This is intended to share my experience. Different folks have different ideas.
I have done road biking, lots of it. Enjoyed it with a big group, organized and no worries.
I cannot get going on roads doing it on my own. I am too distrustful of the erratic (crazy) drivers I see all over.
Biking is for me focused exercise. I do not want to be challenged with dealing with car drivers.
So I found trails. Ideally paved trails. In a bind, limestone trails.
That brings me to places like WI, MN, IL, OH, FL.
Some states have no trails at all. I will not go there.
That is just me.

Right, I'm in Oregon now, I lived in Phoenix for a few years and owned a place in Clarkdale that I'd get away to. I ride road and mountain, but it was mostly road riding at that time. I liked riding in the valley up to Sedona and Flag, or the other way through Jerome and into Prescott. I also found nice riding in the area by taking the bike in the car to ride the roads on the Rim, Williams area is nice too. Nice place to retire, I'd think!

Who do those Floridians think they are passing the cost of new infrastructure on to those who create the need for it?

Thanks for the info. Couple of questions. How did you ride from Sedona to Falg? I-17? How long did the climb up to Jerome then Prescott take? That road scares the you know what out of me in a car. Do the tourists give you a couple of feet. I am worried they will be oogeling the scenery and run you over. And what kind of gearing did you use to climb it? Great area. Will be back there in several weeks. Hope it is mild enough to try out the Lake Mormon loop. I have never done that.

The only complaint I have is that even on the road from Sedona to Cottonwood, which has a nice wide berm, there is so much crap(gravel, glass, etc.) on the berm it is flat city. On one ride I told some guys if I ever win the big lotto I was going to rent one of those street sweeper things and do both sides of the road.

I would ride from Clarkdale to Flagstaff on 89a to Sedona, Oak Creek Canyon, then into Flag, all on 89a. This was quite a few years ago, so traffic was much different, but the ride from Clarkdale, Jerome and over to Prescott never seemed too bad for traffic. Going up the hill was slow for everyone, so cars usually gave plenty of space because they were going slow anyway, and I'd always ride there at low traffic times. I could climb up and over the Jerome hill in 45 minutes or so, I think, it's not that steep, just long
I think good advice is always be visible, ride like you belong, give as much of the road as you can and still be safe, and use hand signals to let drivers know what you will be doing. If you have a triple crank on your bike you'll be fine, I rode a double at the time, I was young and strong, and enjoyed the challenge.

Also, if this is your cup of tea, check out the Del Web Sun City type places. Everything is structured but there is always something to do an we were pleasantly surprised when we visited there. Houses are not little boxes.[/QUOTE]


Yes - saw one of these in Darcy NC - near Raleigh. What i liked is that everyone here had moved into this location so it was easy to meet people. As well, the fitness facility, pool, tennis, social club etc was all top notch. The only downside for me is I might want to be somewhere where there are younger people as well - everyone I met was 10-15 yrs older....

Shifty - i do wnat to get out around there. How are the property values now - i understand there has been a drop but that comes after quite a price rise over the last few years...

Or, for something completely different...

Maybe I can help some on this. Property values in this area are relative to where you are coming from. Bad english, I know but, if your selling a starter house in CA for a million bucks everything looks like a deal and in my opinion the reason housing prices have skyrocketed in the area in recent years. According to the Zwillow web sight my place is worth much more than I paid 3 years ago but that is only on paper.

Get on Zwillow.com and drill down to the area to see relative values. There are some new developments in Clarkdale and Cornville that look pretty nice. Condos and single family homes. General housing market appears to have softended some in the recent months, which is not a bad thing in my mind. Cottonwood also has a wide range of housing. Sedona housing is expensive relative to the area.

What is your budget? There is a web site that gives cost of living info based on national averages. Can not remember the site name, maybe Google will help. Anyway as I remember it housing, medical were above the national average, energy and taxes were average or below.

Yes, ^^^ what Oilman said. I've been away too long to know. I go every couple years and stay a week or so in Sedona, but I'm just there to relax and play.

So stop talking about Arizona. There are already too many people there. You'll just make it worse. And when the cheap fossil fuels are gone, and their effects have changed the climate, there will be no way to support cities in exotic dry climates that are just getting dryer.

Wait. All you bicycle types are fine. Perfect. But don't tell anybody else.

...So I'm sitting in the Palace Bar in Prescott, AZ with my college buddy (now the Postmaster of Prescott). We're working up to another beer when I get a call from my cardiologist's nurse. Some tests had come back suggestive of some serious problems. She tells me to do nothing that would cause any exertion, and not to drink any alcohol. Hmmm. I thank her, tell her its too late, hang up the phone, and order another beer.

Famous last words, hope she sends a bill for their professional knowledge and fine service:rolleyes:

It is a conundrum........ Wait. All you bicycle types are fine. Perfect. But don't tell anybody else.

Will - great point. I usually bicycle the little miami in cincinnati - it is about 75 mi in total length - sure is more comfortable than on the roads. Having lived in europe for a while, i find drivers here - at least in the midwest, don;t like to share the road with bikes - i think they just are not used to seeing bikes on the road!

You are not going to believe this but my sister lives in Iqaluit - the capital on Nunavut. It was formerly know as Frobisher bay. In Dec, she gets about 1hr of sunlight - of course you get 24 hrs in the summer - at which time the temp rises to an almost unbearable 10C - or around 50F. Not many roads and certainly none that lead anywhere far - unless you are willing to bike on tundra!

so did you do a time trial to the hospital! hope everything works out well!

Angiogram subsequently showed no problems. I have a spurios beat that fires periodically disrupting normal rhythm. It slightly affects my pumping efficiency, but otherwise is supposedly harmless (and apparently not all that unusual in the general population). My cardiologist sent me off saying "go knock yourself out, run marathons, do whatever you want. Your heart is not ready to quit yet." (to be fair he said that in response to my telling him I'm a very active person who has worried about running another marathon)

So back to retirement:

I very much enjoy the upper midwest for mid summer through late fall (June through November). Possibly not coincidently, that pretty much matches the atlantic hurricane season. So I'm thinking I could spend the other 6 months (non hurricane season) on a Carribean island (my alternative to AZ). I bet there are some great islands that are bike friendly, or even bike paradise quality.

And now I expose one of my weird paranoias: There is some unstable geology in the Canary Islands that has the potential (this is the far-fetched part), if the mountain breaks loose, to send an 600 foot wall of water across the Atlantic. It would wipe out the entire east coast and obliterate any islands in the Atlantic. There would be 6 to 8 hours of advanced notice for such an event but that wouldn't help much for either evacuating the east coast or getting off an island during mass hysteria. (It's getting weirder..) So my solution is to adopt another hobby of flying ultralight aircraft... (I'll just stop here.

Yes, I read the same article and saw it on TV.

OTOH, much of California is supposed to break off into the Pacific Ocean one of these days (or at least have a humungous earthquake in the attempt to so do), and we have a number of so-called latent volcanoes near metro areas (particularly in the Northwest USA - i.e., Mt. Hood, and if the entire Yellowstone blows, WOW) that, if they blow, will take millions of folks with them, there are any number of meteorites/asteroids ready to hit the earth and bring back the dinosaurs, and the southern US is way overdue for a humungous earthquake, etc., etc.

I think I will just dig me a deep hole and stay there (oops! I forgot about the radon gas we have around here in our deep holes - darn!)

I can only act on things I can do something about. I can't do anything about asteroids and I don't knowingly live in areas prone to volcanic or seismic activity. And a bus may run me over on the way to the train station next week. But there are some things I CAN act on:

(1) I can avoid living in retirement near the Atlantic during hurricane season. (Some are suggesting the observed warming trend contributes to more violent hurricanes).
(2) If climatic changes turn drastic, the greatest (survivable) dangers are for major shifts in precipitation which may leave exotic cities (LA, Phoenix, Vegas, etc) unable to support their population. I am currently living near the largest (actually 2nd largest, but Lake Baikal is a little too far away) fresh water system in the world.
(3) I can have a plan for my own exit strategy if I'm on/near the Atlantic when a serious tsunami approaches.

Admittedly these are a little weird and most of this discussion is a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but I do believe I'm only considering things I can ultimately do something about.

Quit worring. My son lives in Missoula, MT. If the Yellowstone cladera blows nobody for maybe 600 miles is going to have to think about it anymore. Point being, not stopping people from living there.

Above issues raise a point of view.
Yes, let us deal with things we can do something about: Such as stress, obesity, substance abuse, pollution, exercise, crime, proper shelter and clothes, proper food and drink, positive attitude, friends, etc.

There are many things POSSIBLE which fall under a probability bell curve but are of very low probability: Such as asteroids, get hit by lightening, tornado, tsunami, earthquakes, CA breaking off, win the lottery, Yellowstone exploding, etc.

Do not get me wrong, these probabilities are not zero, just not likely. Stressing these low probabilities will not make you happy. Only death and taxes seem to be certain.

My son lives and bikes in Yellow Springs, OH. There is a great trail from there to Cincinnati. Ohio has some of the best biking in the USA. I would be reluctant to drop Ohio for a State without trails.
It takes only one idiot driver (at the wrong time and place) to ruin your life.

I love the Little Miami trail. I don't ride the section near Cincinnati too often but do catch it near Xenia.

I can't comment on road riding near Cincinnati but haven't encountered problems around the Dayton/Columbus areas. I've rode in downtown Columbus on the weekends without problems. I do notice that some of the large sponsored rides such as TOSRV, GOBA and XOBA don't include the Cincinnati area.
The Cincinnati Cycling Club does many road rides, maybe you could check with them for safe road routes.

Wow. This takes me back. I spent a summer at Wright-Patterson AFB back in the late 1980's and lived in Yellow Springs. I rode down to Cincinnati from Yellow Springs but then the only part of the trail that was open was from Morrow to Loveland. I then had to find my way down to Milford, through Indian Hill, and over to the Kenwood area on the back raods. It was a really nice ride except for getting lost just north of Milford, but I did eventually find my way.