Whats the cheapest place to live and mountain bike

......shhhhhhhh🤫

This. My job doesn’t exist outside of major cities so the debate about cost of living is moot (at least for me). Moved to SF after school 20 years ago so I could surf everyday, then discovered bikes 6 years ago and couldn’t believe my luck. We can ride year round and there are legit trails within 30 minutes in every direction.

Yeah I think you gotta consider that wherever you go there's (usually) gonna be an inverse ratio for cheapness and quality of trails. Finding that sweet spot is difficult and depends on what you value more. That being said, there are loads of spots in the Southeast that are pretty great. If you're ok with ~an hour of travel for your weekend rides, just pick a spot with decent local trails that's within an hour or two of Asheville, Knoxville, etc. Or WV. Lots of good stuff out here and if you hunt around there's reasonable housing.

I'll throw out a sleeper that I was interested in, the area around Harrisonburg VA has a lot within an hour or two. The trails by Reddish Knob are pretty great and you have Snowshoe like 2 hours away. It's not Asheville, and I wouldn't get a place in Hburg itself, but if you don't mind the south, you could do a lot worse.

Kimberley BC. Cheaper than all mountain towns in southern half of BC. Pretty darn good biking. Much from your door. $400k CDN for a house. 

Golden BC. Next cheapest. $500k for the cheapest house. World class riding from your door. Quiet on the trails. 

Northern BC. Terrace, Williams lake, etc. cheaper than Kimberley. Great riding. 

Generally low, but acts of intimidation (which is what open gun-carrying is, btw), and race-related terrorism are highest among white men. 

I googled it for you:

 "right-wing extremists have perpetrated the majority of terrorist attacks and plots in the United States, accounting for roughly 57% of incidents between 1994 and 2020 according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). In terms of personal demographics (such as race and citizenship), the vast majority of domestic terrorism offenders in the U.S. are U.S.-born citizens and predominantly White. [1, 2, 3]"

But yeah, voter-intimidation, and political disenfranchisement are much more common in the South than elsewhere.  But I imagine you're ok with that?

Maybe we can all rent Subarus?  That checks-out.

Citing Vox? Let me cite the Daily Wire in response. 

"This place is awesome, except the people who made it that way" is an attitude I'll never understand.  Generalizing an entire population because of Hollywood stereotypes is breathtaking. 

All those towns are sick, but you must love winter as well. arguably better skiing. 

Gotta mix it up to keep things fresh

Trail or Warfield BC.  Ten minute drive to Rossland, hour drive to Nelson, riding in Castlegar, Salmo, etc.  

I do somewhat agree that Western NC is a bit pricey, but compared to a lot of other outdoor destination areas its really not that bad. Sadly, housing cost are what they are these days. The greater Asheville area seems really solid on a number of levels. Economy seems pretty solid, especially compared to other south eastern Appalachia areas, and culturally it has quite a lot to offer. Also you have easy access to more great riding the mid Atlantic and northeast! 

My wife and I are looking to move there in the next year or so, looking more towards the Fletcher/Arden area so we can be close to both Asheville and Brevard. I still need to be able to get back to Atlanta pretty regularly, want an easy drive to great trails, and I don't want to leave all the nice parts of living in a city behind. Im exited, I love it up there. 

if you want to be able to ride year-round (and sure, it's a bit colder in winter and hotter in summer), western nc is hard to beat. rock creek, windrock both open year-round. kanuga too. i love in charlotte-as some other have said my job is tied to bigger cities-and feel like it's pretty good. glad we got in 20 years ago. wide variety of trail systems in a 30-mile radius. and 2-ish hours to lots of hills. somewhere like morganton seems nice if you don't need the bigger city for a job-close to the best backcountry in the state and a variety of lift/shuttle not too far. or black mountain area. or bryson city. knoxville could also be up there. no one has mentioned roanoke. good riding there. and not far to snowshoe, va dh places. 

How does someone even make this work? Are the doors open to other western countries? I'd assume learning the local language would be a must as well. But that area is insanely beautiful! 

They are open to anyone, you can search the youtube and you will find more and more people vlogging their italian home renovations. Italy has a lot of hilly rural areas with terrible demographics and very little traditional economic prospect and therefore the real estate price variation is absolutely ridiculous for a developed country (appartments easily cost 10-15x more in the city centers, for example of Milano). Few years ago they were even selling houses for like 1€ trying to attract people to live in the areas with worst demographics (like central Sicily), but there were terms like that you have to move there permanently etc. I mean you will learn the language after some time, I actually follow one of the first moved to Italy vloggers and he said his italian is still super basic as the people working in the services he mostly needs speak enough english.

If you want to come to Italy, you have to know there are parts of it that have now living costs as high as Switzerland. 
South Tyrol, my home, is now unaffordable due to the overwhelming tourism. The bloddy dolomites get trampled over and the results are skyrocketing prices. Think of Jackson hole!

But there are plenty of old houses and terrain left behind in other zones. Buying there isn't or shouldn't be a problem. Actually there are zones, where you can buy 1€ houses in Italy as they are confronted with dying towns, especially in the areas where there is no work. In certain areas you will get a contribution from the municipalities if you are willing to establish your residence there!

The problems start after you've bought. Bureaucracy while renovating, missing infrastructure and a very old population especially in remote "bikingfriendly" regions makes it a little hard to get things moving.
However, if you buy in a cheap region, the cost of living is also cheap. There are still places where the espresso costs 1€, we here are paying 2€.
(In Italy, espresso prices are a totally legitimate benchmark for comparing the cost of living, lol)

But the difficulty will be finding a decent paying job. If you wanna buy in Italy, I reckon you should have some remote job, where you get decently paid. Because the salaries in general are utterly sh!t. Oh, and the taxes are high, everything you earn over 50k will be taxed with 43%!

Obviously you HAVE TO learn italian. I am constantly shocked that even here in South Tyrol, most Italian-speaking Italians (more than half of the people in South Tyrol, including me, speak German btw.) can or will speak only Italian—regardless of whether they are young or old.

Italy is a land of contrasts:
A beautiful country that has something to offer for everyone—biking, climbing, skiing, Italian culture, THE FOOD—yet as a place to live, it’s a country that demands a lot from you.

Blows my mind that people move to another country and hardly bother to learn the language. Don't be that person, dive in!

I don't see myself ever moving to Italy, but I would love to stay for a month or two on the northern coast. Ride all day, and then just east pasta and seafood every night. 

Spokane is underrated.  Also close to the Silver bike park, which has some of the best lift served tech-jank in North America.

I was under contract on a house in the valley and the seller wouldn't sign the title over, so my contract expired and I lost all my earnest money. Super bummer. But the riding out there seems pretty rad... And is it true you're closer to a lot of interior BC stuff than people that in vancouver?

Isn't the point of "earnest money" to prove that the buyer is earnest and sincere in their intention to buy the house? In my experience it is held in escrow, and if some issue beyond the buyer's control or agreement comes up that prevents the sale then it is refunded to the buyer. It would seem like the seller refusing to complete the sale would qualify as an issue beyond the buyer's control. The only situation where I could see them keeping the earnest money is if the buyer was demanding some further concessions or changes to the contract that were beyond the original scope, and the seller refused to accept the modified agreement.

I'd say this is the way.
Or you are one lucky rich mf'er that is able to take advantage of the flat-rate tax system for foreign nationals. 300k taxes per year that is, no questions asked. 🤑

Depends on the type of riding (more trails vs bike parks). If you already have a job, places in Italy like southern Piedmont or western Liguria offer a lot of riding year-round (it barely snows at medium altitudes even in winter nowadays, and you can often ride enduro trails year-round below 1000m). It's close to the sea and there are many smaller bike parks (also just on the other side of the border with France). It's a relatively short drive to Aosta valley, French big bike parks (Morzine etc..), and Switzerland, especially compared with US standards. Cost of living will be mostly low. As mentioned before, that's where Paul Aston is living. Entire different story if you need to find a job.

Trail BC has some pretty cheap real estate if you want to buy a 100 year old mining shack in the shadow of the smelter. Endless great ridinig all around, with a bike park too.  Killer skiing

Just south of there for our American friends, northern Idaho is pretty cheap.  Lots of riding around Sandpoint but it's pretty expensive.

Southern Quebec in general has a ton of trails.  The Quebec governement is putting a lot of resources into developing trails as community ammenities and as tourism infrastructure.  There's a pretty involved riding and building community in the more popular areas, so there's a ton of building going on.  It's cheaper than a lot of other places in Canada because of, in short, Quebec politics.  Especially if you live outside of the main population centres.  Winters are long, skiing generally marginal by western standards.  Helps if you speak French, but not a total stopper if you don't.  Almost everyone speaks some English.

Mena Arkansas is going to get a good size lift access bike park with a high speed lift next year.  Real estate speculation has already started, but it's pretty cheap by most comparisons.  Not a ton of trails there yet, but I think there will be more and more as the riding scene develops.

East Burke/Kingdom Trails/Burke Mountain has a lot of riding, and there's a lot of building going on there right now.  Expensive to live in town, but cheaper the further out of town you get.  Burke Mountain is going to be a spot in the years to come

Roanoke is where I'm at it does have a lot, and a burgeoning rider community that recently put in quite a bit of work on a local spot to make some jump lines that wouldn't look out of place at Kanuga. You still have your typical issues with a smaller community, not as much available work to keep up with maintenance, that kinda thing.

I'll be curious to see how Mena develops. Tons of potential there. I have no doubt that it will have some awesome jump and flow trails, as the OzTrails Bikepark already does. The real separator will be if they have the steeps and then use those steeps to develop interesting/difficult trails. That's the main thing that's lacking at the park in Bentonville, but the terrain doesn't really allow for much in the way of steep/difficult trails (I'm thinking trails like Chillin, Supreme, Upper Boogie, etc.. at Angelfire). If they can build in trails of that caliber, then I'll be very happy.

A few people have mentioned the biggest spots that come to mind for me:

-East TN.  I lived in Johnson City for a year after college and it was a bit of a cultural oasis in an otherwise very white washed area.  It has since grown up a lot in a good way and the things we didn't like about the area that caused us to move have been resolved.  Great access to mountain biking in asheville 45 minutes away and roughly 1/3 of the cost of living.  I lived there 20 years ago, and the downhill scene has blown up and is pretty freekin solid in ways it wasn't back then.  

-UP Michigan - Copper Harbor etc.  I'm originally from Green Bay Wisconsin so I used to go to this area to ski and see my sister whom went to school in Houghton Michigan.  That area has blown up with really progressive trail building and pretty awesome terrain.  It is still relatively cheap to live there and the only draw back is access to major airports and cold.  

If I were choosing between both I would pick East TN.  Mostly for the weather, but partially because you can still access riding that has long, sustained speed downhills.  That's the one thing I miss when I go back to the midwest (michigan, wisconsin or indiana) to visit family and ride.  There is very little that gives you the sensation of sustained speed... that's not something I would have realized that I would miss... but once you ride out west and you can get that itch scratched, it's hard to go without it.  

We recently moved from Brevard to Fletcher and really love it. Brevard was great when we were childless and constantly in the forest, but now we have two kids and we value our time more than ever. We have better access to shopping, daycare, the airport and arguably trails. It's 15 minutes into North Mills River, 20 minutes to Bent Creek, 25 minutes to Rock Creek, 30 - 40 minutes to DuPont/Kanuga area, and 25 minutes from The Hub in Brevard and that trail network. Housing costs were lower than Brevard and Asheville so we got more house for the money, and one that was updated and mostly move-in-ready. We rent the Brevard house because we figure if we sell it now we won't be able to afford moving back when we're older.

The poor old lady lost her husband and was going to the lose the house. She didn't want to sell/move and the deal expired so the title company was trying to blame me as the problem. I argued with the title company and they refunded me 1k, but that was it. I just walked since it was such a sad situation and bad agent not telling me how unstable the seller was.

Oh, so the picture is from UT? southern, Eastern???