Days 65 & 66: Jackson, CA to Davis, CA

• Distance: 85.19 mi
• Elevation: 2,497 ft
• Dedication: Uncle Tim
• Ride group: Jack, Glenn, and James
• Host: Phi Gamma Delta at UC Davis

At first glance, yesterday’s route didn’t look awful– 2,500 feet of climbing over 85 miles isn’t all that bad! Unfortunately for us, most of that elevation was all in the first 15 miles of the ride.

After riding out of Jackson (where we saw some unintentionally funny signs about a used car dealer’s retirement) we found ourselves on some interesting California farm roads. They reminded me a lot of the backroads I used to ride in Kentucky, only narrower and in worse shape. There were no super long climbs but we had some steep climbs (I think we reached 14% grade at one point) and crazy descents (like going way, way faster than I wanted to even as I was riding my brakes). The scenery was beautiful in a very European way but most of the time I was focusing either on the insane hill ahead of me or dodging bumps on the descents.

Much like yesterday, our ride groups were very spread out by the first water stop. We decided that we could make it to Sacramento (which we believed was about 30 miles away) while the water van went back to check on the last group. It ended up being a lot farther but there were plenty of places to stop. My group took that as an excuse to stop and buy a lot of food throughout the day, starting with coffee and Burger King and ending with lunch at a nice Mexican place in Sacramento!

The rest of our day was very smooth sailing, other than a flat and a fall on James’s behalf. We were on another sketchy road after getting off of the narrow road, this time because of traffic, but there were bike lanes most of the way. It’s certainly better to have a bike lane than nothing at all, but it was definitely a good day for Glenn to wear his “please don’t run me over” jersey! After that we got on a quieter levee road along the Sacramento River for a while which was very beautiful. The city itself was nice as well but it seemed very empty, even for a Monday afternoon. We exited Sacramento and headed to Davis on a bike path that was nice, other than how exposed it was at times. It was another hot afternoon!

Our host for the past two days has been a frat house! Casey attended UC Davis for undergrad and was a member of Phi Gamma Delta (Fiji). He didn’t live in this house but had contacts with some current brothers and they kindly agreed to let us crash with them when our other hosts fell through. It definitely isn’t the cleanest host we’ve had, but there is plenty of space and the guys who are here over the summer have been so welcoming and friendly. Being in our first college town in several weeks, a van full of us went out to check out the Monday night Davis scene. It was a lot of fun and on the walk back we attracted a very friendly cat, much like the cat we were followed by in Dresden, Ohio!

Our rest day today started with some team bonding as we decorated our vans for arrival. We put a lot of work and chalk pens into it, with some really elaborate designs in some areas! My favorite part was filling up two windows with 4K memories. It was fun but incredibly bittersweet to look back on highlights from the trip as it comes to a close. Unfortunately, just a few hours after decorating, we had to swap out the water van with our “why we fight” window for a new van. It had started to shake when we drove over 55 mph. This is similar to the problem the run van was having so we tried to tighten the lug nuts with no luck. It almost seemed foolish to go through the process of getting a new van with only five days left, but we let Ulman know and they were able to get us a new van in just a few hours!

After van decorating, some of us biked to the downtown area for a really good brunch and some shopping. I picked up a book at an awesome bookshop called the Avid Reader and, shockingly, got to read some of it! I ended up having a lot of downtime today, which I spent reading (for the first time on 4K) and napping by the university’s pool. Santi and I agreed that if we went to school there we would never be in class! Then, we went back to the Fiji house where Casey had assembled an awesome dinner spread.

After dinner a bunch of us biked back to the downtown area for ice cream. I couldn’t choose between two places so I had some from both :) First I split a humongous cup of frozen Greek yogurt with baklava and honey with Bryce, and then got a scoop of ice cream from the Davis Creamery. The bike ride back was very peaceful. Davis is apparently home of the country’s first bike lane and they have amazing bike infrastructure here. All of the roads we biked on through campus are closed off to cars– I was told that nearly 10,000 people use the campus bike paths each day during the semester!

Until tomorrow,

Lauren