Had a great weekend bike tour on the American River Bike Path. The path winds 32 miles from Folsom Lake to Sacramento. I thought it was an old rail-to-trails path, but it turns out it is one of the longest paved purpose-built bike trails in the US. A great, but also a sad fact...
I've only been on this path once before, during
Eppie's. But I don't even know which section that was. The trail has tons of access to near by parks and can be ridden leisurely as there are fun stops every mile or so.
Nice Maps of the route.
https://www.traillink.com/trail-maps/american-river-bike-trail-(jedediah-smith-memorial-trail)/
http://arpf.org/pdf_files/ARPmap.pdf
http://arpf.org/visit/int-map-wpp/
Next time:
- Ride the whole thing in a day?
- Raft the Lower American River the day before?
- Visit some of the other attractions
- Raging Waters?
- Automobile Museum
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| Check it out! Distances to the end. We were going all the way to Old Town Sacramento where the Railway Museum is located. 32.8 miles! This would certainly be Kai's longest ride. |
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| after setting up camp at Beal's point, we rode over on the bike path to Folsom Lake to go take a look. I think it is a popular lake for boating, some fishing, and I know that TBF puts on lots of races here too. But not really worth the drive just for the lake. |
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| but it's not too shabby if you are near by. |
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| Sunset pano |
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| The next morning I went on a morning run, and TBF was setting up for a 50 mi mtn bike race. Beautiful morning. Strava |
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| back at camp... |
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| And soon we were off. |
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| Alexis and I drove down to town a few miles to look for a place to park our cars for 2 days. It'd be closer to the streetcar station, and we couldn't leave our car at Beal's point without paying.... it was all downhill, so they beat us into town anyway. |
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| trail poetry |
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| Folsom wildlife |
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| It was still quite early, so we skipped the powerhouse (as it doesn't open until noon), and we powered on to the Nimbus Fish Hatchery... which was over 10 miles for the kids. |
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| The visitor center is really cool... we could've stayed here much longer. |
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| But it was time to carry on, as our momentum was slowing and the kids were getting hungry. |
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| It was almost noon... |
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| We figured Nikko looked a bit unstable, so we got something to put behind him for support... |
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| We were getting pretty close to the end of day 1, but we found some nice swimming holes, so we had to stop. |
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| Soon, we were at our Warmshower's host's yard. He lived 2 blocks from the parkway, so it made an ideal stop for us. We figured it'd be much more interesting to stay with a fellow bike enthusiast and camp rather than get a cheap hotel near by. |
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| This was not a good night of sleep. I blame Kimbo for trying to sneak into the tent. Which scared Nikko. He slept on my stomach the rest of the night. I had to walk around the block at 2 am to calm him down. |
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| Good morning! |
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| After a quick brekky, we were headed back to the path! We had 16 miles to go today. A bit shorter than yesterday. |
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| Mini Golden Gate Bridge replica. |
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| Trail hazards... |
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| The ivy are taking over. |
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| Soon we made it to the confluence of the American and the Sacramento rivers. There's a decent beach here so we decided to stop for a dip |
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| Lots of clams. The kids like digging these up. |
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| And soon we arrived at our destination. |
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| We fed ourselves, and all had a celebratory beer (note: old town really doesn't have much of a selection... lots of gimmicky, tourist shops). |
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| And soon we were on the Sacramento Streetcar. |
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| We had some interesting conversations with the fellow travellers. |
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| meanwhile... the kids were having fun |
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| After we picked the kids up, they were out in 10 min. |
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| We didn't get to sample any of the microbrews that have been popping up, so we stopped at this one on our way home. |
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| mmmm |
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| in a funky location, but the beers were awesome. |
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| The kids approved. |
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