u/PradeshPi

One thing that has surprised us since moving from a much less religious place a year ago was just how pervasive Christianity is here. It's everywhere. It gets dropped in conversation, often with the assumption that you share Christian views. People ask where you go to church, or if they know you moved recently, if you've found a "church home" yet. Even some of my purple or liberal-ish friends go to church regularly. We're in Fayetteville, and virtually every time I go in a coffee shop down on Dickson, I overhear someone talking about something related to Christianity. Considering Fayetteville is blue, I figured this wouldn't be so common.

Anyway, what part of NWA would you move to if you wanted to get away from this as much as possible? Bentonville, because of the number of transplants? East Fayetteville? I'm worried that even east Fayetteville will be a bunch of liberals with a BLM sign who are twice-a-weekers at Cross Church. It seems like an odd mix of things.

I've had a lot of instances of someone having some "cultural indicators" that made me think they might not be religious, like being really into the outdoors and having tattoos or something like that. Just things that would make you think they aren't super into church, and this was a pretty reliable indicator for us in our last place. Yet, you start talking to them, and then they drop the Jesus bomb. It's really been surprising.

Edit to address the religion vs politics thing: 62% of voters (per Pew Research) who regularly attend church vote Republican. But, nonetheless, I concede that this is an assumption I made. Liberal college towns, in my experience, have been particularly non-religious places. I assumed that Fayetteville, having a hippie, liberal reputation, would not also feel like the heart of the Bible Belt.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ACTLISCOU5007

June 2026: 2315 active listings

January 2025: 1085 active listings

March 2022: 267 active listings

This is a crazy increase in inventory in a relatively short period of time. Anecdotally, looking at listings within 1/2 mile or so of the square shows almost no real activity. Many properties are sitting for 6+ months, and in some cases, over a year. Some pending listings have been pending for quite some time, indicating they are possibly contingent contracts with a property on the other side of the deal that is slow to sell.

I'm curious what others' thoughts are on this. It doesn't seem prices have come down near downtown, but it also doesn't seem there are many takers. Some prices seem like they are functionally a "make me move" price, and those properties have sat for a very long time.

Personally, I'd be wary of a purchase right now, especially the high prices near downtown.

Devil's Advocate: Inventory went from 267 active listings in March 2022 to 1085 active listings in January 2025 and prices went up. So maybe that isn't as meaningful as I've implied. However, RTO also happened in that timeframe.

I've ridden Yetis for years, and I currently ride a lunch rided 115. Love it.

I'm moving to a new house where I'll have good paved trail access to all sorts of cool stuff, and I will also have the ability to go hit some good trails from those areas as well (this is northwest Arkansas). So I'm considering driving my car less and getting an ebike for transportation purposes. And if I'm doing that, why not get one that can also rip?

So, first off, can a big emtb serve that function well? I'm so used to thinking of big travel bikes as inefficient pedalers that it's sort of hard for me to get my brain around riding 10-12 miles roundtrip on a paved bike path regularly with one, but I see these people out on 4" fat bikes doing it all the time.

The added perk is that I can then pop over to some trail systems that are 5-7 miles from my house and normally would ride a little less often and get a few laps in just for the hell of it.

I'm a Yeti guy and probably always will be, and I've seen some decent used deals on the 160e. I realize it may not have the latest and greatest batteries and motor, but I'm not into the "more power is better" thing. I've never even owned an ebike, so the idea of adding 250-600w to the equation is just mind boggling. I can't imagine needing 1500.

But is the 160e a good option for this? Or should I consider the Specialized or Aventon? I personally love Yeti suspensions, and the bikes are so much fun to ride. But I am open to other options. I really care about handling characteristics, and my trail use would probably be a good bit of blacks at Coler or Slaughter Pen or even the Oz Bike Park. Since my regular ride is an XC/trail bike, I'd probably have fun hitting spicy stuff fast with this.

Thanks in advance.

It seems like a lot of ebikes come with 3"+ tires, but I don't understand this. Riding 3" tires, especially with an aggressive tread pattern, on pavement sucks. It's inefficient, feels sluggish, and uses a lot more power and battery.

Why is this the norm? It can't have anything to do with speed as road cyclists go 45mph+ all the time (especially on descents) on 28-32c tires, and they used to do it on 23c tires and rim brakes.

Also, why do some ebikes come with 1500+ watts of power? The best cyclists in the world can only put out 400-500 watts for an hour. It seems to me that a 500w bike that is designed to be efficient, decently aero and is spec'd with 32-38c tires could weigh around 35 pounds. Using a bike power/speed calculator, we can see that all it takes for a 35 pound bike and 180 pound rider to go 28mph is 550 watts. So if the rider adds just 50 (which is insanely easy), we have our 550.

What am I missing?