Day 3: Sacramento to Jenkinson Lake

Ride Stats:
Distance - 74 miles
Ave. Speed - 9.7 mph
Elevation Climbed - 5043 ft
Temperature - 62 to 102 F

(sorry about the radio silence...we've been unable to get a wireless connection the past few nights!)

I have one word for today...baaaarutal! (as in brutal)

It all started out innocent enough, with 30 miles on the American River Bike Trail, starting near our hotel. The only challenging aspect to this portion of the ride was to find the right path to take. There are scores of feeder trails that can sometimes easily be mistaken for the main path. It would've been nice to have some kind of signage, but we corrected our wrong turns quickly and wasted little time.

Much like most of the cyclists that we ran into around Davis (yesterday), the cyclists along this path were not overly friendly. I'm the type of guy that likes to say hello to everyone I cross paths with, on a bike. Most of my greetings here went unacknowledged. No matter. I've learned to adapt. Ian believes that the novelty of cycling has worn off, in these "cycling friendly" communities.


We ran across two groups of wild turkeys, along the bike path. This was the first group, which ran away as soon as I got my camera out. Further down the path, we ran across a group of full-grown turkeys.


The sun was out and the temps were climbing. That's the American River, by the way.


Karl and Ian enjoying a mid-morning snack. Ian has a McDonald's breakfast sandwich. Karl and I choked down dry trail mix...


We rode by the entrance to the Folsom State Prison. There were a few inmates sprucing up the garden.

The fun started when we found our way off the bike path and started the second half of the ride...a 40 mile climbing adventure up to Jenkinson Lake. This included a ride through Placerville, where we ran into a nice 11% gradient after a steep downhill and a sharp left turn. We went from being in our big chainring, to instantly needing to fall down into our granny gear, to climb the wall that suddenly sprung up around the corner. That was an omen for how this day would go. We went from an elevation of 50 feet at the start of the day in Sacramento, to an elevation of 3500 feet at Jenkinson Lake. This may not sound like much to some people, but let me tell you...it's a whole lot of something when you're climbing for 6 hours up grades that range between 7% to 9%, and you're lugging 90 pounds of equipment (bike, gear, water...lots and lots of water). Then throw in the heat and zero humidity...we've been here for 5 days and I haven't seen a cloud yet! Then add in roads with no shoulders and drivers that act like they want no part of any 'Share the Road' concept, and you have yourself one long, hot, tiring day. Then, to top things off, we couldn't find any rooms to stay in, so we camped in a State Campground ($30) and no hot showers! We grabbed a quick dinner at the Country Store, across from the campground, and then raced over to our campsite before it got dark. We lost the battle with daylight and had to finish the day with setting up our tents with a flashlight in my mouth. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow, as we continue our assault on Carson Pass.



Ian and Karl coming to the top of yet another climb.



Karl and Ian called around to see if there was any way we could get into a hotel room for the night, instead of camping out. No such luck.