Hey all,
Thinking about moving to Moscow (university of Idaho) for school. What’s the athletic community like there? Can you ride year round? How rough are the winters? Rain? Good pools? Good group rides? Good running?
Thanks!
UoI… I went to school just up the road at Eastern. Winters can get rough but still think it’s a great area. You might want to check out the Badlands Cycling Club. They seem to be one of the more active groups in the area.
If you are looking for some great NW areas that are more year around check into the schools in Northwestern Oregon. Great year around cycling/running community and a good tri scene also. Another consideration is the Vancouver BC area… between UBC and Simon Fraser.
Jay
I went to WSU which is about 8 miles away. I graduated a number of years ago so I don’t know what the athletic community is like these days. I do know that there are multiple excellent indoor pools, at least at WSU, not so sure about UI.
The extent of my cycling in those days was riding my MTB around campus, but I think you could ride most of the year outside. It’s much drier in that area than over in Seattle. It gets pretty damn cold in Jan and Feb so the snow will stick around for a while. When you can ride there is some beautiful riding though. Do a search on “Palouse” and you will see what kind of beautiful rolling terrain you would be riding on. Going farther East into Idaho you get a little more mountainous terrain as well. Just outside of town you can get some serious climbing in if you ride down to the Snake River and back. There are a ton of decent, little to no traffic roads out there. I wish I was into road cycling back in those days, there really is a ton to explore in that area.
Edit: Did a quick search and found these links which I’m sure you already have:
http://stuorgs.uidaho.edu/~uicycling/
u of i has some pretty fast tri guys in their tri club as well
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Much drier than Seattle – that’s what I like to hear. As far as winter goes, can you run/ride outside or does the snow and ice mean two months of no outdoor training? And during winter, does it rain a lot or is it mainly cold? I live near Seattle currently, and would like to get away from the continual rain rain rain rain.
it really doesnt rain that much. yes there will be two or so months of no outdoor cycling but you can run if you dress up properly.
Thanks for the links.
Agreed, hardly any rain. The problem is it snows once and it’s so cold it just sticks around for a while. Although one or two winters I had there it didn’t really snow much at all, I think that was unusual though. There was one or two winters when the temp got below zero, but that was only for a day or two. With all of the indoor recreational facilities I don’t think it’s a huge deal. Living in Seattle now, I would much rather live over there for winter training. Not sure of any specific areas but I’m sure there is some very good X-country skiing nearby as well.