Nashville?

[Mr. Pink]

Just visited the town and enjoyed myself a lot on various levels. Lord, the place is booming. How's the cycling?

[sandyrs]

Also wondering this as I'm looking at grad school there.

[bikinchris]

Nashville is in a valley. Any direction you ride, you will have to ride uphill. This makes century rides pretty tough. Last I heard, they have good club riding there. I don't know about racing.

[cachagua]

I guess the place is booming. My sister (TV producer) and brother-in-law (musician) just moved there from LA and they're both busier now than before.

I cannot speak to the riding, except that in the '70s when I was in Atlanta, doing a lot of riding, I had friends in Nashville who were also doing a lot of riding. Not at all sure I'd ride Atlanta nowadays, Nashville maybe the same? Or maybe not.

But you're close to a lot of the Appalachian semi-wilderness, so if you like to climb, there's that. And I suspect there's a lot of semi-paved, formerly-paved, and straight-up unpaved roads within reasonable driving distance.

You could move there, and be the Hillbilly Velotel. I'm not joking! And think: no language barrier. Uh, okay, actually that's wrong, there might be.

[sokyroadie]

I am not far from Nashville (65 miles) and used to race the:
http://www.tbra.org/ series. Not all are in Nashville but plenty are.

The best riding is in the Leiper's Fork or Natchez Trace area IMO. Not exactly Nashville but fairly close.

Nashville is booming.

Jeff

[Mr. Pink]

Oh, it's booming.

Quite the foodie destination, too.

[sandyrs]

Can anyone speak to out-the-door rides? I hate driving to ride a road bike.

[OtayBW]

Nashville is in a valley. Any direction you ride, you will have to ride uphill. This makes century rides pretty tough. Last I heard, they have good club riding there. I don't know about racing.
I suspect that the 'valley' you're talking about is actually the Central Basin which is very large, comprising much of the central portion of the state and extending ~95 mi N-S and ~65 mi E-W. Relief is actually very low in the Inner Basin portion (~50 ft) and more moderate/hilly in the Outer Basin (~250 ft), so I think it's a bit of a misnomer to say that you have to ride uphill anywhere out of a Nashville Valley. True, if you go far enough, you will likely have to climb out of the Basin and up onto the Highland Rim (or higher if you choose to ride up to the Cumberland escarpment), but you can realistically do centuries all day long from the Kentucky border all the way down to Alabama or beyond.

[HenryA]

If you can live maybe 45 to 60 minutes away from downtown Nashville you can have truly great riding right out the door of your house. Theres plenty of good MTB riding as well, though that will usually involve a car to get there.

If you live in town, there are some greenway trails and parks to ride. Do an internet search to find lots of information on riding in Nashville.

As mentioned earlier in this thread, south of town around the Natchez Trace and Leipers Fork area is truly excellent. Go out a little past there and you'll have miles and miles and miles of untrafficed roads.

[HenryA]

I suspect that the 'valley' you're talking about is actually the Central Basin which is very large, comprising much of the central portion of the state and extending ~95 mi N-S and ~65 mi E-W. Relief is actually very low in the Inner Basin portion (~50 ft) and more moderate/hilly in the Outer Basin (~250 ft), so I think it's a bit of a misnomer to say that you have to ride uphill anywhere out of a Nashville Valley. True, if you go far enough, you will likely have to climb out of the Basin and up onto the Highland Rim (or higher if you choose to ride up to the Cumberland escarpment), but you can realistically do centuries all day long from the Kentucky border all the way down to Alabama or beyond.

This is correct.

You can get it all but for big mountain rides. Plenty of flat, flat to rolling and plenty of hilly. Your pick. I live on the edge of the Highland Rim at about 940 ft. ASL. The lowest nearby riding areas drop to about 600 ft. There is plenty of variety in between.

General information about the city here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville,_Tennessee

[nate2351]

When I was there last I rode the Natchez Trace Pakway (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natchez_Trace_Parkway) which was a great ride. We parked at the entrance but you could ride there if you started on the south-west end of town.