fietsbob

Got a pile of Resumes ready, or sent out, to have a job ready for you when you get there ?

B. Carfree

Sold!

B. Carfree

My wife and I run a small internet-based business. That's why I need decent mail service and access to UPS or FedEx. As such, I don't need other employment. It's like being retired, but we work a tiny bit to keep from being bored or suffering from overuse injuries from riding all the time.

We've actually been putting off hiring people because of the degradation happening before our eyes here in Eugene. If/when we move we expect to want to hire people, though we can get along just fine without any other staff.

fietsbob

Real estate , a sellers market, is Hot in Portland.. very low rental vacancy rate also.. FWIW.

alpine 318is

Coeur D'Alene, ID?

fietsbob

Maybe an advantage being close to the Server Farms , like .. where? Halfway Oregon..

Greg Walden R, is your guy in Congress there , rather than D Peter DeFazio..

Greg has the big low population places east of the Cascades..

Rollfast

I was there in 1982 for a HS basketball tournament in out pep band supporting our team and I'm ceratin you do not live in the cheap motel at the bottom of a freeway over pass near a Dunkin' Donuts and next to an adult bookstore, like we had to stay in, 6-8 in each of the two rooms.

DarkMonohue

It's been a month. How has your search gone? Have you given any thought to moving just across the freeway? After seventeen years in Shelbyville, you have probably snickered at more Springfield jokes than you can count, but you might give it a look.

It's close enough to Eugene that you can easily enjoy all the things you like about that place, but it's different. It's more working-class and the people here seem a little more down-to-earth, less in love with the smell of their own farts, with less desire to constantly promote their city as a brand the way Eugene does. We are not required by law to choose between the holy trinity of full-tilt Ducks regalia, shapeless garments made of partially decomposed natural fibers, or the REI Neon Nature™ fall collection (choose any three unnecessarily snug articles of clothing and get a contrasting hat, scarf, gloves, leg warmers, headband, sunglasses, sockettes, and fanny pack). If that's your thing, you can do it, but it's not required.

Although Springfield does not offer the shopping/dining/culture attractions of a larger city, we do have options, and there is more all the time. The downtown area continues to improve. If it matters, Springfield is also reportedly much friendlier to small businesses than Eugene. You would also be able to retain all your social and business connections you've made over the last seventeen years.

The police force seems to be pretty on the ball and has great involvement with the community. There is still crime, of course, but the crime rate seems (subjectively) to be on the decline and lower than in Eugene. Also, since an ordinance was passed making it illegal to hand anything from a vehicle on a roadway to someone outside that vehicle, most of the career panhandlers have gone to Eugene.

Springfield is spread out more than Eugene and the streets are probably less bike-friendly, but it may be workable, depending on your location and your approach.

Might be worth looking into.

B. Carfree

Nice entertaining post. As far as Springtucky goes (just had to do that ), for us the entirety of Lane (or, as we say it, Lame) County is all the same. While it's true that the cops in Springfield are more on the ball than Eugene's, almost by default, and that the panhandling ordinance seems to be working a wee bit, Springfield also has all of the problems that Eugene has but is missing much of what makes Eugene a nice place to live for us. We do have some dear friends in Springfield and we spend a bit of time there. It's just never really appealed to me, perhaps because the route we ride to get to one of our friends' homes takes us past the home of white supremacist Jimmy Marr. Sadly, he's not the only one of his ilk thereabouts; those folks creep me out.

We're looking farther afield. So far, we've not narrowed anything down and are just at the early exploring stage. We'll get a lot more serious in a year or two. A bit after that, we should have a good idea of where our granddaughters are going to be while their mom does her medical residency, so that might cause us to just go along to wherever that happens to be.

fietsbob

One of my friends , MA in Music Ed, from U of O, is now teaching in Ho Chi Minh City..

ACree

I didn't realize Eugene had degraded so badly. I suppose it's not that surprising, seems to be the trend of larger cities in Oregon. It's weird that homeless junkies are a seemingly insurmountable problem - it's almost like they vote en masse.

Hoping to move to a smaller, less congested and drier locale myself in relatively short term.

Corvallis - great city, still wet for 8 months, and full of pollen for 2 months of the year. Not a great place if you like snow sports.
Bend - used to be great until it became Northern CA. Minimal paved road riding options, too high priced now. Great for snow sports too.
Ashland - has been Northern CA and expensive long before Bend made it fashionable. Nice houses around Lithia park if one can afford them.. Snow sports easily accessed from town.
Bellingham - wet, and expensive. I haven't spent a lot of time there, but seems like the roads for road riding aren't that extensive (as opposed to say, Corvallis). Mt Baker for winter sports.

It's pretty hard to find nice, somewhat rural areas with decent cycling, low cost of living and housing, and decent weather.

maallyn

Okay, here we go:

Bellingham: (Where I now live in retirement), Yes, you are correct. Expensive and job market sucks. However, it is not as expensive as PDX or SEA or especially SFO. My experience with both Belligham and PDX is that Bellingham seems to get less hard rain than PDX. It's also far cooler in the summer and does not get the gorge wind tunnel winds. Also, no homeless living directly on the bike paths. Perhaps about fifty feet away in the trees, but not taking up half the width of the bike path itself. Totally unlike the situation with the Springwater in PDX.

Ashland: I only offer one 2nd hand story. The Sprockets bicycle performance group from PDX tried to give a free performance in Ashland and got booted out by the Ashland police for no apparent reason except perhaps that they were not official Shakespeare. Also another rumor has it that they shut down their libraries.

Bend and Springfield: Sorry, know too little. Never heard of the white supremicist in Springfield that you mentioned. If you have to pass his house while riding, isn't there another route you can use? In Bend, I know the skiing is great but that's it.

Rollfast

So was Oregon so bad that he had to go to Vietnam to get a job

fietsbob

He loves the tropical weather and the food and the low cost of living , has lots of music jobs in Jazz bands, there.

And not having to deal with Eugene's 4J public school administrators ..

Joeyseven

Hi Carfree
I did not know that Eugene had such A bad problem with the homeless and cops not doing much about it.But I do not get out much.

I never had problems with the homeless in Albany or Corvallis and sorry about your dealings with the homeless.Also I hardly visit Eugene.Less time to travel with my kids getting older.Plus I spend more time in northern CA.Going to do the big move in the next few years to be closer to my parents.I'm already spending about 5 months at my dads house here in norther California.Going to be 65 today compare to around 45 in Albany.I realize I want to live/retire some place warmer.

Corvallis I like the best in this area.The most bike paths,bike shops and not to far from mountains and the ocean.I really like downtown.More choices for shopping and eating out plus the college.

Albany
It is getting better.
As in better stores,housing etc.The paper mill is gone and so is the smell.

Only one bike shop left in town and not many bicyclist.I live on the east side of town.So I usually ride toward Lebanon,Jefferson or Corvallis.Downtown is kind of dead but they are in the process of redoing some of the streets and sidewalks.Cheaper housing and closer to 5.I like the town.If we stayed in Oregon I think we would move to different town in southern Oregon.

Lebanon Has A bicycle club.and

Laekon

I'm just about to move to Eugene so this isn't the type of post I was looking to find. I've heard about the homeless issue there but thought it might be kind of overblown. The last time I was there was a cloudy Sunday in October, the day after a Ducks game. Downtown felt kind of dead and I didn't see nor have any issues. I did look at the crime rate though and compare it to a place near me, Ventura Ca. I thought they would be similar as Ventura is just a little smaller but Eugene has almost twice the crime.

Before getting a job offer in Eugene I spent a lot of time looking for a midsize city with good already outdoor stuff to do. Boise, Billings, Santa Fe, and Fort Collins all looked pretty good. In California there are a lot of small towns along RT 49 with potential. Places like Auburn are in the middle of a lot of riding and has good weather. When it gets hot you go into the mountains and the opposite direction in the winter.

I'd love to hear about some of the prime road/gravel routes in Eugene. I'll probably end up off Amazon Dr. or in the Cal Young/Goodpasture areas.

B. Carfree

The crime rate in Eugene is actually much higher than the officially reported numbers. This is because the police department has spent the past fifteen year refusing to respond to calls from high crime areas (other than downtown, they respond there). What happens is people don't even bother calling the cops or, if they do, the cops don't show up and the crime is never entered into the data base.

If you're moving to Eugene and you ride a bike, I strongly recommend you steer clear of the Cal Young/Goodpasture area and go with Amazon. From CY/GP, you have to deal with crappy door-zone bike lanes. Then, assuming you're going anywhere out of the neighborhood, you're either going to have to deal with the gauntlets (bike path underpasses just north of the Willamette River that are full of often abusive homeless folks and, um, be sure to have complete fenders) or, if you're close to the bridge over Delta Hwy, you will be riding on the bike paths along the river that are now becoming no-go places after dark (and sometimes during the day). You're just a bit penned in by hazards there, and the better riding isn't out the north end of town (some riding to be had, but not really worth writing home about). Besides that, a letter to the editor in today's local paper was from a woman who had some neighborhood jugheads drive by yelling the N-word at a guest of hers who was helping with yard decorations. It's kind of our own little bit of Alabama.

Amazon isn't wonderland either and you won't find many folks on bikes thereabouts, but it's entirely rideable, even enjoyable, once you figure out routing. It's also very convenient to a nice local natural foods store, Sundance (these things still thrive here as neighborhood grocery stores) and a decent city-run pool. However, it's main attraction is its proximity to the start of many a decent ride, whether one is looking for a 25 mile quickie or off for a couple of hundred miles. That start is the bottom of Fox Hollow Rd. It even accesses a nice gravel bit nine-miles in that connects over towards Creswell/Lorane. Even when I'm heading out for points west, where the better gravel riding is, I'll usually head out over Fox Hollow (then down McBeth to Lorane Hwy to Spencer Creek and eventually to Wolf Creek, where lots of great gravel is so close you can almost hear it calling).

One word of caution about Amazon that might not occur to someone from SoCal: much of it is built on a swamp. In fact, Amazon Creek is actually at a lower elevation than the Willamette River inside the city (long path before it dumps, so eventually the river is lower). Don't buy a place that's going to have ongoing moisture issues unless you're planning on demolishing it and rebuilding or raising the structure up (surprisingly inexpensive).

Bear in mind that if more people who ride bikes and demand competent governance come here then the probability that Eugene will recover from its dark times goes up and I may not have to skedaddle, so obviously I'm biased in favor of you choosing Eugene. That said, I'll paint a fair picture, warts and all. Eugene still has tremendous potential to be truly awesome. Some aspects of it are already fantastic beyond compare.

On the bright side, our incompetent police chief has retired and a new one will be hired, likely not from within (albeit by our equally incompetent city manager; if you don't know what a weak mayor/ strong city manager government is, learn quickly). In May we have an election with an initiative to put in place an independent (of the city council and city manager) financial and performance auditor. Once that passes, we'll finally be able to see where our tax money is disappearing to, which should mitigate some of the problems the city manager has created. In fact, I suspect our current city manager will resign before the first auditor is elected.

Man, I've got to be the worst tourism/real estate salesperson in the world. What a message: It's fantastic, except for the parts that are actual feces. Should I copyright that slogan?

Rollfast

I think that bike lanes throughout Oregon are placed between the parking lane and the road, that is ODOT's grand design. In fact, putting it by the curb only leads to passenger side doorings and problem with getting in and out on the driver's side.

What's more you will find the right turn/exit lane splits you to the middle.

However I don't see other ways unless you ride the sidewalks. There are only a few streets on Ontario considered to merit a bike lane, and SW 4th Avenue is not one because it's too narrow as a 5 lane (turn refuge) as it is (and they took a lot of frontage away from businesses past the West Park Plaze back in the 1980s to widen it from 3)/
.

Rollfast

And I intend to die here, so that you know, whether it sucks or not. It's my home.

Joeyseven

Auburn is A nice area.Not too far from the American River bicycle trails.I do not ride much off road but they have lots of trails in the canyon area.That canyon is steep.
Loomis/Rocklin area has some nice places to ride the road bike.They do drive faster for sure around Auburn compare to Albany,Oregon.I'm going try to ride more off road from now on.

And welcome to the forums.

Laekon

What about Northeast of the cities? It looks like you could connect Mohawk and Walterville to make a nice loop from town but not sure if those roads/lands are private. Same with SE out past Cloverdale.

I'll only be renting at first until I get to know the area. I've also lived in the Northeast, in a house less then 15 horizontal feet from an old tow path canal so I'm use to water issues. The rural area out there reminds me a lot of Vermont.

B. Carfree

Yes, one can ride that direction, although timing is everything. A typical ride many folks do is to head north on Coburg Rd to McKenzie View Dr, then either do a loop on Hill Rd to Mohawk and back to McKenzie View via Sunderman and Old Mohawk Rd. Folks also roll to Walterville instead/in addition. It's flat, but the shoulder comes and goes and just enough of the motorists are jerks that it can go from very nice to not nice at all in a hurry.

True story: I was tutoring a high school student as a favor to her mom. She wanted to ace her biology course so she could be the valedictorian of the local catholic high school and I was the only biochemist they knew. One fine morning on Old Mohawk Rd as my wife and I returned from Walterville towards McKenzie View on our tandem, this girl almost ran into us head-on as she played with her phone. Sadly, she wasn't the worst driver we experienced that day.

So, compared to SoCal, the traffic is light and you will find that to be a nice little ride. However, since SoCal is quite high on the national leaderboard for motorists slamming into cyclists, it's not exactly the standard I like to use. It can be an enjoyable ride, but is best done when there are very few motorists and none of them are on their way to/from work or bars.

SE out towards Cloverdale is interesting. I almost bought a place on Bear Mountain Rd fourteen years ago, but my wife reminded me that our thirteen year old child was about to start taking classes at the UO. Since I would end up riding with him almost all the time, I would never get anything done. That little stretch of hwy 58 to get back into town is less than fun (again, timing and luck come into play). Anyways, yes there's lots worth riding that way, including part of last year's Cycle Oregon that was canceled, but the re-entry into town is what keeps me mostly off it. If we're going to ride far, my wife will almost always vote for heading into the coast range, and she has the tie-breaking vote.

fietsbob

Florence on the Coast is not far.. across the Columbia River in Washington, State,

you pay sales and property taxes but not Income tax, Bill Gates Loves that..




....

B. Carfree

This passes for good news these days. The person who attempted to mug my son and then a few days later attempted to bikejack/mug my wife and I is heading to prison for fifteen years. It's a pity the cops wouldn't respond to our calls about the mugging attempts, made during the attempts themselves. Had the cops rolled, those clerks at those stores on Halloween wouldn't have had to deal with a knife-wielding thug.

Eugene candy store robber sentenced to 15 years | Local | Eugene, Oregon

rando_couche

I'd move back to Bend in a heartbeat if I could. Never experienced any shortage of good road riding and xc skiing all winter makes for great fitness and enthusiasm when you get back on the bike in the spring. Good-paying jobs and affordable housing are both in short supply there, though.


Ooops, scratch that. Bend is AWFUL. Too cold in the winter, too hot in the summer, too many tourists, too yuppy. Absolutely sucks. Don't know why anybody would live there.


SP
OC, OR