Whats the cheapest place to live and mountain bike

Cusco, Santiago, really cheap, some quite good riding, and also pretty cool places generally. Rotorua more expensive than those obviously, on the low end of developed, but riding is better with more trails and super easy shuttling but the town is obviously quite boring compared to the previous two. Cape Town comes to mind as well. 

There are a lot of really cool places, but for cost you can’t really beat the “third world”. 

If you look outside of Bellingham, elsewhere in Whatcom Co, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by both the amount and proximity of riding that isn't Galbraith or Lookout. That's always been on my radar for low cost of living. Housing is likely your #1 expense so I wouldn't dismiss a place because the avocados at the local grocery store are $2.49.

The sustained vertical isn’t there and y’all can think I’m crazy, but both Duluth Minnesota and Marquette Michigan have phenomenal riding and some really good tech laps. They just happen to be 2.5 minutes in length not 5-10. 

But the access is phenomenal, the towns are rad, and they’re cheap compared to anything out West.

You do have winter though.

I grew up in Salt Lake but just moved from the U.P. of Michigan to Grand Junction Colorado and I would take Marquette or Duluth riding over SLC/GJ any day.

Terrace BC

Bentonville is the MTB capital of the world; they say so themselves! 

I don't know if you mean "cheapest" by housing, food or what, but UT seems cheaper than CO. Moab has homes for less than $500K. I see a few on Trulia for less than $400K. (TWE, Captain Ahab, Slickrock.) 
St. George has a bunch under $400K. (Hurricane, Virgin, Rampage sites.)

I may retire in Cottonwood, AZ someday, myself. 20 minutes to Sedona. Plenty under $400K there, too. 

If you're looking for CHEAP, cheap, you may find good stuff in Idaho, Montana or Wyoming. I don't know much about the riding there, however. 
 

Imperia region of Italy. See Paul Aston and his bike farm. 

Buy some ancient stone place in Molini for 50k and make it livable. Then ride ride ride. 

East Tennessee/western NC seems like the obvious answer here

I can tell with absolute certainty it's not California. 

Haven't lived there, but whenever I've traveled to northern Italy it's been very affordable for what you get.  40 euro lift tickets (at least they were about 10 years ago).  Bed & breakfasts that are clean and have nice home-cooked food for about 100 euro per night, right across from ski resorts.  A couple I know of close to retiring are planning on moving somewhere there because it's just so much cheaper.

cheap places usually means low income as long as you are not a remote worker. so living cost to earn ratio should be similar. i‘d place riding quality above living costs…

Smolyan, Bulgaria. Southern Rhodope mountains, right by the Greek border. Totally off most people’s radar — and ticks a lot of your boxes.

Riding: 25+ enduro trails accessible with flexible shuttle (local 4x4 pickups, not resort infrastructure — but that’s what keeps costs down), plus a small bike park nearby with 5–6 chairlift-accessed trails. Season April–November. Proper mountain terrain, up to ~1000m of descent per lap depending on the trail. Rocky, rooty, loamy — a bit of everything. Nothing is crowded because almost nobody outside Bulgaria knows about this region yet.

Cost of living: house in a Rhodope village, 20–40k EUR. A flat in Smolyan town, 50–80k. 2-bedroom rental, around 300 EUR/month. Dinner out with a beer, 10–15 EUR. Most things run about a quarter of Western European prices.

Caveat : local salaries are low, so this really only works if you’re a remote worker, retired, or self-employed with EU/US clients. If that’s you, it’s probably one of the best price-to-mountain ratios in Europe right now.

Happy to answer specifics if anyone’s curious — I ride here year-round and organize events through our local initiative, SmolyanMTB (https://www.facebook.com/smolyan.mtb/).

I'm here in Brașov, Romania. Cost of living is obviously cheap, being the country we are, although some prices line up with the West, where the wages don't necessarily. But it is generally cheaper for most things.

Mountain biking? How about FREE shuttle service on state-operated local buses, that take you up 12 km to our local resort? You just pay a normal bus ticket, which is about 1 EUR a ride, and on Fridays it's completely free. From the local resort (Poiana Brașov), you can either ride back down on a plethora of trails (of which some are shared but the most are made for MTB and yo never find hikers there) or go up to the bike park, via gondola or cable car. The bike park is rough, as the local mountain is mostly limestone with little loam and the trails are pretty hard. Blue and green trails are more expensive to build than red and black ones. Of course, you can ride from the top of the mountain directly to the city, without passing the resort. You can also ride to the other side of the mountain, descending circa one hour and then return to the city on the national road, that passes through the mountains and is pretty flat, from the point you join it.

We also have a lot of XC loops, two evolving progressive smooth jump lines up in the resort, that are meant for people to learn how to ride, and also 2 asphalt pump tracks and an earth one, plus a good concrete skatepark, which is pretty fresh.

30-60 minutes away you have 3 other resorts that have shuttle services. Some are easier (Brava), others are more technical (Azuga, Cheile Grădiștei). Cheile Grădiștei hosted an XCO European Championship and an e-bike World Cup. Speaking of this, e-bikes are huge here and you can either go session local trails or explore the mountains around, of which we have plenty. Some of the most epic rides are in Ciucaș, Piatra Craiului, Bucegi or Piatra Mare. Yes, normal MTB-ing can be done too, it depends on your fitness.

We also have fantastic scenic rides where you can ride a gravel bike on dirt roads, like Măgura, Peștera, the area of Bran or mangificent Holbav. Oh, Bran is where the famous vampire castle is, as we are in Transylvania. One of my favourite things to do, as a guide, with tourists, is start in Sinaia, use the cable car, cross the Bucegi mountains to Padina and then ride the epic Strunga descent to Șimon, do a quick tour of the Bran castle and then go have a nice dinner back in Brașov.

And if you get bored and want to ride different epic terrain, you can hop in the car and go to Avrig, Păltiniș, Băișoara or the Jiu Valley and there are even heli rides available, that operate in the Făgăraș, Țarcu and Bucegi mountains.

We have bike shops that are better than a lot that I have seen in the West, experienced mechanics, rental operations with good bikes (Santa Cruz, Evil, Trek, Specialized, Mondraker, Rocky Mountain, Polygon etc.) and also serious guiding operations with experienced personnel. 

I'd say we have it pretty good...

If you need more info or want to plan to ride here, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Cheers,
Mx

P. S.: I haven't done a calculation of living cost here, but I'd say prices are similar to what the Bulgarian colleague says above. Maybe housing is definitely more expensive, as Brașov is the second highest city in the country in his regard. A pizza downtown is 7-9 EUR, a kebab 6-8, a soup 5 and a beer 3-4 EUR. Roughly.

And to be fair, another place that I have been blown away by is Malino Brdo in Slovakia. Excellent prices, good food, fantastic local riding.

 

Williams Lake, BC

I was gonna suggest the Eastern Tennessee area.  WNC has gotten kinda crazy with prices recently but east TN is killing it.  There's soo much riding within a 45 minute drive from the Knoxville area.  Housing is cheap and the riding is year round.  I prefer the riding in Knoxville (they've done so much work on riding infrastructure) to Bentonville any day.  

I moved to Knoxville from Denver 5 years ago.  Zero regrets.  The west is great for looking at gorgeous mountains and for having over 300 days of rain-free riding per year.  But the trails, campsites, and cool towns are hella crowded.

Also, the toll of climate change on the Rockies is real, and the winters keep getting shorter and drier, and the smoke is getting more constant. I mean, we are all contributing to that, no matter where you live, with our car-centered life.  But when you are literally driving out 70, into the mountains to have fun, and that snow patch keeps getting smaller every season...I'm pretty sure I saw the same patterns in Utah, New Mexico, California, and the Northwest, particularly places like Tahoe and the Wasatch, felt, even more dry / fragile to me.

Anyway, Knoxville is great.  Halfway between Kanuga and Windrock, and pretty awesome local trails here.  Windrock is the best downhill bike park for serious downhillers in the US.   Besides that, I have 6 downhill-only trails, built and maintained free of charge, from my back door in South Knox.  And an asphalt pump-track.  If I just want to pedal, it's almost 40 miles of trails within the city limits.  There's lots of people who hate on this area of the country because of politics, but personally, I watched Colorado change from red to blue in the 15 years that I lived there, so it's possible here too.  Also, I've met plenty of people from minority groups here that grew up here, and refuse to leave, despite the menace of gun-toting Christian Nationalists, so, I guess a straight, white 50-something dude can hack it too.  

People are also real here--something that is often (thought not always) missing from trust-fund towns like Boulder and the ski resort towns of the west. 

If you're into fishing, boating, and some of the other motor-oriented outdoors stuff, or kayaking, frankly, the Southeast is hard to beat.  Climbers seem pretty happy here too.

In 2013 I bought my house for $130k (still live here). My closest local trail has 2200 feet of vert, with several more in that range just a few min away. The trail that I ride from my office parking lot has over 3k of vert. All of it excellent Enduro style riding. 

Since then my house has tripled in price. Its a shame that kids who grew up in this place cannot return from college and afford to live in the town they grew up in. 

This is such a loaded question. 
sea to sky and Vancouver island are expensive, but it’s a trade off for climate, trail access and the amount of activities close by. 
I can ride from my door almost year round. If/when we get snowed out the ski hill is 25 min drive. Winter surfing small wind swell is close, and good surf is a 2.5 hr drive.

Housing isn’t cheap and doesn’t make sense, but after living in a few places that didn’t provide a healthy work life balance we lucked into jobs in a great community. Sacrifice some affordability for what matters in the long term. 

2007, it was glorious.

Finale Ligure didn't seem that expensive when we visited (but it's hard to really gauge livability as a tourist), but I don't know what the job market would be like if you're actually wanting to make a living there and not just be a dirt bag. You might hit up the Misspent Summer dudes, as they actually live there at least part time. If you're talking the US, then I agree that Eastern Tennessee is where it's at. Also: regardless of the quality of riding, Bentonville definitely isn't cheap any longer, though some of the surrounding towns (within a 30 minute drive) aren't awful... but that kind of defeats the whole point of what makes Bentonville worthwhile (riding out your front door... once again... even if the riding isn't your cup of tea).