Living Car Free - () that close to selling my car...couple questions though

Im on the verge of selling my car, ive thought about it for a while and the more i look into it the more i want to do it. Its going to have to be after i move since right now when i ride to work its 50 miles round trip but im ready to get out of here in a month if i can do it without alienating myself from my current roomate and best friend of forever.

I know i can do it physically, ive been a serious cyclist for a while so im not really worried about the physical demands but i am curious about a few things. Main one being i have family that is roughly 400 miles away and i like to get back and visit them a couple times a year...although taking a couple weeks to make the ride could be fun:rolleyes: Other than that the longer drives i normal do are to races or big rides where we carpool anyways so that shouldnt be a problem.

If you make long trips a couple times a year get a plane ticket or rent a car. That's an easy one. =) In town when you absolutely can't ride the bike, you can always catch a ride, borrow a car or even call a taxi.

where do you live nubcake? just curious. is it a very cycling friendly city

Where you live might make a big difference; where do you?

Right now i live in seymour tn which is about 30 mins away from everything i do. im trying to move close to downtown knoxville and from there i would be about 10 miles from about 95% of all the places i go. I wouldnt call it a great cycling city but its good enough that its defintally do-able.

30 mins away from everything you do does not mean anything to us.... 30 mins by bike? car? bus? train? unicycle? handstand walking?

You'd be surprised how easy it is to rent a car. I get one maybe once a month for the weekend, or for a week if I'm on vacation. Enterprise brings them to me, then I ride back to their office and sign the paperwork.

Ironic tip: Join AAA. Lots of car rental discounts. I never even considered it back when I actually owned a car.

Yeah it is doable. I lived in knoxville car-lite and it was great, and i have some friends who live/lived there car-free. Of course, i lived in fort sanders, so everything i needed was easily accessible by bike. There was a MUP to the grocery store, which was about a 20-30 min bike ride, and downtown was a 10 min ride. I would look into that area if you can deal with the college kids, it is cheap and close to everything. Another area you might want to look into is the fourth and gill area. It is also close to everything, and a lot of people i know who live there ride bikes.

As far as visiting the family i would have to agree with the others, just rent a car, the cost will be significantly less than keeping your car around for one or two trips per year.
Feel free to PM me with any ?s or anything else.

thanks for the tips everyone, that 30 mins is by car so when i do it by bike it works out to an hour and a half to 2 hours.

fort sanders or 4th and gill would be good and ive looked at a couple places in that area. I actually work at harpers bike shop if youve ever been there zoltani and any place affordable within about 10 miles of there would make me happy if youve got any other ideas on places.

well, now my idea of affordable if different than it was say 2 years ago, but maybe you could look at any of the various apartments or houses along sutherland ave. It is close to the MUP and close to the bike shop. I'm sure you could rent a house around there for $500 or so. There are also some affordable places on papermill drive.

If i HAD to move back to knoxville i would probably end up in fourth and gill or north knoxville (north hills).

I'll be in Knoxville this weekend from Friday evening to Sunday morning.

I'm bringing my new bike and will ride it downtown a bit for fun. I'm not in good enough shape yet to ride more than ten miles, though. That's about my limit right now. I've been putting in ten miles per day, and I'm getting stronger and faster (and hoping my butt gets a little more used to it).

But, anyway, I'm looking forward to riding around in Knoxville. I love that town. You can definitely get around without a car.

In Athens, Georgia (where I went to school), they had an incredible two-part bus system that was free to students (and cheap for everyone else). The school buses (red and black, of course) circled the campus all day and night. You could get on anywhere and go anywhere for free (they let anyone ride it free).

The city bus was free for students, and cheap for everyone else. So on those days when there is rain, snow, you're not feeling well, etc., you could just ride.

Does Knoxville have that kind of system in place?

i know we have a couple different bus systems in place, i never use them since they are pretty far away but i could see at least one of them being that way.

if you hop on our greenways they will take you from worlds fair park down along the river through tyson park and into west knox and its a pretty cool ride...about 6 miles one way