Potential move to Portland

[bluto]

I just got word I could be up for a 'potential' transfer to Portland for work and am freaking out a bit. I'm 50/50 MTB/ROAD rider and I am concerned about adjusting to the rain. I think I've ridden in rain 3x my whole life. Tucson we get about 8" annually and Portland gets 40" ?!!?!!?

I know there is a popular road scene but how bout MTB? Do people actually ride MTB in the rain? Will I have to buy a cyclocross bike to fit in?

All I've known for my cycling life is dry and hot......not.......Portland.
:help:

[likebikes]

Rain never hurt anyone, you'll be fine.

[etu]

you'll have a great time!
fenders were a revelation for me. both front and rear. you don't get splashed with the dirt from the road and you really get to enjoy the clean, refreshing wet rain.
you'll also obviously have to learn what type of layer works for you, and whether you prefer to get wet from the rain or wet from your sweat. may have to see if you like wool or not.
i don't live in Portland, but i do miss the rain.

[rx7ttlm]

If you don't mind a hour or two drive there are a bunch of mountain bike events around. Check out http://mudslingerevents.com/

Portland has become a pretty cycling centric place. The good news is it doesn't rain all year around. The bad news is it rains a lot more than even I would like. Get some fenders and appropirate cycling clothing for the weather... Possibly an indoor trainer for those days you don't feel like riding in the rain. The first big race of the year is the muddslinger... rain or shine the race is on. This year a lot of people were disappointed because it wasn't nearly as wet as it usually would be. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5dJZEufYiI 2013 race video

[miguel]

you have to drive to MTB in portland

there are lots of roads

you put up with and shut up about the rain, it happens, and it's a good thing.

yay another person moving to portland

[bluto]

you put up with and shut up about the rain, it happens, and it's a good thing

Tough love. I like it.

I did re-read my OP and it sounds ridiculous but it's true. I know of entire group rides that will cancel if it 'sprinkles' here.

Honest to goodness question: Are there some fast paced/aggressive group rides [in the rain]?

Total desert rat so please remember than when answer my stupid question.

[leftsidedrive]

You have nothing to worry about. You should rejoice the life change and embrace the move to the PCNW. It's a wonderful area, and I am sure you will fall in love with it.

1. Get some good commuting gear. It's worth every penny.
2. You've never got traction on a MTN bike until you've hooked up in this tack.
3. Make sure you get your housing situation on lock. It's brutal here.
4. I hope you like good beer/buds
5. All the pale skinned gals here dress like stevie nicks.

In all seriousness, pm me if you have any questions or concerns about moving to Portland. I can point you in the right direction.

[kevinvc]

Welcome to Portland! I lived in Tucson for 5 years and grew up in New Mexico, so I understand the weather shock. I absolutely love it here and there is definitely year-round riding.

The earlier poster is correct, you have to drive to mountain bike, but there are some great places within an hour and some absolutely amazing ones a bit farther out.

Cycloross racing on a regular basis is optional, but you have to at least try it and occasionally go to PIR to ring a cowbell and heckle.

I'd be happy to share more info or give you my perspective on things. If you do make it out here, let me know if you'd like to go for a ride. I'm not the most experienced guy, but I hang out with some folks who have riding out here all their lives.

And yes, housing is ridiculously expensive, we take hipster to an unimaginable level, and the local beer is better than anything you've ever had elsewhere (it makes Nimbus taste like swamp water).

Cheers!

[fuzzalow]

And yes, housing is ridiculously expensive, we take hipster to an unimaginable level, and the local beer is better than anything you've ever had elsewhere (it makes Nimbus taste like swamp water).

5. All the pale skinned gals here dress like stevie nicks.

https://41.media.tumblr.com/6a4d5ddaf57ec9bd6bc900d2f220bbd8/tumblr_n6rynvM5Yg1twow7po1_500.jpg

Stevie Nicks, huh? I dunno if that's supposed to be a bad thing or a good thing.

If the humor in expressed in these posts is any reflection at all of the general vibe of the city, then that's gotta be alright in anybody's view of a good place to live. I read threads like this and sometimes I feel trapped in the sameness of a compression chamber as all I have ever known. It is nice to laugh at folks having a playful dig at their own hometown. The grass is always greener on the other side, as in literally 2,300 miles the other side from right to left.

[bironi]

5. All the pale skinned gals here dress like stevie nicks.

But do they twirl as well?

[Climb01742]

The key to rain in Portland is don't fight it. If you let the rain bum you, it will. Don't fight it.

[jh_on_the_cape]

watch some portlandia episodes on youtube!

portland is awesome.

[moose8]

[QUOTE=kevinvc;1755936

And yes, housing is ridiculously expensive, we take hipster to an unimaginable level, and the local beer is better than anything you've ever had elsewhere (it makes Nimbus taste like swamp water).

Cheers![/QUOTE]

It's all a matter of perspective I suppose - visiting my friends who live there coming from boston I was jealous of how much house they got for the money. It seems like such an awesome place to live. I went mountain biking some place about an hour out of Portland and it was so fun - an easy paved road with no cars up, then super fun trails down. Also, the first night the bar I went to had Pliny the elder so it made me really like the place right off the bat.

[JAGI410]

Tucson is cool and all, but Portland is amazing. You'll give up dry weather and good Mexican food, but you'll learn about the color green, seasons, and friendly people.

[William]

Two words: Rain Bike.

A dedicated rain bike for early season training identical to, or set up like your race/main bike is a good thing. That's how I rolled from year to year when we lived there. If you don't have one already, it's a good excuse to get another bike.;)









William

[dyerwolf]

I loved it and still miss the rose city. Go for it!
Lived in SE Portland 2x...
Go for it. Go ducks!

[JAllen]

Yeah you might come to enjoy riding in the rain. When you resign yourself to getting wet and just get into it it's wonderful. Not a fair weather rider in sight... :)

Also, BUY A GOOD BIKE LOCK. And learn how to lock up properly. Nothing is foolproof, but it's like the bear theory, (be faster than the guy behind you). In other words, make it to where they'll want to pass on your bike and take the one with the cheap combination cable lock.

Portland: you're never more than an hour away from anything you want to do.

[ORMojo]

I grew up in Portland metro; and have more than 50 years in Portland, Corvallis, Eugene, and now just north of Eugene. My wife has lived in Oregon since age three (born on Long Island).

As has been said multiple times, don't worry about the rain/climate. While I absolutely thrive when I'm vacationing/living in hot/drier climates , I can't imagine living anywhere else than the Willamette Valley, and consider my current location the best of all worlds. The home climate doesn't bother me at all. Actually, more than that, I strongly prefer the climate here year-round and long-term (and I also have family in AZ).

The variety of riding (and other!) opportunities more than makes up for (perhaps?) not being as weather-friendly as Arizona. JA's statement ("Portland: you're never more than an hour away from anything you want to do") nails it. City or country road rides, mountain biking, skiing, mountain climbing, surfing/beach, whitewater, hiking, camping . . . so much more, all within extremely easy reach.

Add in the incredible food and beverage scene - extremely important to me.

Someone said to nail down your housing situation. Yep, Portland housing is competitive and, supposedly, expensive. But I think that you can still get wonderful housing for the dollar. And consider much more than cost and access to work in your housing choice - the neighborhood choices are extremely varied and important. Perhaps you will find that you can live a fair distance from the office because you can use the light rail or other transit system to easily get to the office, and be closer to other non-work amenities such as mountain biking, wine country, etc. Or maybe your office will be in/near downtown, and you want to live as close as possible to be completely vehicle-free for days at a time.

We live ~1.5 hours south of Portland. Country road riding, mountain biking, skiing, and more, is closer than if we lived in central Portland. Yet it is so easy to spend 2-3 days or more in Portland and literally never drive once we get there. We constantly do this, having, in 2015 alone, attended or already have tickets for over 20 events in Portland. Oh, and that 1.5 hour drive - mostly beautiful unpopulated countryside. I'm constantly mentally comparing it to the 1.5 hour drive from my in-laws place in Loch Arbor, NJ to NYC. No comparison!

The point I'm trying to make here is that the climate is never in the way, and often adds to the ambiance, and the variety of opportunities within easy reach is almost unparalleled.

And, if you make the move, please report back to us a week/month/year in with your thoughts.

[11.4]

Sorry, don't mean to rain on your parade (hahahahahahah) but I just left the Northwest for Texas. Here are a few perspectives I might share on prior comments:

1. Think green. Yeah. Get a power washer. The roof of your car, your drive way, everything you own will be green with algae or moss or mildew by spring. Power washing is a way of life here.

2. Rain bike. Oh yeah, just how I wanted to practice the n+1 rule. You definitely ride all winter. Remember that when it rains in the South you are in mortal danger. In the Northwest there is no lightning or thunder, no flash flooding, just constant, unavoidable, intolerable, existential, inevitable rain. Just enough to ensure that roads are slick, bikes are wet, you are wet. So people either ride their cross bike as a rain bike, or get another bike as a rain bike, or whatever. If you ride your prize Crumpton or Pinarello year round, you trash it pretty quickly. You have more flats in the rain. Go back to comment #1 and remember that all roads will be slick with moss and algae wherever car tires don't clean them off incessantly. It's interesting and appropriate that riders in the South speak with great fear of Belgian cobbles, while those from Portland and Seattle just say so what and smoke some weed.

3. Real estate. Dang, it's so much cheaper than Manhattan or San Francisco. You'll be astounded. $250K? That buys you a lot on the edge of town. Take it to the casino, double down, and hope you just bought yourself a real house.

4. Cross? Don't listen to any of the comments here. Cross is the only religion in Portland. There's an idiosyncratic and very technical velodrome in Portland that I happen to adore, but cross is where it's at. If you are caught wearing sublimated Lycra on city streets, they ticket you because they think there's an underground cross race underway on the downtown cobbles. This town doesn't watch the 2015 Giro; it watches Quicksilver with Kevin Bacon. Half of all messenger bags sold in the country are sold in Portland. And at least three quarters of all cowbells for cyclocross.

5. Jobs? Better than North Dakota. That's certainly something. No sales tax so no way to fund anything except through income tax, so live north of the river in Washington (where there's no income tax) and shop south of the river in Oregon (where there's no sales tax). Some genius spent years creating that absurdity. Better than the Massachusetts/New Hampshire line. But don't expect to find many jobs. Good thing you are coming with one. Don't you dare lose it.

6. Portlandia. Yup, go watch a fictional TV series to learn about the city you're moving to. That's like telling your wife to watch 50 Shades of Grey to understand how relationships work (which movie of course starts in Portland and migrates only so far as Seattle, so perhaps go watch 50 Shades instead of Portlandia).

7. Let's get back to bikes. You now will need a rain MTB, a summer MTB, a cross bike, a single-speed cross bike (dressing like a pink pig in a tutu and racing single-speed cross is one of the more normal variants in this town), a rain bike, a summer bike, a fixie, a track bike if you're so inclined, and a commuter bike (which can be your rain bike but is then so declassé you want to wear a Showers Pass yellow Goretex jacket to disguise yourself). By the way, you like the name? Showers Pass? Quite a dual pun. Another Portland company.

8. Can you identify all the variants of the Assos Airjack 851 jacket over the years? If so, perhaps you belong in Portland. If you can't, stay in the South. Oh, do you have rain gloves? Rain shoe covers? Rain cap? Rain jacket?

9. Fenders. An art here. And your fly isn't zipped in Portland until you have a buddy flap on your fenders. Portland offers metal fenders, wood fenders, plastic fenders, carbon fiber fenders, and you aren't into the exotic offerings yet. And keep your tools, inner tube, CO2 cartridge and the like in a spare water bottle; don't worry, it's wet enough here. You won't need a water bottle with water in it.

10. Oh yeah, and Portland is planning to license cyclists. There's a thread going on here about things not to do in a pace line, but that's not what the Portland city council is talking about. I never got ticketed on a bike in my life until I went to Portland. You can't ride above a bike speed limit, you have to stop and put your foot down at intersections, you have to give right of way to pedestrians who walk into traffic while texting. Oh, but if you are texting while driving and you hit someone, you literally can go to prison.

There is a good side. There's nothing more epiphanic than being on a long Sunday training ride with twenty other riders, everyone wet and sweaty and freezing all at once, as you all remember that you came to this place because it was so beautiful. Just getting home is a very bonding experience. It's what makes people stay. Let's do this next weekend!

When you read the press, they have trouble telling Seattle and Portland apart. Anything that happens in Seattle is fair news for Portland papers. So on that note, here's what Amazon thinks of the region, plus some independent commentary:

http://www.seattletimes.com/life/amazons-life-in-seattle-recruiting-video-gets-satirized/

With that, I do have to say that while Portland will test your ability to adapt (think living underwater and growing gills), it's also got genuine appeal. I had to think hard to leave the Northwest and might not have done so if I hadn't already lived in the South and been infected by the addiction ... the one they call sunshine. You can find skiing nearby in Portland. Volcanoes. Erupting volcanoes. The Pacific. More conifers than you ever knew existed. Some great frame builders. Great wine country. ... ... ... Yes, I guess there's a reason to go to Portland. Don't listen to my gripes about the Northwest. I lived there too long and started thinking like a Northwesterner. It was like the Sheriff telling Sylvester Stallone to leave town (in Rambo, yet another Portland area movie). I'm just an ingrate and too spoiled to deserve to live there.

And btw, pm me for the name of a good tanning salon.

[Exonerv]

Ha...post of the week right there. Maybe of 2015!

[oldpotatoe]

you have to drive to MTB in portland

there are lots of roads

you put up with and shut up about the rain, it happens, and it's a good thing.

yay another person moving to portland

tee hee...i get it.

[JAllen]

tee hee...i get it.
It's funny the glow people get as they talk about their love for living in the NW, but then the realization sets in that you don't want it to become crowded or have a change in culture. That's when xenophobia sets in... you get the obligatory "this place is great...but don't move here"

If you come here, do everyone including yourself the favor and try not to drive. You have a unique opportunity to help shape the face of Portland's traffic. It's getting bad with cars and I don't want for the cat drivers and strong lobbying power of auto-centric companies to push for more room for cars and less room for people.

[Spaceman Spiff]

I moved to the Portland area (Beaverton) last summer after having lived (nearly) my entire life on the east coast. Some random observations:

* Yay, reasonable housing costs! Yes, it's all relative. Coming from the DC area, I felt like I'd hit the jackpot.
* What's with all the traffic? I-84/I-5 and Rte. 26 are as bad as anything in the DC area during rush hour. Ugh. I'm lucky I'm a 10-minute MAX ride or 15-minute bike ride from work.
* All this green! Year round! "Winter" felt like extended fall since it never really got too cold, it never snowed, and it was always green. And - I believe this year was a fluke - it didn't even rain much.
* Hey, where's the singletrack? The biggest difference for me as a cyclist was moving to primarily riding on the road for recreation. In NoVA/DC, I split my recreational riding pretty evenly between road and mountain biking. In the 9 months I've been here, I've been mountain biking three (3) times! Why? Three reasons: 1) I don't have a lot of free time so I want to maximize my time on the bike. 2) There are lots of great roads to ride. 3) Mountain biking is at least a half-hour drive. Honestly, I really miss the dirt.

Best of luck with the move!

[krhea]

https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7760/17030505193_05d3d2ca74_b.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/rWVMRT)P5130269 (https://flic.kr/p/rWVMRT) by KRhea FrzFrmFoto (https://www.flickr.com/photos/krheapvpics/), on Flickr

Today's "gym" workout, 12minutes from my house and 3miles from the dead center of Portland downtown. Saw 2 cyclists, 1 runner and 1 walker on a 20+mile ride, again, virtually in the city.

I originally moved here from the midwest, Ohio/Michigan and all I heard was about the rain. Fact, my hometown of Columbus Ohio gets a yearly avg of 39+" inches of rain a year...exactly what Portland gets, the difference...Portland gets "drizzle", most times not even enough to warrant a rain jacket on the bike, Columbus/the midwest gets huge thunderstorms that drop a ton of rain in a short period of time. So, it might seem like it rains "all the time" in the NW but it actually doesn't "rain", it drizzles.
Cost of living, depends on where you're moving from. My wife's been a real estate agent for a number of years and I can state factually that there are still a lot of very affordable homes in the Portland and surrounding metro area. Rent is what's tough in Portland, very high and the choices are few right now.
No mtb biking without using a car but hey, that's life in some places. The payoff is driving and riding in places like Hood River, Sandy Ridge, Bend, Scappoose etc which are all easily driveable with Bend being the only overnight trip.
Food is crazy good, local events, which started last weekend, occur every weekend on the Riverfront now till late August.
Schools are generally good.
The bike "license" thing is not a big deal and probably won't happen.
Tons of "event" rides, incredible racing scene directed by OBRA and as someone said, 'cross is a true religion here AND we have a great velodrome.
I moved from the midwest to Oregon many years ago. Then moved from Portland to Boston, Boston to Boulder, thinking I'd stay there and decided Portland was the best of all worlds for me and my lifestyle. The people, the culture, the cost of living, the location(an hour to 11,000' Mt Hood one way and an hour to the Pacific Ocean and the incredible Oregon cost the other direction), the climate and of course the bike culture. The variety of road rides we Portland cyclists have at our disposal is crazy. Flats, hills, rollers, high desert, mountains, dirt/gravel roads, tiny one lane forest service roads and on and on. Really makes for a great place to "be a cyclist".
Is Portland without problems, of course not, it's a major metropolitan area so of course there are problems but having lived on both coasts as well as in the middle of the country and in the west Portland is where I decided to be. Both me, my family and my bikes are very happy.

[pjmsj21]

Lot's of great information has already been provided by other forumites so I won't provide many more details.

When I was younger I moved seven times in nine years. When I tried to make my new location just like my previous home, I was less than successful.

Every area of the country has their share of positives and negatives. When you focus on the negatives your time in the new location will fall far short of its true potential.

Generally speaking most people would LOVE to move to Portland. It is a vibrant city, with a great NW ethic, stunning natural beauty and moderate if not extremely dry climate. I would not move from the Norhwest for love or money. If you give it a chance and some reasonable time, I would be surprised if you are not one of the many converts that have seriously fallen in love with the area.

[krhea]

Lot's of great information has already been provided by other forumites so I won't provide many more details.

When I was younger I moved seven times in nine years. When I tried to make my new location just like my previous home, I was less than successful.

Every area of the country has their share of positives and negatives. When you focus on the negatives your time in the new location will fall far short of its true potential.

Generally speaking most people would LOVE to move to Portland. It is a vibrant city, with a great NW ethic, stunning natural beauty and moderate if not extremely dry climate. I would not move from the Norhwest for love or money. If you give it a chance and some reasonable time, I would be surprised if you are not one of the many converts that have seriously fallen in love with the area.

Well said.

[gasman]

Don't move here. It rains all the time. The people are very unfriendly. There isn't a decent beer or glass of wine to be found for love or money. The housing prices are through the roof.The traffic is terrible. There are no jobs, at all. You have to drive to get to the mountains or the beaches. Worst you have to drive to mtn bike. Did I say it rains ? It's true. Really.;)

[oldpotatoe]

It's funny the glow people get as they talk about their love for living in the NW, but then the realization sets in that you don't want it to become crowded or have a change in culture. That's when xenophobia sets in... you get the obligatory "this place is great...but don't move here"

If you come here, do everyone including yourself the favor and try not to drive. You have a unique opportunity to help shape the face of Portland's traffic. It's getting bad with cars and I don't want for the cat drivers and strong lobbying power of auto-centric companies to push for more room for cars and less room for people.

Portland is much bigger than the republic, but we think..."I'm glad you like Boulder, now leave"..type thing..