Sheesh is right,

while it can get very cold in Fairbanks it usually is not too bad. The super cold comes in "snaps" and lasts only a short time. And there are plenty of homes with running water- most of the folks I know up there live in dry cabins but that is for money saving. The love it or hate it is absolutely true too. I'm from coastal Alaska and find the interior to be too dry- especially in winter, the cold zaps the moisture right out. In fact Fairbanks is a fairly dry place in general- because it sits between two mountain ranges, the Brooks in the north and the Alaska range in the south, it only gets around 14 inches of precipitation per year - this includes snow fall.

But there is a 'hip' community of folks up there who love the place. It is the only university in Alaska in which you can get a PhD and there are a lot of folks studying very interesting things, such as the northern lights. It is also a military town to some degree- there is an army base and an air force base near by. Fairbanks is an interior hub for many of the smaller surrounding villages.

Cycling in the summer would be good. I commute by bike in Anchorage in the winter (which is much warmer than Fairbanks) and find that most days it is fine- however, I don't know that I would be cycling year round in Fairbanks.

On clear days you can see the Alaska range in the south - even Denali (Mt. McKinley to non-Alaskans). But FAI (the airport code for Fairbanks) is not in the mountains. It does have some rolling hills surrounding it but town proper is in a big river valley. A couple of rivers flow through town and in the winter they freeze over and become another road for people to drive their cars on.
Cars by the way are outfitted with block heaters (an easy retrofit) so that they can be plugged in during the cold weather so that you can start them.

Being on the valley floor in winter can mean that you experience the temperature inversion, where it is colder at the bottom and the warmer up the hillside, so if you move up, you may want to look for a place up on the hill. It is usually only a matter of a few degrees, but for someone like me that would be noticeable.

Again, hope this helps.