The "Three Rivers" century.

On Garden Highway, at the Sacramento River.

With Summer arriving and most of my July getting booked up with non-cycling activities, I decided it was time to ride a century while my Spring training was still in my legs! I figured that doing the relatively flat and easy Garden Highway Century was within my ability. I was able to schedule my ride on a relatively mild day, with high temperatures only reaching the low 90s. Of course, it was absolutely dry.

This course takes me from Loomis, through Lincoln and onto the Garden Highway, (GH), just west of the little town of Nicolaus, and running along the Feather River. This part of the ride is relatively flat and quiet. Very little traffic was encountered on this weekday morning.

Cruising down the GH you encounter a few stretches of the roughest blacktop I've ever ridden on. The longest patch is about a mile long. 28C tires or wider are best for that stretch. Soon you arrive in Verona, which is even smaller that Nicolaus. You and the Feather River now join the Sacramento River and head south towards the city of Sacramento. Along the way you encounter the Delta King, an old paddle driven river boat now languishing on the bank of the Sacramento.

On the Garden highway, you pass the old Delta King, grounded beside the road.

Continuing down you go by the northwestern fringes of Sacramento International Airport and soon can catch a glimpse of the Sacramento skyline.

Rural Sacramento county, to the distant right, you can see the Sacramento Skyline.

Beneath the Interstate 5 overpass which bridges the Sacramento River is a nice park and boat ramp which makes a convenient lunch stop, complete with tables, water and porta-potties!

On the Sacramento River, right next door to Swabbies!

After the lunch break, the ride now takes us into Sacramento and to Discovery Park and the American River Parkway! The nice thing about riding this route in this direction is that you will have ample chances for food and drink during the later parts of the ride. I've nearly run out of water doing the ride in the reverse direction.

You are now cruising along the American River, our third major river of the day!

A view of the American River from the American River Parkway.

The rest of the ride is quite a pleasant jog along the ARP, ending up at Beale's Point State Campground. I stopped at the visitor's center there and refilled my bottles one last time. There was a snack bar there too, I was a little tempted to buy an ice cold soda, but decided to hold out for a cold one at home. It was now a simple ride up Auburn-Folsom Road to King, and then King back home to Loomis.

All in all a pretty successful ride done in decent time, (under 8 hours).

Post ride bike picture, all intact except for a tweaked chain!

Equipment notes:

I rode the 1980 Mercian Olympic and was happy with the ride it afforded. I was relaxed on the bike really didn't have much discomfort. I've recently adjusted my cleats to move the ball of the foot off  the pedal spindle and that has relieved most of my foot discomfort.

I had one flat near Verona from wire in the road. On the last mile something strange happened. As I was climbing a hill and trying to shift to the small chainwheel, the chain overshifted and came off. I was able to get the chain back on the ring by shifting up but after that there was a slight skip in the chain. It seemed to be less in the large rear sprocket so I was able to finish the last short bit that way.

Getting home I examined the chain and found the inner plates of one link badly bent!  I have no idea how I could have done this by forcing the chain back on the rings, but it seems that's what happened! Replacing the damaged link fixed the problem.

Here's the twisted link!

MapMyRide screenshot of the route.