $380k for about 900 sq ft and on a very small lot. Also if you buy, the city taxes on property are the highest in the nation. If you rent you can find a small studio apartment for around $1,400 per month.

You are right about the bike paths there. I still go there to ride because my in-laws live there and I still love the paths and the year round weather is idea for biking. There is excellent riding all along the beach from Goleta all the way to Ventura; or for more of a challenge, you can ride up into the mountains to Solvang. But the most of the people that live there are snotty, including the bikers; if your bike breaks down on the path no expect any help. There is a very good bicycle shop there called Hazards on Cabrillo (sp?) and have an excellent mechanic named Sergio. Tell him the man with the red Trek from Bakersfield sent you, I am serious about this. The other shops in town go back to being snooty and not as pleasant to do business with; Hazards will never talk down to you and they can get anything you want.

I am not too familar with high tech jobs there but you can look for jobs by clicking on to: https://www.20jobs.cahwnet.gov You will have to log on by creating a new user, then click onto look for jobs by category than click on Southern California then click on Santa Barbara county on the map. I just went to that site for the Santa Barbara area and there appears to be quite a few tech jobs but I don't know your specialty.

Good luck in you relocation efforts. Sorry, didn't mean to freak you out about Santa Barbara. It use to be a quaint little town until they took the stop lights out of 101 and put a 4 lane frwy there. Now it is very crowded town with town and beach pay to park very difficult to find-especially on weekends and summers (very little free parking is left any more unless you go to the mall and get your ticket stamped). It is a party town with lots of stuff happening at all hours of the day and night on State Street, which on the weekends and summer State st. becomes a creeping slow crawling street. with hords of tourist and students both in cars and on foot. There is also a high number of bums but that is probably due to the mild weather.

You may want to check a couple hours south... maybe Orange County... job market is OK.. about average I guess compared to the rest of the nation.... as far as houseing... my wife and I jsut bought a 2 bedroom townhome at about 1200 sq. feet, and we paid $263k in December.... after moving out of a 2 bedroom apt. paying $1100 a month...

OC is great, I can be in San Diego in about an hour or so or up in Santa Barbara in about 2... also there is a LARGE community of road and mt. bikers here... and it isn't unusual for me to go for a ride Saturday morning and see anywhere from 20-60 guys and girls out riding.. and the best part... we can ride pretty much year round as it never snows, and never really gets colder than about 50 in the Winter, and it never gets too hot in the summer.. never usually more than a few days above 90...

Jeff