How is the road scene there? Good roads, rides, races, clubs, decent weather? I'm looking to move there from the Denver area.

topica.com and search for the OBRA email board. Also go onto www.obra.com for race information.

The riding in Oregon is pretty Awesome, as well as pretty hard sometimes. Allot of riding in the Portland area, and allot of different group rides.

As quoted from the OBRA Topica site:

'People should also recognize that Oregon is far more user friendly to the
beginning racers than just about anywhere else. Low membership costs,
several races series, large numbers of varied events, etc. make it easier to
become a bike racer here. That is one of the reason we have more bike
racers per capita then the rest of the US by a factor of 5-10'.

During the summer, including velodrome, you could race almost every day in Portland.
Knock yourself out!

hrv

Here is the schedule of races in oregon this year... This includes just about every type of bike racing.

http://www.obra.org/schedule/2004/index.html

The race turn out for road and mtb racing is 100 to 300 at any given race. The Cyclocross turn out is 400 to 600 for CrossCrusade.

For photos of racing in Oregon check out.

www.oregonvelo.com

Enjoy.

Portland is great. The City transportation department treats bikes as one of the regular modes of transportation, along with cars, transit, and even skateboards, I think.

It's easy to get around Portland and out of town into some nice rural riding. For example, weekly rides leave from downtown at lunchtime and are up into hills and semi-rural roads in about 15 minutes.