Urban + Cycling (Denver, Boulder, Greenwood Village: apartment, condo, neighborhood)

[livecontent]

Originally Posted by 2bindenver

Actually is mostly Centennial, and close to Greenwood Village & Lone Tree.

Click for a Zip Code Boundary Map.

From Arapahoe to County Line/Lincoln & Quebec to nearly Parker Road.

If OP wants country roads - head east on Arapahoe Road, past Parker Road.

I still think OP would be happy in downtown Englewood. Highline Canal. Halfway between work and deer creek canyon or waterton canyon - or country roads in Aurora or Parker....

Yea, I think areas along the Southwest, near Chatfield and the High Line Canal would be nice, as you can have nice biking in the Plains and the foothills and easily get to work, just going west by car or even biking along the trail on 470. You would have access to the Waterton Canyon, the Platte, Chatfield Reservoir, and the trail that go off on Bear Creek into Bear Creek Park.

The High Line Canal Runs diagonally from Waterton Canyon, near Chatfield northeast to east of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, in Commerce City. I think it is about 50 plus miles because it meanders. However, some areas are more heavily used as community trails, so it would not work for someone who wants to bike fast and furious.

[woob]

Originally Posted by livecontent

Yea, I think areas along the Southwest, near Chatfield and the High Line Canal would be nice, as you can have nice biking in the Plains and the foothills and easily get to work, just going west by car or even biking along the trail on 470. You would have access to the Waterton Canyon, the Platte, Chatfield Reservoir, and the trail that go off on Bear Creek into Bear Creek Park.

OK I don't know anything about this area and didn't realize you would be this far south, so ignore everything I have said so far. You should be able to find some decent biking not far from here, but i'm not sure about urban downtown areas nearby. i'll let livecontent field that one.

[providmike]

Thanks for the advice!

This is going to be a real challenge. After living the past six years in a city with very high level of density and walk-ability the notion of living in a very suburban area is pretty scary, I must admit.

Primarily, moving to an area where the biking might be good but my social life as a single young professional could be dramatically uprooted. Of course equal to a social life, cycling two hundred miles a week for recreation is a must.

As reference the office is two miles from the light rail “country line” stop. This I assume allows easy access from denver and in between.

[2bindenver]

County Line Road Station.

The road that separates Arapahoe County from Douglas County.

Are you working in the Inverness Business Park?

Look into places off of Dry Creek like Villagio and Arapahoe Road.

Depending on your social needs; they could all be met just off a light rail stop.

[providmike]

Closer to Liberty Cir

[2bindenver]

by the airport.

[livecontent]

Liberty Circle--that is very far southeast in the metro area. You are not going to find a urban setting anywhere near here. You may have to try to get use to a different style of living, unless you want a longer commute. However, you will be near some very sparsely settled areas that will give you the open cycling road.

I would give some suggestion that will give you some sort of a town setting. You could live in the center of Parker. It has a little small area of shops. You job is really close to Lone Tree which is defined more by the dense areas around the Park Meadow Mall but to me it does not define a walkable urban area.

Another Little area that deserves mentioning is near the new redeveloped mall, call Streets of Southglenn in Centennial. Centennial is trying to create a city center here, at Arapahoe and University. It is an older neighborhood near this redeveloped mall and it has just had the Grand Opening. It has the new street scape environment of shops with condos and apartments interspersed. It really is not far down from the more Urban area where Arapahoe meets Broadway. Across Broadway to the West, a few miles, is the center of old Town Littleton. These areas off Broadway would be the closest real urban areas vs. the faux new urbanism.

You could live up on the commuter rail on a more dense station on the Southeast Line. As other have suggested you could take your bike on the train and finish your commute to your work, from County Line or Lincoln. That option would give you many more walkable urban environments, all the way up to downtown Denver.

If up on the rail was the option, I would choose to live at the closest, nicest, urban neighborhood to your job and that would be anywhere near University of Denver on Evans, around the University Station or the Louisiana-Pearl Station. The University Station will give you access to the hip areas around the university and the shops of Evans. The Louisiana-Pearl station would put you near the nice walkable neighborhood on South Pearl, in the Platte Park neighborhood. Or to the north, the trendy old area of Washington Park.

Livecontent

[vegaspilgrim]

Thank you, Livecontent! I can't believe it took 19 posts with people, with good hearts and intentions, rattling off info about "Englewood" until someone actually looked at the zip code and noticed it was actually the Centennial airport area. 95% of the time whenever someone on this board says they are relocating to Denver and their office is in "Englewood, CO," it's in the Tech Center, Centennial Airport, or Meridian areas.

I think Livecontent's suggestion of looking at the semi rural areas SE of the metro area is an interesting idea-- take a look at photo tour to see what this area looks like: http://www.city-data.com/forum/6705625-post7.html. However, I don't think it's what the OP had in mind. The first two requirements in his post were "urban" and "hip." That completely eliminates the whole SE metro area right off the bat. Second, most of the roads in the SE exurbs are not exactly quiet "country roads." These roads east of Parker, like Inspiration Dr, Pine Ln, Ponderosa Dr, Delbert, Flintwood, Tomahawk, Singing Hills Rd, CO-86, etc, have quite a bit of traffic volume, and most of them are extremely narrow with no shoulders. There are lesser travelled dirt roads in the area but they are in really bad shape, "washboard" conditions, and very few of them go through. Probably the best of the SE semi-rural areas for bicycling would be the town of Foxfield and the nearby communities of Chaparral and Chenango (which I believe are part of Centennial), as these areas have a much better road network with wide, paved, low traffic roads-- but we're talking rich McMansion conservative family-ville here, not even remotely urban.

I have three different ideas:

1. If I were you I would seriously investigate some of the condos/apartments that have been built recently right next to the Dry Creek & I-25 light rail station. That way you could potentially walk to work, walk to the light rail to downtown.

2. I have another idea. I know an acquaintance who's a hard core road cyclist-- he does the "triple bypass" tour every year, bicycles all over Colorado. He actually lives in SE Denver right next to the Cherry Creek trail, which is like a bicycle highway, near Yale. This is kind of an in-between place between the hip "urban" neighborhoods of Denver and the pure suburban/exurban sprawl of the southeast. From this location there's a number of bike paths and bicycle friendly streets that branch off that can get you all the way through Denver to some of the mountain canyon roads.

3. Live in the far southwest metro area, most of this is unincorporated Jefferson county but may have a "Littleton" address (think Columbine High School vicinity). You would have a commute along C-470 to get to work, but then from home you could bicycle right from your house to Chatfield park, Roxborough, Waterton Canyon, Deer Creek Canyon (which is practically a bicycle highway in its own right), Morrison, etc. It's all suburban and boring out there, but I can't think of a better location in the metro area for bicycling recreation.

[wankel7]

Originally Posted by providmike

Interesting - So you think I could live right downtown ( ish ) and jump onto the Platte River trail? ... is it good riding once you head to the countryside north or Englewood via the trail? Also a light rail commute would be pretty painless you think?

Very helpful.

That trail is flat. 0%-4% for short short durations. If you like averaging 18+ with lots of pedestrian traffic I guess it is fun. Maybe on weekdays it would be better and not weekends.

If you want to ride a bike with any sort of climbing involved your options are living west. Like Morrison, Golden, Boulder, and Evergreen. Also, southwest Littleton and Highlands ranch would put you in good warm up distance from Deer Creek Canyon. And once you ride up that you can ride anywhere.

[chilicheesefries]

Originally Posted by livecontent

Another Little area that deserves mentioning is near the new redeveloped mall, call Streets of Southglenn in Centennial. Centennial is trying to create a city center here, at Arapahoe and University. It is an older neighborhood near this redeveloped mall and it has just had the Grand Opening. It has the new street scape environment of shops with condos and apartments interspersed. It really is not far down from the more Urban area where Arapahoe meets Broadway. Across Broadway to the West, a few miles, is the center of old Town Littleton. These areas off Broadway would be the closest real urban areas vs. the faux new urbanism.Livecontent

Grand opening is still a few weeks away. The bigger stores are open, but most of the smaller ones aren't yet save for one or two. Walked through it today. It's really neat how they have so many flower beds and fountains. Hopefully it stays that way!