Los Tres Amigos Conquer the Mighty American River Bike Trail or How We Took 6 hours to Do 30 Flat Miles Along a Beautiful River Trail in the Deep Autumn.
Everyone else knew it would rain, so Paul Meola, John Horton, and I were the only three road warriors to land at the Sacramento train station on the early Saturday morning in December.
We took off in the gray morning, and things suddenly brightened considerably. It never rained that morning, and the sun continually threatened to break through. The ride along the river was gorgeous.
After leaving the station, we came quickly to a paved, well-kempt and wide bike trail and stayed on it mostly without any hint of car traffic for the thirty miles it took to get to Folsom. There are some tricky places—forks in the trail and crossings and turns that would have required closely following the cue sheet if Paul hadn't done it before.
There was parkland along the river nearly the entire way, and it is lush. Trees were turning orange and red; the river flowed wide. There were outhouses and bathrooms along the way, and grassy park areas with picnic tables in places. Once we got near Folsom, the trail came near the Nimbus dam and ran along the lake that is the Folsom Reservoir.
This was a great, light, scenic ride. If you do the 60 mile version at some speed—to and from Folsom from Sacramento—intermediate and advanced riders could get good exercise as well as well as beautiful scenery.
Ducks and geese and egret were plentiful from the start of the trail, and we saw deer and wild turkey alongside the path. All kinds of greenery and animal life and scenic river views, and almost no cars: photo opportunity stops needed about every fifteen minutes.
Once in Folsom, we had our choice of any number of sidewalk cafes with easy prices. Discretion forbids disclosure how many thousands of calories we consumed in the name of taking a light lunch.
After lunch we waddled over to the light rail station next to the square in downtown Folsom. As responsible Yellowjackets, we had to try the Sacramento Valley light rail in order to check out how well it would work to take other cyclists home if they wanted to use it after a light ride and heavy lunch.
For the good of the group, we sacrificed the pleasure of dragging our stuffed bodies back to the trail for thirty flat beautiful miles back to Sacto.
The light rail worked great. There was a train every half-hour on Saturday, and the ticket was $1.25 for 62+, $2.50 for younger folks. There was plenty of room for bikes and their riders in the front and in the back of the cars. The trip takes an hour and after about a dozen stops, delivered us to the Sacramento train station about 100 yards from the car.
One minor caveat is that at least for the Saturday we were there, the ticket machines didn’t take credit cards, debit cards, or make change for $20 bills. It could use $1’s or $5’s.
It was a challenging trip in the heated comfortable rail car, but with coffee we managed to stay awake so that we could report this to the club.
We hope you appreciate our sacrifice…
P.S. Stay tuned and join us as we launch this American River Bike Trail ride as an official OYJ ride in early spring. With the option to take the light rail back to the staring point, this stands to be enjoyable and doable for riders at all levels.