What's Riding/Racing Like In Southern California?

[Fredwina]

Yogabear,
Thought I'd add my two cents agian
about a year and 9 months ago , I moved to Socal (Duck rotten tomato thrown by BCIPam ) from Hershey, PA
At that time I was unemployed and it sounded better than nothing.
Housing - I call it the 1/3 rule 1/3 less for 1/3 more. That, and I live a far bit away from work. My job is in El Monte, which is a city in the San Gabriel Valley that's seen better times. I could have gotten a place cheaper and closer, but was not impressed with what I saw.
Riding -aside from being "goldlilocks" with the groups,(The pace of the local group rides was either too fast or too slow, and having a monster commutte (darn!), you can get in more riding. You don't have to put up your bike from November until March. Velogirl, one of my ridng partners told smog builds strong lungs (The wind usaully comes in from the coast, and blows all the emissons east into San Bernardino/Riverside, where the mountian trap it)
Haven't been to NorCal, but I've been to Solvang/Lompoc a couple of times. It seems like the Central coast area would be the idea mix of weather, terrain, and urbanization (enough to have stuff reasonably close by, but you can get of town and onto some country roads

[Brandy]

Yogabear...if you choose to move to so Cal, we would love to have you join us on rides. We have a very, very active group of WONDERFUL people that we ride with from the Bike Forums group. We're a chatty bunch and Joe, the owner of BF finally gave in (thanks to caligurl!!!) and gave us regional forums over there...we certainly take advantage of them. It's mostly men with a few of us gurls to provide much needed variety and fashion sense...lol, but they've been nothing but supportive, welcoming, funny and wonderful to me as a new rider.

http://www.bikeforums.net/forumdisplay.php?f=236

[Tiffanie]

I back that up 100%

[yogabear]

Brandy,

Thanks, I will keep all of this in mind

Hugs!