Bakersfield
 

My wife has a job opportunity in Bakersfield. So I'm trying to see what kind of place it would be to live.

How is Bakersfield from a cycling perspective? My impression is that it is at least relatively close to some nice places to ride.

I have never lived in Bakersfield, I have only driven through it. It's kind of flat and in the middle of nowhere. There's a lot of agricultural industry around that area.

I have only ridden the Stae RR Championship there. Lots of rollers, a 5 mile section of 6%, and flat runs back to the finish line through producing oil fileds. Not the most beautiful ride I have ever done.

there are some beautiful places to ride in this surrounding hills/mountains and agricultural areas... the town itself is not great.

I would PM Dante as he lives right around there and would be a great person to check with!

yeah getting that impression. At least it looks like only a couple of hour drive to some interesting places.

This guy: http://www.scottthor.net/
lives in Bakersfield. I found his blog when searching for Everest Challenge race reports.

There are a lot of climbs in the "Climbing (by bike)" book that are close to Bakersfield. The town itself seems like a complete dump. But if you were willing to live a ways outside town I bet there's some nicer areas.

I stayed there years ago for some reason. Great Basque food.

Well, how much info do you want? Are you looking for road biking, mountain biking or both? There's plenty of flats for interval training and if you want climbs we've got them, just how steep and long do you want to go. There is a great bike path I use for interval training at is 21 miles from end to end with no street crossings ever, totally uninterupted. From my front door I do a loop that is 89 miles with 6,000' of climbing, so the mountains aren't that far. The local bike club just had their century ride, The Spooktacular, with the Hideous Century being 109 miles and 11,000' of climbing.

As far as the town, it's located within an 1 1/2 hours of Los Angeles, 5 hours to San Francisco and just a little over 2 hours to the Central Coast. We are getting more culture and big time entertainers, but still a little behind. The biggest draw back is the air quaility, at times it can be bad, working on cleaning it up. Alissa Carlson is working for the local NBC affiliate as the chief meteorologist and I think see can from Jacksonville. The last time I talked to her she was happy to be here. If you need anymore info just let me know.

thanks guys.

Hot. Windy. Sandy. Variety of terrain: flat in city, climbing outside. Not too many trees unless you can make it up to Tehachapi. There: more wind.

Kernville area above Bakersfield has some world class mountainbiking.
Really is some great riding in the Mtns...
http://www.mountainbikebill.com/CannellPlunge.htm
Otherwise, flat, hot, and boring.
But if the $$ is enough, who cares....

Sun. Fun, Stay, Play

It's no San Diego or LA, but as far as cycling goes, I think its pretty good. Not Redlands or Colorado, but I think someone could definately train for anything there. To top it off Solvang is fairly close, an area where alot of ProTour teams train.

Unfortunately, it just doesn't look like you can get to it from there. 85 miles as the bird flies, but the roads seem few and far between.

It would be about a 3 hour drive to Solvang from Bakersfield, IIRC

Edit: the shortest route would be to take the 166 (Maricopa Highway) to the 101 and drop into Solvang from the North/West, but the fastest would be to take the 5 down to the 126 and cut across to the 101 and come into Solvang from the South/East.

Yeah, that's the way I saw it, but I wasn't sure if there was a straighter shot that I couldn't see on a map. Where I live in HB is actually a shorter drive.

There are pretty much no roads through that area. The 166 cuts across east/west to Santa Maria and the 33 comes down north/south to Ojai and Ventura but in between is nothing but mountains.

I have only driven through Bakersfield as well. I do know there are a lot of terrific hills close to Bakersfield. If I had to choose between Jacksonville and Bakersfield for cycling, I would choose Bakersfield. You will find the variety enchanting. The only thing you are missing is the beach. The summers are a little toasty but it isn't humid.

There are probably tons of reasons to choose Jacksonville over Bakersfield and vice versa.

Bakersfield is pretty well centrally located between the norcal and socal race scene. A lot of the norcal races are just north of there and it's not much of a drive into the LA area for the socal races. Here in Santa Barbara we are I think further away from either.

I was in Bakersfield today for a funeral. I used to live there after college and in Tehachapi as well. There is a great MUP in Bakersfield that follows along the Kern River.

http://bikebakersfield.org/Images/Ba...Bike_Trail.pdf

As another poster said "air quality". Bakersfield is located at the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley. A lot of the pollution from the valley backs up against the mountains. And then there is the 'Tule Fog'. Tule fog is a radiation fog, which condenses when there is a high relative humidity — typically after a heavy rain — calm winds, and rapid cooling during the night. Because of the density of the cold air in the winter, winds are not able to dislodge the fog and the high pressure of the warmer air above the mountaintops presses down on the cold air trapped in the valley, resulting in a dense, immobile fog that can last for days undisturbed (read you might not see the sun for weeks). Tule fog usually remains longer in the southern (read Bakersfield) and eastern parts of the Central Valley. The official time frame for tule fog to form is from November 1 to March 31.

Today the weather was around 80° and hazy. The sky's looked grey from the haze.

The Tule Fog hasn't been as bad the last few years, conditions have changed. The bike path is a great resource, it's flat, 10-12' wide, 21 miles long and NO cross traffic of any kind. The western half is great for doing interval work. Opps, at work got an emergency call.

It's all beach.
I think you meen to say, all the beach is missing is the water...

Something to consider is commuting into Bakersfield from one of the mountain communities. It's about 35 miles from Lebec to Bakersfield. Lebec is on the I5 at about 4000 feet.

Willowsprings!

Other than that, the city/town is really quite small. I guess it depends on whether you like very small town living or not.

Willowsprings is not in Bakersfield, closer to Mojave.
Bakersfield is about 250,000 people. When we lived in the mountains we would shop there, especially around Christmas because the people were so laid back compared to Santa Clarita. It was the same distance either way. In Bakesfield people smile and say hi, offer to hold the door for you, etc. In Santa Clarita they will fight for a shopping cart or a parking space and would like to run you over if you are on a bike.