I love where I live because it is reasonable biking distance (or a short ride to a BART stop) to most of the major attractions in the Bay Area. My work is only 4-5 miles away and I do frequently ride there in the summer. In fact, I\'m gonna hop on the bike again tomorrow. I haven\'t been doing nearly the amount of riding I used to do.
As for Northeast biking, many of the roads are old and narrow country roads that do not safely accomodate bikes. Out here, you can piece together safe passage on bike lanes/trails to any city you wish to bike to. The cities out here also have serious committees and resources for adding new lanes designated for bikes. The new Bay Bridge (under construction) will have bike lanes suspended off the side of the bridge for travel between OAK/SF. There are 500 miles of bay shoreline and they are halfway to the goal of providing bike access to all of those miles. Pretty ser stuff. But the Bay Area is pretty compact along the inner bay and the weather is conducive to biking most of the year round.
There are so many bikes on the road now, especially in SF. I tried to go to a free music festival in Golden Gate Park last summer but there was no place to chain up, as there were an estimated 10,000 bikes chained up all over the place. Unfortunately, many of the hardcore bikers are radical assholes who have no respect for safety on the road and always instigate problems with cars. I have almost kicked some spandex-clad faggot ass on many occasions.
