Relo to Dallas/Fort Worth...opinions needed

[gman]

After living the first 43 years of my life in what I consider "my home", Indianapolis, Indiana, I took a promotion with the company for which I am gainfully employeed. Unfortunately, this required a relocation to the corporate offices for North America which just happened to be located in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The fact that the Lehigh Valley Velodrome was here and that there was a solid community of cycling had no impact on my decision...sure.

So, me and the family land here this past Labor Day weekend and we find out right after Christmas that as a part of an acquisition of another company, our corporate functions are moving to the corporate headquarters of the acquired company, which is in Irving, Texas, so sometime in the next 3 to 6 months, we'll be loading up the truck and moving to Beverly, I mean, Dallas.

I know I have seen a few posts from folks in the DFW area and I am looking for some sort of an insider's perspective on the area. The challenge is not so much finding a place to live, but finding a place to live that meets all the criteria. We have gotten it down to 4 big ones:

1) Schools - Top 5%
2) Proximity to work - under 30 minutes, 10 to 20 is ideal
3) Price / Size / Neighborhood
4) Proximity to roads safe for riding - ideally to be able to roll out my drive and not have to fear getting blown off the road.

Anyone that has any advice as far as specific areas to look would be most appreciated.

I have done a lot of homework already by looking at school data, MLS listings and maps / Google Earth to see what things look like, but there is no substitute for someone that lives in the areas and knows all the intricacies and things not discovered through general research.

Thanks in advance.
Greg

[Viper]

You best be a big fan of Jes*s if you're going to live there. :D My best friend's brother and wife moved there...they're hardcore now.

[Redturbo]

After living the first 43 years of my life in what I consider "my home", Indianapolis, Indiana, I took a promotion with the company for which I am gainfully employeed. Unfortunately, this required a relocation to the corporate offices for North America which just happened to be located in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The fact that the Lehigh Valley Velodrome was here and that there was a solid community of cycling had no impact on my decision...sure.

So, me and the family land here this past Labor Day weekend and we find out right after Christmas that as a part of an acquisition of another company, our corporate functions are moving to the corporate headquarters of the acquired company, which is in Irving, Texas, so sometime in the next 3 to 6 months, we'll be loading up the truck and moving to Beverly, I mean, Dallas.

I know I have seen a few posts from folks in the DFW area and I am looking for some sort of an insider's perspective on the area. The challenge is not so much finding a place to live, but finding a place to live that meets all the criteria. We have gotten it down to 4 big ones:

1) Schools - Top 5%
2) Proximity to work - under 30 minutes, 10 to 20 is ideal
3) Price / Size / Neighborhood
4) Proximity to roads safe for riding - ideally to be able to roll out my drive and not have to fear getting blown off the road.

Anyone that has any advice as far as specific areas to look would be most appreciated.

I have done a lot of homework already by looking at school data, MLS listings and maps / Google Earth to see what things look like, but there is no substitute for someone that lives in the areas and knows all the intricacies and things not discovered through general research.

Thanks in advance.
Greg

Greg
I'm live in Southlake, 10mins west of dfw airport. I can ride 30mins and be on some of the best roads in North TX.

good luck and welcome to Texas.
PS I hate the Cowboys
I like Jesus. ;)

[bigbill]

Greg
I'm live in Southlake, 10mins west of dfw airport. I can ride 30mins and be on some of the best roads in North TX.

good luck and welcome to Texas.
PS I hate the Cowboys
I like Jesus. ;)

I grew up in the DFW area. My sister and her family live in Southlake near the corner of Continental and Byron Nelson. I can ride from her driveway and have anything I want from flat to rolling with road shoulders and tolerable drivers. Several good bike shops to boot.

My sister is an agnostic but likes the cowboys.

[Redturbo]

I grew up in the DFW area. My sister and her family live in Southlake near the corner of Continental and Byron Nelson. I can ride from her driveway and have anything I want from flat to rolling with road shoulders and tolerable drivers. Several good bike shops to boot.

My sister is an agnostic but likes the cowboys.

bigbill
I'm right off Continental and Whites Chapel. We are kinda neighbors.

[nm87710]

Gman,

Congratulations on being accepted into the great state of Texas. :banana: They're pretty selective on who they let move down here but they'll always make room for another Hoosier(I'm an IU grad - only way I got in!).

Yea, what PinkTurbo said as we're neighbors just a block or so apart in Southlake. If schooling is the #1 priority plus being near to Irving/Los Colinas you won't find any better public schools than Carroll ISD/Southlake although surrounding schools are top notch too. I worked in Irving for 4 years and it's about a 25min drive in rush hour traffic from my house. PM me if I can help in any way(my wife knows all the preK-12 school stuff) or if you have questions. Also, yea it gets damn hot for 3months down here but you get 9 wonderful months for riding(we still ride in the summer anyway) and there is no state income tax.

FWI, sent the following note to another DFW relo recently...

"Minimize travel/commute time to maximize family time and thus ride time. We all know if momma ain't happy nobody's happy regardless of how many miles you rode, pulls you took or hill climbs you won! Looking north of Irving/DFW Airport is prolly a good bet. Riding north & west of Lake Grapevine offers 100's of miles of nice country riding. Regular 80 mile ride I do has 5 stoplights and I'm just 15min from DFW Terminal A. Any of the cities surrounding Lake Grapevine offer good schools, amenities, low crime, etc. Just depends what your family is looking for and the price range. Plus Lake Grapvine has nice MTB trails if you're into dirty stuff. Overall there's a variety of good small cycling groups in the North of DFW area.

Don't know what your looking for cycling wise but here's some North of DFW cycling resources to get you started. No doubt I'll forget some due to Mad Cow Disease so I'll apologize now.

http://www.texasflyers.org/ nice rec/club riders with lots of organized rides

http://www.fcscycling.com/ North of DFW's biggest club/team. Sharp team kits always earn extra style points and the riders are friendly too(including Nathan!)

http://www.gstenzing.com/ Race oriented team(but friendly - go figure?) with great stuff for youngsters to old geezers. Nobody knows why their called GS Tenzing but rumor has it that on long climbs their team leader(Christian) goes into Sherpa mode pushing teammates to the top ;)

Team Bicycles Inc: Large rec rider club with a very nice Jr racing program. Quite a few standard weekly rides.

Mad Duck Sports - Grapevine
Bicycles Plus - Flower Mound (Tri/Du/Bi team too)
Bluebonnet Bicycles - Lewsiville
Bicycles Inc - Keller"

[97CSI]

Lived in Austin and then Dallas area (Plano) for many years and miss it for the great weather, great food and many things to do. Especially out of doors. Riding is fine, as well. Best LBS I've used anywhere is the Richardson Bike Mart (where LA got his start). Their big store in Richarson is excellent. Jack, the gentleman who runs their service dept. is as good as it gets. There are several groups that ride out of this shop. In good weather there will be 100+ riders on the Saturday a.m. ride, which is 'show-&-go', so soon splits into various paces and lengths. The RBM shop in Frisco (where there is a velodrome - unless it was sacrificed for houses) is run by Tom, who is from Quakertown. Several bike clubs on the north side of town (Plano, Richardson, Frisco, etc.). Just check with the RBM stores and they'll help you get hooked into an appropriate group. The Sunday a.m. 'poser' rides around White Rock Lake are fun. Also lived in Allentown for several years. Well, could only stand it for one before moving south and enduring a 40 mile commute for the next four. Pretty much a 'dead-zone', outside of bicycling. Dallas area is much, much better. Just as active a riding community and when you aren't riding there are a ton of things to do. If you've got kids, then west/central Plano has some of the best schools in TX. While the area has its share of religious nuts, so does everywhere. But, last I checked, that is the individual's choice. If you visit, eat at Chamberlin's Chop House. Not the show of 3-Forks, but better food. Think the temp there is 40 degrees higher than ours today. And we are 15 degrees higher down here at the shore then you are up there. Brrrrrrrrr.

[Clydesdale]

in Denton, north of DFW and the riding was pretty good. Long season, very few days that you can't be outside and lots of cyclists. Several good group rides out of Richardson, Lewisville, and Plano. You'll like it, but buy a truck if you don't have one :) Oh, and don't worry about a winter coat, very few cold days by midwestern standards.

The 20 minute commute into irving could be wishful thinking - it's all about how the traffic is moving. On a bad day it could take that long to go a few miles, but their aren't that many of those.

Roads are generally good but often hard to find any that you don't have to share. They used let cyclists ride the parking lot loop at TX Speedway in the winter. It's a 5 mile loop if I remember right, and lights along the road. Some really nice riding out west of I-35 through argyle, etc. Also it surprises some people but there is some great single-track if you do any mountain biking. There is a place north of Dallas and hour or so that just put $5 in a bucket and can ride trails all day. Forget the name but it's a blast. Lake Ray Roberts also has some great track and nice roads out through horse country of pilot point, etc.

Western Fort Worth is nice, Aledo especially imo.

I still have lots of friends down that way. Let us know if you need help connecting with riding partners.

[Mike748]

I live in Colleyville, right next to Southlake. Great area, easy access to Irving. Trees. I'd argue that our schools are better than Southlake's... except for in football. Year round riding, but get used to lots of wind.

[woolly]

As several others have already mentioned, there are some good areas West/NorthWest of where you'll be working (Grapevine, Southlake, Colleyville, Flower Mound, etc). I personally commute to the Las Colinas/Irving area from Flower Mound every day - the most import aspect of this is timing the rush hour traffic. Totally without traffic, I can make it to work in slightly under 15 minutes. But at peak time & with crash backups it's taken as much as an hour. I figure an average of 30 minutes is "normal". The worst part of this commute is that it's always by car - no good bike route that I've been able to find. Personally, I could not imagine wrestling a commute from Plano to Irving - what a beating.

My wife & I have lived in the Flower Mound suburb for just over eight years. It's a nice place - extremely low crime, reasonable housing costs (probably cheaper than Southlake on average), and good riding can be had without driving to find it (both road & offroad). We don't have kids, but friends claim the FM schools are good.

The Texas Flyers is my club. Good mix of folks, but not a super-heavy emphasis on racing. Ben at Bluebonnet runs a small shop, but I'll bet money you'll never meet a nicer guy. If you want larger shops, the area has them too (RBM is my favorite, and where I got turned on to Serottas years ago), but they require a bit of driving.

Year-round riding here. We have two seasons - Hot and Dark. Both tend to be windy. Terrain is mostly flat or lightly rolling, though there are some good routes around Cedar hill with some short/steep climbs.

Good variety of riding too. Good racing scene (including the track in Frisco), lots of good groups rides, plenty of "rallys", and a surprisingly good selection of offroad riding. The upcoming North Dallas Veloway project looks promising for some improvements to urban biking. Pretty much a good bit of everything.

Here are a few other links you might find interesting or useful:
www.txbra.org - racing stuff, some of the forums tend to be overly-filled with smack-talking, tho.

www.bicycletexas.com/dallas.htm - good calendar of rides & rally's.

www.superdrome.com - the track in Frisco.

www.dorba.org - one-stop-shopping for finding offroad riding in the metroplex. Trail conditions are usually pretty up-to-date.

Welcome, & Good Luck!! :beer:

[Steelhead]

FORT WORTH. The friendly side of the metro plex.

[Clydesdale]

The Texas Flyers is my club. Good mix of folks, but not a super-heavy emphasis on racing. Ben at Bluebonnet runs a small shop, but I'll bet money you'll never meet a nicer guy.

+1 - Bluebonnet was the closest real shop and Ben was always helpful. Left many $ with the store and did the bluebonnet monday ride many times.

There was also a younger guy named Adam that worked there but is now at Bicycles plus in Flower Mound. A nice kid and good wrench. And of course for the eye candy factor, I don't know of a shop that carries more high end high dollar stuff than Richardson Bike Mart - fun to look around.

When you get down there, get in a group out of flower mound/lewisville and have them take you on the hilltop road loop. 40 miles of rollers and a couple tough little climbs. Mostly out of heavy traffic and pretty good roads. Unless they have followed the pattern and gone to chip/seal, which I personally don't like.

Also for group rides you have to try the Hotter than Hell - but wait until you have been there a summer imo. It often lives up to its name. Also, the Goatneck ride in Cleburn is a really nice ride with lots of hills. Great rest stop tables stocked with food - if it hasn't changed. I have been gone 5 years, but a good friend still rides there often. I'll see what I can find out from him.

[trophyoftexas]

...live in Dallas but I get over there to eat, shop and ride at least once or twice a week. We are about 80 miles east of there. I've helped a number of people find locations to consider moving into and all of the suggestions mentioned here about the Southlake-Colleyville-Flower Mound area's are pretty accurate as all of these places are fairly new and fairly well thought out from a "city planners perspective." All of them are in the northwest section of the Dallas part of the Metroplex....west of I-35 and north of I-635. All of these places will be a fairly straight shot south/north into and out of the Irving area....I, too, like the Fort Worth area but getting to and from FW and Irving will be a royal pain in the @$$ during the rush hour for sure. The riding out and over by FW is nice, a little more variety with more hills than in the Dallas area. I know this suggestion will bring the $$$$ worriers out but if price isn't the number one consideration perhaps the Highland Park/University Park area's should be considered....VERY good schools, VERY central to "what's happening" in Dallas, and yeah, VERY EXPENSIVE, but o-so-nice! We ride in and around that area all the time and then on down to the White Rock Lake area and as long as you stay on the "neighborhood-type" streets the traffic isn't too bad, just don't get on the main streets like Mockingbird or Lovers Lane as they take you to "sideswipe city!!!!!"
As to places to bike shop everyone here has hit the nail on the head with Jack at RBM! He's been around sooooooo long that there isn't anything he can't work on or work with, he's the guru if you ask me! Each of the shops in the Dallas area has it's strength's and each has at least one or two quality employee's....I frequent most of them at least once or twice a month but find the guys at the Richardson Bike Mart White Rock Lake store to be the friendliest of all of them....Jack's at the main store and that's were I go when I need his special help....also to shoot the $#!+ with Jim Hoyt the owner of chain, he's as ready to visit as any bike shop guy in the business and always has interesting tales to tell about recent rides and trips that he and his wife Rhonda have been on.

[gman]

I wanted to thank all of you that responded for your input. It is most appreciated.

We will be taking the first of several trips to the DFW area in a couple of weeks to scope out areas. On paper, we have somewhat narrowed it down to Southlake, Keller, Flower Mound and possibly Coppell - the latter being least likely due to it is the furthest from any sort of rural riding - at least from looking at Google Earth. We need to narrow that further and we keep coming back to Keller simply due to housing cost and we also had friends with family there and that perspective is helpful.

Price and taxes have alot to do with this. We are a single income family (mine) with my wife being a stay-at-home mom. That excludes any possiblility of considering Highland Park!

What are property taxes like there? How much per year can one expect to pay for a home in the $250k - $275k range in the aforementioned areas?

Greg

[Floyd Dakil]

I grew up in Dallas and ran my first lap around White Rock Lake in 1969 (I just turned 52). I've always considered White Rock Lake to be a mecca for running and cycling. If you can live in a neighborhood near White Rock Lake (such as Lakewood, the M Streets off of Greenville Avenue, or the south end of Lake Highlands), that might be your best bet. You'll have the amenities and the vibe of an established neighborhood, and you can ride 9-mile laps around the lake after work. It's true that there are "posers" on weekend mornings, but you can just ride around them.

The suburbs north of DFW are more of an enclave for corporate drones and are very church oriented. The whole town is pretty conservative, but some places more so than others. I left Dallas for Austin as soon as a I graduated from high school in 1974. Austin has a pretty good cycling culture, especially on the south end.