I currently live in Fairfield, work in New Haven, hate wasting 1:15 every day commuting. I’m currently mooching off my parents, as I graduated from college May 07, and Its time to get out.
Anyone here live in New Haven? I work by the green, would like to get a place where I could either walk or ride to work year round. Don’t wanna rent an apt, I wanna get a condo, or a loft, or something, but thats not really important
How is it training in New Haven. Can you find enough roads without constantly stopping at lights and crosswalks? How far until you get outta the city part, and can go for long rides and not have to deal with traffic and stuff.
Maybe New Haven isnt the best place, I dont know, what about Orange, West Haven, any ideas people?
How do you train? I may just stop by Devil’s Gear and ask those guys about it too- but anything you can give me would help
If you dont want people to know where you live, PM me, I’m just brainstorming, trying to figure things out. Thanks all
New Haven you have to watch where you live. Near the school there are some good places but other places you need to be careful. I would stay away from any places just north or west of the school.
Orange seems to be a nice town and would be my personal pick. There was a previous thread about good training locations in the New Haven area.
I don’t live there now, but spent 4 years at yale (01-05). Check out the Yale cycling website (http://www.yale.edu/cycling/2009/) to get an idea of where to ride. I used to ride the Little City 50 mile loop on the ride map page about once a week. Gets you out of the city in about 3-4 miles, and there are some nice little climbs in there (including one half-mile climb at about 12%). All told, cycling around New Haven isn’t too bad.
I’m not really much help in the way of condos, though. I rented an apartment or house near campus. There may be some options in Westville (near west rock state park and the Yale athletic fields) that are only a couple miles from the green.
I lived in New Haven for years. I didn’t ride seriously then and I don’t think the city is particularly good for riding, but follow the suggestion of checking Yale’s cycling site. They have lots of good routes on-line. The shoreline area east of New Haven is a great area to ride (and run). You have to go north a bit to Durham, Killingworth and Haddam to get good hills, though.
New Haven has a tri club - Shoreline Sharks.
I did find that New Haven was a pretty good place to run, however.
There is masters swimming at Yale - I think you can still pay per diem if you want. There is also masters swimming at Hopkins - a prep school in Westville.
I just moved to New Haven myself in August for grad school. Its a great city to bike commute but not so good for training until you get out of the city, then there are some great roads you can ride to and on. New Haven is pretty small so getting out is no problem. On tuesdays during warmer weather there’s a group ride leaving from Hamden (8 miles from my apt in New Haven, good warm up anyway) that attracts a pretty fast group and teaches you the area. There’s another, more casual, ride leaving from D’anello’s (sp?) Bike Shop in Woodbridge on tuesdays (also a great shop with a great owner). Running is fine, Orange St. has a bike lane that I run in from downtown, up east rock mtn and for as far as i want to go. Also masters swimming at Choate Prep. Besides mustering the motivation, I’ve had no problems training in New Haven. PM me if you want more info.
I lived in New Haven and Hamden for about 5 years and recently moved to Texas. I miss it. If you want to stay close to the city, I would recommend anywhere directly north of downtown (stay close to whitney ave). There are mostly older homes, but you could probably buy half of a duplex. You could ride / bus to work from here, and you have easy access to some great training grounds. I used to ride through Bethany and Chesire. Lights are not a problem here. If you ride north, you have a bit of traffic, but only for about 2 miles before it thins out. Also, you’re pretty close to Sleeping Giant St Park here - great trail running. Westville is nice, but you have to get through some rough areas to get to the green (I wouldn’t do it on a bike).
Thanks guys,
All good things to consider. Now I just have to get off my ass, and stop eating my parents food long enough to actually make some decisions.
I’m definetly going to bug some of you in the not-so-distant-future.
Many good points above.
I live in New Haven. Don’t train as much now, but have a lot in the past. Cycling is nice once you get out of New Haven; generally going north or east. The yale cycling team is a graet resource, especially the saturday ride. If you do live somewhere outside New Haven, I would choose something in those directions to facilitate access to nice roads.
Running is OK, not great. Really have to watch for traffic and muggers, even in good areas.
Swimming - there is a Yale masters group; I swam with them for a year or so. Somewhat worth it. I hated the yale pool because it was so cold, though.
Good luck,
tom