Davis Loop with the Ladies

Today, I got a chance to ride with 5 wonderful ladies and one cool exchange student guy (he's so cool that he brought his bike with him from Germany. That's super-duper cool in my book!). We were looking for a place to ride casually and the Davis Loop came up as a fun option. It was convenient for us since we needed to meet somewhere in the middle-ish between Sebastopol and Folsom. I'm not a big fan of driving somewhere to go for a bike ride but this was an important gathering--we also all carpooled. 

Bikes can carpool, too!

Mobic with the seat of honor.

I brought three bikes because two of my friends needed to borrow them. I chose my dad's Breezer to fit my taller friend and my mom's Breezer to fit my mom's-sized friend. They both worked out perfectly! I rode the Mobic because there wasn't enough room to fit another full-sized bike in or on the car. 

Lovely friends!

Can you tell that both these ladies are hand-talkers?

After we found parking and adjusted the bikes, we set off to find the tell-tale Loop markings. This turned out to be even more fun than I could have imagined! It was like a scavenger hunt! We lost the trail a couple of times and then lost it completely at the end but since Davis is so easy to bike around anyway, we just kept riding until we eventually made our way back to the cars. 

Found one!

This way!

Davis dome.

Water break.

Bike infrastructure and instructions.

We had lunch and wandered around a bit. The guy in the frozen yogurt shop decided to let us know that biking in downtown Davis was too dangerous because the bikers don't pay attention. It is true that Davis can be a scary place when the college kids show up from non-biking backgrounds and get their first bike because of Davis's reputation. I love Davis's bike infrastructure. There are tons of wide bike lanes, bike signals, and lots of bike corrals outside cafes and shops. Bikes are everywhere! Sadly, there are still way too many cars! Just riding around UC Davis you see hundreds of discarded bikes that have been left to rot after their novelty wore off. 

However, this ride turned out to be a wonderful adventure. I think I'd really enjoy making it one of my stay-cation routes or take out-of-town friends to Davis on Amtrak or the YoloBus to give it a whirl. We probably rode a comfortable 12-15 miles at a wonderfully casual pace. Truthfully, any bike ride with a great group of friends is my favorite way to spend a day! Thanks, ladies (and Matthias)! 

We did it!