Thanks for the info. We're looking forward to it. One of the main reasons why we're moving there is bike riding.

[/quote]You're going to love Portland. A close friend of mine (and her husband) have been commuting into and out of the city for the past 5 or 6 years. The air is fairly clean over there and it's a very cyclist friendly city. Here's a brochure and an article taken from a generic search from the official Portland site. Good luck with the relocation.[/quote]

I hear that Portland is the most bike friendly city in the U.S.

You guys must be so excited. Just in case you haven't checked yet, contact the Portlan Chamber of Commerce since they have so much good info of the types of neighborhoods in the surrounding area. I suspect they also have lots of information on employment, moving preparation guides, community activities, and other aides to help you settle. From what I understand, living in Portland is great but you get a great sense of nature if you live just outside the city.

I've been doing some of the research as well, mainly for Seattle though. I plan on moving there after grad school ends. So I'm kind of in the same boat as you; both cities are great for cyclists if you can deal with the rain.

Me too.

Yeah, we plan on doing just that. We are very excited. We are going on a 5 day house hunting trip that her company is paying for and we're planning on searching for a house at least 5 miles outside the city. The housing prices are high there. Going to take some adjustments from where we are now.

Yeah, rain... I've heard of that. Not that I've seen much in the last couple years here. We've been in a drought for as long as I can remember. Guess I'll have to get use to it. That's why they make fenders.

The southern burbs are really good. Littleton / Highlands Ranch. Lots of bike lanes on the road and lots of riders too.

Here's what I'd look for. Sprawl is bad, compact and dense is good.
Freeways and boulevard type roads are bad, two-way main streets are good.
Suburban "pods" with curvy streets are bad, grid street patterns are good.
External suburbs are bad, downtowns and inner suburbs are good.
Buses or commuter trains are very good, lousy public transit is very bad.
Neighborhood is good, apartment complex is bad.
Slow-moving car traffic is good, fast moving cars are bad.
One-ways bad, two-ways good.

I was just in Indianapolis to see the Colts, and it seems to me, from the 8 or so times I've been there that it wouldn't be a bad place to bike commute, and to live even. For a bigger city, most of the inner area seems to not have ridiculously high auto traffic, and it doesn't have as much of a gargantuan, overwhelming scale as Chicago for example. Plenty of stores within walking and biking distance, but not so busy as Chicago. Plus they have the Spaghetti Factory, my favorite restaraunt - and it's cheap to eat there!

Seems to be lacking in public transportation based on my limited exposure, though.

If I were to consider a job change and moving it wouldn't be out of consideration.

For New Yorkers--Staten Island sucks for bicycling in and around the island and cyclists get almost zero courtesy and respect from most Staten Island drivers--but--if you live less than half an hour from the Staten Island Ferry and work in Manhattan-SI is not a bad place to commute from. I have a mostly downhill ride to the Staten Island waterfront at Front street (parallel to Bay Street), which leads to the ferry terminal. (Takes me about 17- 20 minutes at a lesiurely pace of 10 - 15 mph-it's about 3.5 miles from my house to the St. George ferry terminal.) Then a pleasant free ride on the ferryboat for 25 minutes, when I arrive in lower Manhattan. Then a car-free ride up the east side greenway, along the east river and parallel to the FDR drive (for part of that ride I am only a few feet away from the highway, but there is a separation barrier). At 34th street the greenway is interrupted and doesn't resume until the east 60s, but I bike onto 1st Avenue from 34th near the heliport, and only have 23 blocks more to go until I reach my office at 3d Avenue and 55th. So Staten Island-Manhattan is not a bad place to commute from--it takes just about as much time for me (approx. 80 minutes) than it would if I took the Staten Island Rapid Transit train from my house to the ferry and then the subway to from lower Manhattan to East Midtown.

Install Google Earth and then visit this site for the Bike There map published by Metro. I'll wet your appetite:
https://www.metro-region.org/index.cf...y.web/id/15341

Buy a paper copy as well. Preferrably, get it at the downtown Powell's Books. It's unlikely that you've ever seen a bookstore that big in your life (is it the biggest in the world?).

I'm having a hard time with this one. Richmond is a great place, yeah, but there are absolutely no bike facilities, not even any bike racks downtown, not to mention bike lanes. I live on the east side, go to downtown and around VCU, and Main Street is not a good commuting route. Neither is Broad once you get west of Church Hill. Franklin's okay going east, but you still have to deal with Main or Broad, but Cary's okay going east once you get past those cobbles in the Slip.

Am I missing something? How do you find Richmond great for commuting?

Boston is an excellent place to ride a bike in. People put it down a lot, but mostly those are people who visited for a week and think they are experts on Boston drivers.

Boston is very compact, mostly flat, and fairly congested. (Congestion = lower motor vehicle speed) I find that it's fun and easy to ride a bike around here.

Copenhagen.

Good answer but did you happen to note that this thread was begun on 3-29-01, and the most recent thread, prior to the preceding one that opened it up again, was on 1-28-08? The reason I looked it up is because there was a similar best bike city thread not too long ago.

Is there a term for glomming on to an old thread and bringing it back to life?

+1 for Minneapolis. As long as you can handle the weather in August.

I'd also add that the drivers around here are pretty tolerant, at least in my experience.

Zombie thread! I didn't even notice!

That's the term I was looking for. Thanks for the reply.

Also, bumping a thread. But I like zombie thread better.

I just moved back to St. Louis after being away for years. It's very bike friendly! Varied terrain, bike lanes, great cycling community, etc.

+1 here. It's not the best, but as east coast cities go, it's pretty darn good. DC's bike infrastructure has improved dramatically over the past 5 years. Our Mayor is an avid cyclist himself and we have a wonderful department within DDOT (That's the District Department of Transportation) that is VERY dedicated to improving cycling throughout DC. While we've not seen it yet, they are even thinking beyond bike lanes and looking at other efforts that could make cycling easier. The surrounding suburbs are not quite as good for cycling, but are also steadily improving.

This has got to be the oldest thread I've ever bumped.

BTW...if you really like bicycle commuting, do NOT move to Houston.

+1 D.C.

My older brother and I do Arlington to Bethesda (nice) and our younger brother goes into Downtown (he's still alive and actually enjoys it).

It's only getting better...(I think)

I have mixed feelings about Boston. On one hand there are actually a decent number of MUPs and the like that make it a little easier to get around. The Mayor has made making Boston a cycling friendly city a priority lately and it seems to actually be having an effect. That being said... a lot of the drivers are complete dinks. I generally don't have a problem but I'm 6' 2" and don't look like I would take well to being harassed. My girlfriend who is 5' 2" and fairly petite gets honked at and harassed on a fairly regular basis, although we've both noticed this pretty much doesn't happen when we ride together (only when we get slightly separated and are not obviously riding together.)

Glad I'm moving outside the city soon.

Every city is great to commute in. If you live close and don't have major difficulties in between. I would pick the job, then pick the residence to match the commute.

I live in Dallas, which is considered pretty bad evidently. Not to me. My commute is just under 4 miles, all residential, and pretty easy.

I might give a different answer if this was the living car free forum.

Wow, L.A.'s really getting a bad rap in this thread. I ride all over the place and commute all the way across town, 13 miles to get to work. Sure there's tons of traffic, but if you pay attention, use less travelled streets, and don't ride like an idiot, it's a fun city to ride in. I felt less safe when I was riding my brother's bike around in Burlington N.C.

Sorry, not really an answer to the OP's question, but I had to say it..