“Scouting out areas to move to,” that sounds ambitious. Hell, I picked up and drove west just after New Year’s Day 1990, and haven’t looked back. The western U.S. sorta grows on a certain mentality, IMHO. Others can’t handle it. I’d invite those who can’t straight back to the east coast or Midwest.
Out west, L.A., San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle are, south to north, four areas with different lifestyle, climate, and riding conditions you may wish to consider.
For street and track riding, I find the SF Bay Area tops. Endless back country roads with good run-off and few police patrols make for outstanding rides. Sears Point, Thunderhill, Buttonwillow, and Laguna Seca racetracks are within reach, also.
California life is a vast topic unto itself, beyond the scope of your question. There are significant plusses and minuses. I’d not trade the seven years I lived there for anything, but the highlight for me was definitely the riding more than anything.
Portland is part of the whole Oregon thing. Oregon’s a unique phenomenon, discreet from Washington and certainly unlike California. There are worse places to live, with good riding and a milder climate than Seattle. That, too, is another story but just FYI.
Lee outlined Seattle’s climate well. I’m a 12K miles/year kind of rider these days, not nearly as much as perhaps ten years ago. One cannot live here and fear rain riding: it can, and will, rain almost any time from about November to June, waxing and waning at either end in a typical week. Summers are stupendous, with mild temps and low humidity. These are the best summers in the U.S., IMHO, and people emerge like locusts from under rocks to ride, drive, swim, boat, etc. like mad the five months or so it lasts.
I’m also in agreement with Lee on winter riding; rain riding takes both correct gear and mindset. Without, it is uncomfortable at best and lethal at worst. “Almost” is not good enough. Roadcrafter-anything comes to mind as proper rain-riding gear. Riding these freeways during commute hours in the dark and pouring rain takes absolute confidence, cat-like reflexes, and a nose for trouble (experience/observation skills) to react before problems start. Still, fate sometimes deals us out in immediate and gruesome ways. I must admit to mostly being a cager in the wet months, choosing to work at odd hours and beat the commute issues.
The “scenic and peaceful” shots you mention were taken in the summer. The area’s scenic and peaceful because few human beings choose to brave the elements most of the year, leaving much of the area pristine. If you’ve ever been to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, you understand what I mean. The Cascades are some of the roughest country in the United States. Living in the rain shadow 25 miles as the crow flies west of the Cascades is one thing, living amongst or beyond those mountains another.
Highway 20 (North Cascades Highway) is a great example: for a few months in the summer, one of the most spectacular rides in the PacNW. In the winter, occasional rockfalls and more-frequent avalanches make it unsuitable for man or beast. Some of the towns west from Winthrop all the way through the mountains west are outposts of very harsh weather indeed. When it isn’t snowing, it’s raining most of the time from roughly mid-November through early May.
Skiing, back-country hiking and camping, dirt-biking, hunting, and four-wheeling are other activities one may enjoy in the Pacific NW, if you’re the outdoorsman type.
Street riding: there are great street rides around here, from the B.C. border all the way south to Oregon and beyond. Deer can be a problem, as can gravel/moss/other road slime. Runoff generally sucks on WA roads, and they aren’t as wide as those in California. The thick brush always tries to reclaim the roads, one way or another, and I’d imagine road crews spend all summer just keeping it at bay on the major byways.
The three tracks of note are Pacific Raceways, Spokane, and Portland. I like PR a lot, finding it favors mid-to-smaller bikes. Portland favors horsepower but flows together very well. I’ve not yet ridden Spokane.
Washington’s a unique state, with advantages and disadvantages. From a pure riding standpoint, it’s decent but there are better places. However, combined with quality of life factors (economy, housing, entertainment, etc.), I find it hard to beat.
-=DRB=-