# Moving to Roanoke... fill me in!



## nhluhr (Sep 9, 2010)

Because of several reasons, my wife and I are moving to Roanoke probably Jan or Feb 2014. I've got a few questions...

Riding around town:
Having ridden a couple times in the area, I'm already quickly familiarizing with the high quality road surfaces in the region as well as the significantly steeper character of climbs there compared to around Seattle. What is the commuting like? Say I don't want to just use the river greenway all the time? Would you consider the drivers to be "accepting", "oblivious", "impatient", or "offensive" to bicyclists? From what I could see, it seemed they were mostly polite/wary of bikes, but not really sure how to behave around them.

Local racing scene:
I had a look at USAC's website for local teams and it looks like there basically aren't any. I am an active (but new) Cat3 road racer and would very much like to find a team that would allow me to continue to grow in road racing. There appear to be several teams in nearby cities like Blacksburg or Lynchburg. Any advice here?

Places to avoid?
A high priority for my wife in our househunt is walk score and of course for me it is bike-ability. Neither of us are afraid of a climb to "get home" but for obvious reasons, it might be a good idea to avoid living atop the matterhorn. Likewise, I would prefer if our house wasn't along a really bad/unsafe/unfriendly route for bicycles. What roads in the city of roanoke would you consider unsafe for bikes?

Thanks in advance


----------



## the_tank (Feb 5, 2007)

Commuting will be completely dependent on where you live/work. Admittedly, I am not the best resource for commuting in Roanoke.

The racing scene is on the rebound in Roanoke. There have been high profile road races/crits in the past... and there is once again road racing energy. Cyclocross is gaining a lot of momentum in the Roanoke area. There are a bunch of "retired" USAC racers, some current 1,2,3,4 & 5's and a lot of just plain strong riders. Racing in Virginia (vacycling.org) is mostly Central and Eastern Virginia-centric, though there are several around a couple hours of Roanoke. MABRA (mabra.org) is focused on the DC area. You'll find several races in North Carolina that are very convenient to Roanoke. 

Orange Ave. is probably the worst for riding.


----------

