how's the Bend car scene?

[djjerme]

I was in Bend two weeks ago running CLR, and go there fairly regularly.. I'll second what J Mid said. Though, over the last 10 years, it's slowly turning in to Tahoe (Californian idea of what a small town SHOULD be.) Complete with made up history and tons of overpriced "modern" housing that is nothing more than Architectural masturbation.

Luckily, Bachelor is still good, there's plenty of single track trails, and the High Desert Museum is fun for the kiddo..

[Pdxseth]

Oregon sucks cali is much nicer. Stay there.


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[Matt-B]

yea, cali is way better man.


much more lax on vehicle rules

[BK544E34]

At least there is a car scene in Cali.

[misterTT]

Yes to most of the things said thus far in this thread. Some people love it here, some people hate it. Lots of Seattle and SF folks moving here or buying vacation homes.

A huge part of the equation would be what you plan to do for work. There are basically three categories of jobs in the area: Tourism (Beer, Bikes, Snow, Restaurants, mostly min. wage) Construction (an absurd percentage of the population are subcontractors of some sort tied to the residential boom), and misc. entrepreneurs. I'm finding that smart, talented, devoted people find a way to make it here, but it often means starting your own business. I wouldn't want to try to live here on an 'average' salary - the housing costs are too high, and you'd end up living in Redmond or way out east. Not so good.

Also, they do not salt the roads in central oregon. Not sure what the dude on page 2 was thinking, but that just doesn't happen. They mine volcanic cinder and use that on the roads, which is great in that it doesn't encourage rust, but not so great as you get a billion tiny paint chips over the winter.

About cars, Bend has (apparently) the highest per-capita Porsche ownership of any city in america. The local PCA is super active with drives, but not much in the way of vintage BMW culture. There's a great shop called GMT that's the hub for german sports cars. So, it would be a nice place to have a high dollar Porsche or similar, but nothing special if you aren't rolling in money. There's also newer road track called ORP that's a couple hours away - closer than PIR, cheaper track days, and pretty challenging. Very popular with sport bikes. There used to be an Auto-X club in town, but that's long since disbanded. So, no AutoX at all unless you go to Eugene. I wish there was a RallyX presence - lots of good forest roads for that here, but I guess the audience just isn't there.

Oh yeah - e30s are fine in the snow, just buy a set of studded snow tires on basketweaves and leave them on for 4 months or so. I had several days last year that the e30 couldn't handle, but that's because I was too low.

Nearly everyone owns a subaru of some sort, or else a lifted bro truck.

Definitely make a trip here - once in summer and once in winter - before thinking of moving. You'll either get it or won't.

Also, Highway 242 is one of the most incredible driving roads i've ever seen, less than an hour from town.