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I was just thinking about where I lived and where I live.

Calgary, Alberta is my home and I was just thinking about it and thought this would make a good topic for the winter blues.

Calgary... To the east you have the most beautiful mountain scenery in all Canada, lakes, hiking, skiing in winter, fishing and awesome roads. To the South you have foothills, rolling over the ranches. To the North you have dark, rich, black soil farms, little towns and great camping spots. To the West you have the praries, jaw dropping landscapes that follow the curve of the earth under always sunny clear skies and yellow Canola, brown hay and green pastures that go on forever.

As the song goes, give me land, lots of land…

My favourite riding is to the East, it's amazing how flat it is out there, how fresh the air is, how beautiful it is and you really feel free riding there as there are very few people around. Sometimes I'll pull off the road and sit on the shoulder to listen to the silence, save the grasshoppers, birds and bees in the summer. In the winter you can hear yourself take a breath it's that quiet. Not that I love absolute quiet, but it's something to experience for a short time.

Mike

Lets see... to be honest... the SHEAR number of places to eat and variety of food here is top on the list.

Central Illinois also boasts some of the best Whitetail hunting in the world, GREAT waterfowl hunting, good bluegill fishing, morel hunting, dove hunting. Well.. generally lots of woodsy things. I also have great friends here, a great church here, in the middle of all my family. Its really just a nice place to live... despite the -20 degree weather today.

I have lived in and ridden across all of Canada and even though I now live in Ontario, my heart will always be in the prairies. Two of my most favourite spots are the Qu'Appelle Valley in Saskatchewan and Kananaskis Country in Alberta.

Where I live now is nice, though, only 40 minutes away from the eastern shores of Lake Huron and the same distance south from Georgian Bay. The scenery here is amazing, the roads are plentiful and there are a lot of bikes in the summer. Within a 2 hour radius are a couple of good microbreweries, a cheese factory, some incredible restaurants, a few great bike shops, seven scenic waterfalls, some of the best ATV/snowmobile trails in the country, a local butcher that cuts bigass steaks MY way from local free range cattle, lots of historic sites, neat antique shops and much more.

Year round riding and flying weather. When I'm not working, chances are good I'm either out riding or flying. Right now it's 5 PM and 75F. I'm getting ready to enjoy a leisurely ride home from work.

In the summer, when temps start topping 110F, I'm less than an hour's ride to cool, twisty mountain roads. The heat is also a good excuse to load some camping gear on the bike for a summer road trip to the northern rockies.

Insignificant amount of traffic, low amount of LEOs and every kind of riding except coastal within an hour's ride.

Great food and drink 24/7, all the Casinos.
No income tax, not yet I bet it is coming.

Temp makes for year round riding, a couple bad weeks a year.

totalmotorcycle wrote:
Calgary... To the east you have the most beautiful mountain scenery in all Canada, lakes, hiking, skiing in winter, fishing and awesome roads. To the South you have foothills, rolling over the ranches. To the North you have dark, rich, black soil farms, little towns and great camping spots. To the West you have the praries, jaw dropping landscapes that follow the curve of the earth under always sunny clear skies and yellow Canola, brown hay and green pastures that go on forever.


Mike

Did they move Cowtown to Vancouver Island? Last time I was there, the mountains were to the west and the prairies were to the east. Either way, you can have Calgary and Alberta, coz compared to BC, you got nothing.

Mountain views? Just gotta look out my window or ride half an hour and I am in them. Or I could just go west a few minutes and theres the ocean. A quick ferry ride and I am cruising the Island, or one of the many smaller Gulf Islands or even the Sunshine coast. Go 3 hours east into the mountains and you are in the Okangan with its high mountain deserts and grasslands. Go up to the north east corner on BC and you are in big sky territory....We are blessed and spoiled for choice here in BC.

Where else in Canada or even in the world is possible to golf in the morning, fish in the afternoon (either fresh water or ocean, your choice) and ski in the evening. Plus you can usually ride year round if you live on the south-west coast.

BBQ

The cold steel and stone skyline of NYC really gets me into those film noir detective moods during the winter months with an overcast sky. Night time works too. The transit is decent when the snow falls and I cannot ride. Lastly the girls out and about on weekends, gotta enjoy some eye candy being single and all.

Of course there'll be prick cops (the one that gave me a summons for leaving Central Park 5 minutes late past "closing" keeping me in the park for 25 more minutes).

The plane crash in the Hudson though shows me the true blue police officers and other first responders so I guess I still respect them.

Riding all year round, the twisties, the food, the 38 bus line (live entertainment watching crazy people), and lane splitting/sharing!!!