TacomaSailor

I've been road riding fairly seriously for over 40-years and have almost always started from home. We've always selected our home location to allow for a variety of road rides right out of the garage. That also means that when I get home from a long ride I quickly and easily crack open a beer and enjoy the benefit of those road miles. About three or four times a month I would put the bike in the car and drive 20 to 50 minutes to get to an "out in the country" starting location for my road rides.

I've also been mountain biking since 1982 and am used to driving long distances to start those rides, but have never liked having to wait an hour or more for my post ride beer while I drive home.

We are retired and live in San Diego just for the bicycle weather and great roads. My wife and I ride at least five days a week so access to good road riding is mandatory.

We are now about ready to purchase a beautiful home in Fallbrook, California. It has a big shop with lot's of room to work on our bikes and a big pool where I can relax after the ride.

But, it is on top of a long, steep hill (which gives us the privacy and view we love). Both roads up to the house have tight narrow and blind corners with no shoulders and the speed limit is 50 mph. I would be scared to death riding that four miles down to where the road has shoulders, and I'm not sure about the uphill grind for the last two miles home - the last 1/2 mile is 12%. There is a lot of very nice road riding in the area but I would have to put the bike in the car or truck and drive four miles to one of several county parks to start my ride.

SO - TELL ME - how many of you live where you have to get in the car and drive to start a road ride?

Does it become less bothersome after a while?

Is a wonderful house with great view and pool worth the inconvenience of having to drive to ride?

We've been wanting to buy the house for the last two months but have both put off the offer to the seller until we decide if the "drive to ride" issue is a show stopper.

pdedes

i despise driving somewhere to go and ride. i'm about 10-15 minutes from rural roads in a moderately sized city. some of the fun group rides are 18km away. i'll ride to and from those. afraid to ride to and from your driveway, find another house.

f4rrest

Considering how often you ride, I'd look for another property. Falbrook is a nice area. I'm sure something else will turn up.

Buffalo Buff

I agree with the above. If you're not willing to ride on your own street, keep looking. That or just get over your fears and ride that hill! I'm surrounded by two lane 45mph roads (Treated like 55mph...) with no shoulder or bike lane often full of aggressive drivers. You get used to it.

FLvector

So you'll need to load up the bikes and drive about 5-10 minutes for a safe start? Seems like a minor inconvenience. If you have a nice hitch mount it would make loading the bikes a breeze. Riding from the driveway is ideal, but not everyone has good roads to get safely to the route. Don't follow the lemmings, think for yourself and determine if this house is worth it.

GlennR

I live on the south shore of Long Island, so it's about a 10 mile ride to the north shore where the roads are more rural and more hills.

Most of my rides are solo, so I leave from my house. Most of the group rides leave closer to the north shore, so it depends on how far they're going whether i ride or drive to the starting location.

thin_concrete

I personally would go for the view and the pool (in that order), but given how much you ride, it may be better to find something that gives you easy access to roads and a nice commute back home.

catgita

You will ride less.

redtires

99% of my rides are right from the house, both road and mountain. But, yes, every so often I'll pack it up and head to a destination farther away to ride. There are places I like to ride every so often, but I don't often have time to make a 20, 30 or even a 40 mile ride into a century just to stay out of the car a few times a year.

Carbonfiberboy 

We've had times when we've put the bikes on the car for every ride, and times when we've ridden from home for most of our rides. We felt guilty about driving to the start, but otherwise it was fine. Driving adds a little time to the riding time though, which is a nuisance. That's just us, though. You know . . . you might try putting the bikes on the car for every ride where you live now, and see how that works for you.

rpenmanparker 

Driving to a special occasion ride and driving just to get up and down to the house every day are two very different things. The latter is a PITA that will get old very, very fast. Based on all that you have told us about yourself, I wouldn't buy that house.

Machka 

First of all, I'll just link to this thread:
https://www.bikeforums.net/living-car...lace-live.html

Secondly, Rowan and I have lived in a place where we had to drive to ride. We were in the back of beyond, and the only way out was passable by mtn bike ... which might have been fine, except that we wanted to do road rides. So we had to load everything up and drive at least 3 km to a road. It was a pain, and we were so happy to move into town and be able to ride from home.

Where we are now is a little bit that way again because we're halfway up a steep hill. We do end up driving to ride most weekends and trying to muster up motivation to ride from home after work when we're tired.

trainsktg

I will only drive somewhere to ride if I am already going to that location for something else, i.e. riding around a popular lake that was near to the school where I was dropping off my son for his driving lessons, etc. Other than that its biking garage-to-garage.

Keith

inspclouseau

I ride from my driveway mostly, but do pack up the car once a weekend to go elsewhere. Mainly for different terrain and scenery. I'm also not retired, if I was, I may pack it up more often to explore more areas.

BlazingPedals

Most of my rides are club rides, and far enough away that riding to them would be a problem - especially evening rides that start before I could ride there. So even though I could easily do solo rides right out of my garage, I often end up packing the bike for a relatively short car trip to the ride start.

colnago62

Buy an old truck to put your bikes in and drive.

milkbaby

I almost always ride from home even when meeting up with a group or doing a local organized ride. The furthest I've ridden to a ride start was around 35 miles.

If riding is important enough to you, then if I were you, I wouldn't buy a house that hindered my enjoyment of it. I don't like to drive my bicycle anywhere, which is partly why I rarely ride my trail bike, so it would be a no go for me. If you love the house, that is a consideration though.

RPK79

I ride from home on all my rides except for the group rides I do which are out of town. For those I bring my bike and kit with to work and drive to the other town on the way home. I also do a couple organized rides every year that I drive to. I'd probably just ride the hill unless it was crazy busy, but if it's just a residential road to the top of the hill I doubt it's very busy.

RidingMatthew

My tendency is to ride from home. the only time I really load the bike up is for a charity ride out of town or traveling to visit family and ride near them. The more I bike commute the more i see the bike as transportation with a healthy dash of recreation instead of just recreation. I would like to do a charity ride where I ride to it.

i think whoever said load your bike up now and see if you do it would be a good test. I know that is why I have not ridden my mountain bike much this year, too much work to load up, drive, unload, ride, load up, unload at home.

Champlaincycler

I ride from home with very rare exceptions. Bigger issue for me would be living on a road with a 50 mph speed limit. We all know that 50 means 65 or 70. Unless the house is well insulated from road noise and traffic is not visible then I'd look for something else. I live on a 30 mph road and there's plenty of 50 going by. I rarely ride on a road with a high speed limit, but when I do it better have a decent shoulder. That's just me and its part of the reason I live where I do. If you're desensitized to higher traffic speeds then it may be different. I also agree that you'd likely ride less, or be on a trainer more. We're all different though so go with your gut , or better yet go with your wifes gut as the happy wife, happy life saying is all so true.

diphthong

you will ride less as previously mentioned because the throwing the bike in/on the car will get old. otoh, you will be living in a pretty challenging area for
cycling since the hwy 76 corridor, santa rosa plateau and temecula area are the only flattish spots nearby. everything else is pretty up & down. absolutely love that underrated
de luz area directly next door along with couser canyon & lilac road. lake henshaw environs are beautiful too but a bit more of a drive-worth it tho. so you may ride less but the
riding will be filled with significant effort i.e. no junk miles. if your rides are harder/more vertical, you may not feel the need to ride as often. dunno how much you like to hit the
big hills and mountains in san diego area currently. regardless, that pool (and hopefully jacuzzi) will feel great!

Xherion

Agree 100%. If you're anything like me, this will get progressively more frustrating as time goes on if you are making a short drive just to get down the hill. There is a certain pleasure with just getting on your bike and leaving from your house and being able to do a variety of different routes. Once you start to have to load your bikes on your car, start having to mentally run through a checklist to make sure you got everything loaded, etc, it really starts taking out the enjoyment. For me, rides stop being a 'just get out there activity' and turn into a mini trip. If cycling is that important (which it sounds like it is), I'd reconsider that house if you don't feel safe riding out from your house.

TacomaSailor

Lots of interesting comments here. I'll respond to a couple

- the old truck will be mandatory because the house has 4 acres of mature avocados that will need care and there is a 1,000 square foot green house where my wife plans to spend much of her time. So, lot's of stuff to haul back and forth - including bikes

- the house is on a private road and 1/2 mile south of Reche Road which is a very fast, curvy, and narrow. The private road comes off Wilt Road which twists and turns as it climbs 200 feet in the first 1/4 mile off of Reche. The house is very private and quiet but has a spectacular view out to almost the Pacific Ocean.

- I can ride south on Wilt but it is very narrow, twisty and steep in places with sharp dropoffs and no shoulders of any kind.

- I can ride west on Canonida which drops 400 feet in a mile as it approaches Gird Road. It is a good and lightly used road but I'm not used to having just one alternative.

We've been living on a boat in San Diego harbor for more than two years and have gotten very used to taking casual, flat rides that cover 20 - 30 miles of great scenery with few hills and not much effort. Until we moved onto the boat - every ride was serious because the house was on top a a big hill and getting home was an effort. I kept close track of HR and pace and worked hard on every ride.

I'm older and slower now and wonder if I've gotten too spoiled with the easy riding around the San Diego flatlands.

Most of your comments have confirmed my worries about riding less if I have to drive to a fun and safe ride. OTH: with 200 profitable avocadoes and a dozen mature citrus trees to care for, a large pool and jacuzzi to keep clean, and 50' of raised bed gardens to maintain - I might find that I am now a gentleman farmer rather than a old worn out bike rider.

Thanks for all the input!

TacomaSailor

You are so right - before we got to know the area we were looking at homes in the DeLuz area and closer to Temecula but on top of Rancho California. I visions of loops down(and up) Sandia Creek - thru Fallbrook - down Gird and then over to old 395 and up to Temecula and then back home on Rancho California.

After a couple driving trips all around Bonsall, Fallbrook, DeLuz, Murrietta, Temecula, Rainbow - I realized those roads were the place I should have been in my 30s and 40s - but probably not as I approach 70.

It does all look like wonderful riding. Especially down and up Sandia Creek and De Luz road. I wish I'd lived in the area 30-years ago.

T Stew

I would not let others decide if a house was right for me or not, but if your just curious what others would do that's fine. Personally I'd put privacy and features of the land way above cycling convenience, but I'm not as hard core of a cyclist as many. What I really couldn't stand is a house without a good sunset view from huge living room glass or a porch or something where one could relax with a beer or glass of wine and enjoy natures show. But probably 1% of the population or less even considers an unobstructed westerly view when picking out a house.

Its 55mph road at the end of my driveway. None of the roads around here have shoulders, and some are very narrow (none even have painted lines for many miles from here) and single lane bridges. Luckily they aren't windy with blind corners. The fast traffic does bother me and I avoid the roads if it's at the busy times of day and around sunset. The paved rail trail is about 5 miles away, so in those cases I'll drive there. But most of the time I leave from my house on bike, the traffic is pretty light.