Vacaville To Sacramento

We got an early start this morning, leaving Vacaville at 7am. We hoped to beat the heat, but it was 104 when we got to our hotel in Sacramento, so we plan to leave at 6am tomorrow.

The ride out of Vacaville was lovely. Quiet roads surrounded by hillsides and farms. We biked through Davis, a college town and the (probably self-proclaimed) bicycle capital of the US. It did not disappoint! We passed lots of cyclists, most of whom smiled and waved at us, and the cycling infrastructure was so extensive it included roundabouts just for cyclists!

Leaving Davis we rode on a dedicated bicycle path that followed a highway. Not very enjoyable and it was really getting hot. We stopped for lunch in Sacramento and then decided to call it for the day. Picked up dinner and beer from a grocery store and checked in to our hotel early.

Highlights

• Mike didn’t get any flats.
• My rear derailleur briefly stopped working today, but Mike messed around with it. It didn’t appear to be fixed so we planned to stop at a bike shop, and then it just started working again (?) so I’ll call that a highlight.
• We all-around crushed it today. Left early, got a ton of miles in before it got too hot. We got to Sacramento at around 11:30.

Lowlights

• It became stupidly hot. We’ve spent almost an entire year planning for a bicycle trip in the Fall, and I am just not mentally prepared for this nonsense. It’s supposed to get up to 111 in the next few days around here, so we are desperate to get up in the Sierra Nevadas, where it will definitely be cooler.

Julie’s food (calories in = calories out?)

• Breakfast: Toast with peanut butter, fruit
• First snack: granola bar
• Lunch: Portobello burger and fries
• Dinner: half of two frozen vegan meals (chicken sliders and spinach and cheese ravioli) + three beers (Because they come in six packs and there are four of us with different beer preferences. Don’t judge. It was strategic.)

Stats

• Total distance: 54.79 miles
• Elevation gain: 655 feet
• Weather: hot and dry, high of 104 degrees Fahrenheit