I have a buddy who is relocating to Denver to take a job with UC-Health Sciences Center at Fitzsimmons. He has two kids who will be starting school within two years. He would like to find a place with good schools and within 30 minutes of UC. From a recreational standpoint, he is more of a roadie now and would like to find some relatively cycle friendly places where he could ride from his house to the mountains.
He currently considering Parker and Littleton; his wife likes Golden, he is concerned about the traffic on 70 during the commute.
Where would he be driving to every morning? I’m assuming you mean the UC-Denver health center in Denver (University of Colorado is commonly used in referring to the Boulder campus).
I live in Golden. He most likely wouldn’t be driving on I-70 in the morning, but it’s really a non-issue as he’d be driving on Rte. 6, which is a highway and is bogged in the morning at certain times. I drive 6 into Denver every morning. Anyways, Golden sits at the base of the foothills and is great for riding from your door to the mountains - I do it all the time. His longest ride to a climb from his house via bike would most likely be 10 minutes, at best - and that’s on the very high side.
Commuting for Parker and Littleton will be more dicey because he’d be relegated to commuting in I-25, which are really heavily backed up during the normal rush hours. The majority of suburbian Denver is located in the south, where Littleton is, so the most cars are coming / going to those areas.
I think Golden is a good option, but I’m a single 25 year old with absolute no concept of the quality of the Golden school system (grew up in Boston, so didn’t go to schools here). PM me if you/he want(s) more info.
How is golden these days? I went to school there from 92-97 and really really liked it. I’ve heard its changed loads since then. It used to be a little podunk town for sure. The mountain and road biking was amazing. All in all, a top notch spot - E
Parker is too far from the mountains to really ride and too flat. In southwestern Littleton, you can do shorter rides at Chatfield reservoir or go up Deer Creek and High Grade. That’s a 14 mi climb only a few miles away. It was recently repaved so it’s much wider and now has shoulders to ride on.
On weekends during warm weather, there are a lot of cars parked at the base so people do drive to the climb. I found it’s a matter of balancing commuting to work/school and driving to ride.
The problem is that there simply is no good, fast way to get from the foothills to Fitzsimmons during rush hour. If they live in Golden, it’ll be I-70, which will back up quite a bit before downtown and then again at I-225 every day. If they live in Parker or Littleton, it’ll be I-25 or C-470, which also have heavy traffic. This is typically due to the fact that you’re traveling east into the sun, which is VERY bright here in the morning on most days. Of the three locations, I’d recommend Parker. I think he’d actually have to drive NW to get to 225, and then North up 225 to Colfax, so the sun problem might be less. However, I really have no idea how bad 225 gets in the morning or how bad 25 would be before 225.
Also, I have no idea what schools are like in any of the three locations. I’d imagine they’re pretty good. Colorado has pretty decent public schools from what I’ve heard, and these are three prime places to live, which would suggest to me that the schools would be at or near the top.
Since I know him and he hates to commute; what areas would you recommend? Having moved to Cleveland from ATL, I forgot about the challenges of commuting East in the AM.
The riding is definitely better in Littleton compared to Parker. I don’t commute on I-25 but I think you can pay to drive solo in the HOV/express lanes which might improve the commute.
I live in the Stapleton development, which is in east Denver, just west of Aurora, and maybe 2 miles from Fitzsimmons campus. Easy access to I-70 and good schools. I live blocks from Westerly Creek Elementary. It’s not the mountains, but the Sand Creek Trail is right there, which links or will link in the near future with other bike trails in Denver (I think Sand Creek is mostly unpaved, though, so would be best suited for mountain bikes, not road bikes).
I’ll be honest, you can’t ride right into the mountains from your front door, unless you want to ride clear across downtown (which I have done) But you can get to the plains of eastern Colorado very easily. There’s a bike route (with dedicated lanes) from my house to City Park (~halfway to downtown from Stapleton) and then wide bike routes from City Park to downtown. I frequently commute downtown by bicycle. For us, it’s the perfect compromise. I’d love to be able to ride the foothills outside my door, but the commute downtown would suck from anywhere else and would be difficult to do by bicycle from anywhere else (except maybe Littleton, which is easily reachable from downtown via the South Platte River Trail), and even Littleton is not right on the foothills.
To add to Steve’s comments. 225 heading North out of Parker isn’t too bad once you get past the actual Junction of 225 and Parker road. Heading south on 225 to DTC is a different story.
I also live in Stapleton and it would be really dang hard to beat the commute to Fitzimmons from Stapleton. My neighbors two doors down do it (both doctors there) and you could very easily bike there. As Steve mentioned though, you’re not getting much for hills right out your front door for riding. How many people actually have great riding out their front doors? (Yes, Slowman and Monty do, ok) Otherwise most folks have to deal with some traffic/bad roads/busy paths to get to the ‘prime’ riding. I usually resort to just driving up to Boulder (30-40min) park up there and ride my heart out.
Steve and Josh are right about the Stapleton development and it’s benefits of being in the city.
The thing that needs to be realized is that all riding in Colorado is relative. There will be great riding pretty close to whereever he may live. Josh mentioned something about riding up to Boulder, which I still do from time to time though I live in the foothills. Also, riding east from Denver (Stapleton) is a great training tool for Half IM’s to IM’s - you can go forever out there without really worrying about traffic. If he’s not the sort that hates riding on bike paths, from anywhere in Denver he can link up to the mountains pretty easily.
Driving east in the morning does suck as the sun can be ridiculous. Something to think about. And though some people think the commute out here is bad, it’s really not when compared to east coast cities, where I’m originally from. Most of the congestion out here seems to be because of the civil engineering and the highway design and less due to the amount of cars on the road.