I joined The Butts on Bikes Inland Empire from Chino today on a ride of the American River Bike Path starting in Sacramento. Getting there involved a road trip for both the BOBIEs and this BOB.
The weather was awesome, sunny, warm, everything you expect California to be.
I started the morning off joining some of our group for a large breakfast at our hotel. Following breakfast most of our group started from the hotel and rode the couple of miles to Discovery Park where the ride officially began.
I was expecting a trail like Portland's Springwater Corridor, a rails to trails project that actually follows an abandoned railroad right of way. I was surprised to find that this trail is in the general vicinity of an old right of way, it does not stay right on it.
We had a fun ride up to Folsom Dam. Unlike the Springwater Trail the American River path is more like a braided river. There were many forks in the trail, and it appeared that they all eventually got to the dam. Some of the others had Garmin 805 gps units and were having trouble deciphering which fork we were to take. My 305 shows me the way quite well. I ended up leading the group (the blind leading the blind!) up the mapped route.
There were turkeys
There were also deer, doves, red winged blackbirds, and a whole slew of other wildlife.
After we reached the dam we spent a bit of time looking over the lake.
We then rode back a few miles to a lunch stop. After lunch we continued our way back to Discovery Park.
It was a slightly downhill ride, but rarely over 1%. What little help we got from the terrain was negated by a headwind. None the less, a group of three of us were pedaling hard and moving quickly. I was pedaling a sustained 22-24 mph and April stuck right with me and Jeff not far behind. Finally April had enough and dropped off, Jeff had turned off the afterburners a bit earlier. I could not rest though, a guy on a TT bike tucked in behind me and decided to put the aerodynamics of that bike to use sucking into my draft. I stepped up the pace a bit. I pulled him along for several miles then backed off just a bit to give him the chance to pull, he declined, so it was back on it. I stepped the pace up a bit more, figured if he was going to suck my wheel all the way back he was going to have to earn it. I had it in the upper 20's for another few miles. I came into an area that had a few sharp bends. I slowed a bit to get through the corners then put the hammer down again. My tail couldn't match the acceleration and dropped off. Little did he know, that was about all I had too!
I held a quick pace for another mile or so then dropped back to the upper teens. I was about 5 miles from Discovery Park when another TT bike came up from behind. I didn't have it in me to catch him, though I did give it a good try.
I rolled into Discovery Park. I got a good long drink of water then sat down in the grass in the shade of trees and waited..... and waited.......and waited. About 40 minutes later April and Jeff arrived. They laid their bikes down next to mine and we were all just sitting there chatting when about 15 minutes later the rest of the group arrived. They said we looked like a train wreck, bodies and bikes scattered around in the grass. :-) I took a photo our little contingent and then we all rode back to our hotel where we got cleaned up in anticipation of Mexican dinner on the shores of the American River.
.........road bike.......rollers.........mtb.....lifecycle.....total
Today........69..............0..............0..........0............69
Jan.........105.............34.............0..........0..........139
Feb.........428............108.............0.........24..........536 March.......809..............0.............0.........22..........831
April.........1010..............0.............0..........0.........1010
May............686..............0.............20..........0...........706 YTD........3039............142............20.........46.........3222
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