Our National Bicycle Greenway riding year starts Earth Day, Friday April 22. That is when we will be helping the City of Davis produce its second Bike Party Davis. A casual, nine-mile ride, we will be joined by soon upcoming (and Car Free!) Mayor Robb Davis! The ride meets at 7PM at Ken’s Bike-Ski-Board in the Davis Food Co-op shopping complex. Big fun, Bike Party Sacramento videographer, Phoebe Hill, plans to come! And if all goes well, a beautiful video will capture Conrad Lawrence, the Bike Party Sac founder, on his music towing tall bike as we follow Ike Crasher‘s 12-foot tall fluorescent yellow antenna through the night.
Word has it that other BikeParty Sacramento riders will be taking advantage of the free train ride back to Sacramento later that night. Called Back to Sac, it is a promotion produced by the Yolo County Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, HERE is more info about this program.
On the way out,we’ll stop at Whole Foods Market (Davis, CA) for complimentary energy bars and drink before we take in such sights as The UC Davis Arboretum, UC Davis, the Domes , Village Homes (once toured by Rosalyn Carter and also Francois Mitterand), and amazing bike paths, Greenbelts, parks and charming neighborhoods that make Davis what it is.
We finish at Hot Italian Pizza Bar where organic pizza samples will be made available for us to sample!
May 22 finds us eating nutritious pizza again. Only this time after we finish our 10th Annual American River Parkway Ride from the Larkspur Landing Folsom. This year’s ride, hopefully again with John Erickson. Edward Cox, Leigh Tyler-Cox Rose Calzontzi Paul Krieg Mary Ann Blackwell, Ike Crasher Conrad Lawrence, Lawrence T Risley and Amy Oleynik and many non Facebook others, down the epic American River, ends in Sacramento at the hugely popular Hot Italian location there.
HERE is the multi-media podcast we did of the American River Parkway. It will help you see why we hold it out as the trophy greenway on our route from San Francisco to Washington DC at BikeRoute.com. We’re also hoping Mark Martinez and Greg Barron will also be there on their Rideable Bicycle Replicas HiWheels along with the Gabriels, Michael Gabriel & Magdalena Zazirska Gabriel and their two fun, small boys!! Hmm, maybe even Shannon Tracy and her Car Free family too!!
– Our first annual NBG Tour de Davis takes place this year on Saturday June 26 at 8AM. It will take in a lot of the highlights you can now find at our Davis Bike Attractions Map and if you rode Bike Party Davis the night before, let you see what the darkness kept hidden. Toward that end, the Hallmark Inn at UC Davis is running an NBG discounted room rate that will let you stay in luxury as you see Davis both days from a bicycle seat!
A casual ride, with lots of merriment, it will start and end at Hot Italian, the pizza place new to Davis that serves genuinely nourishing pizza. They look out on the Davis Commons, the beautiful park pictured below.
Next to the park sits the Richard’s Ave Bike Tunnel, the only bike/ped tunnel on the entire Lincoln Hwy Route that connected San Francisco with New York City all the way back in 1914. You can learn more about the Lincoln, America’s first coast to coast highway, in the chapter entitled “Lessons Learned from America’s First Coast-to-Coast Highway in Building the NBG” from my book, “How America Can Bike and Grow Rich, the National Bicycle Greenway in Action” HERE .
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On Sunday July 25, we travel down to Oakland for our annual Ron Bishop Oakland to Berkeley ride. It takes place on the day after the epic Pedalfest Jack London Square. Not far from Oakland City Hall, we’ll stop for lunch at Hot Italian in Emeryville!! A fun, casual ride that takes in the Berkeley bayfront, we cross over I-80 on the only other bike/ped crossing (a few of us are pictured at it below) of that coast to coast interstate besides the one here in Davis, the Dave Pelz Memorial Bike Overpass. Valerie Winemiller says she’s coming back! Alice Santos and Maryann Blackwell, RN too! Tom Ayres will be there. Maybe John Erickson and his son Chris, will come back on their HiWheels?
On Sunday July 25, we travel down to Oakland for our annual Ron Bishop Oakland to Berkeley ride. It takes place on the day after the epic Pedalfest Jack London Square. Not far from Oakland City Hall, we’ll stop for lunch at Hot Italian in Emeryville!! A fun, casual ride that takes in the Berkeley bayfront, we cross over I-80 on the only other bike/ped crossing (a few of us are pictured at it below) of that coast to coast interstate besides the one here in Davis, the Dave Pelz Memorial Bike Overpass. Valerie Winemiller says she’s coming back! Alice Santos and Maryann Blackwell, RN too! Tom Ayres will be there. Maybe John Erickson and his son Chris, will come back on their HiWheels?– And finally since I am in Davis, CA, the Bike Capital of the USA, HERE is a lot of how I get to see it as seen through Sinead Santich‘s video camera. I have been the subject of a lot of film and video work over the last few decades. Sinead’s production, which she did as a class project for UC Davis, is one of the best such pieces I have ever been a part of. It quite readily communicates the hard work and many months she pumped into it. THX Sinead. This is truly an honor to be a part of!!
– One of Sienad’s colleagues, Huck Vaughan, wants to do a documentary on the National Bicycle Greenway!! More soon! WoW!!
THX 4 all of U!!
Note: If you are in the Bay Area, the Davis Amtrak station is one block from the Hallmark and six blocks from Ken’s where our Bike Party Davis ride begins. The train is comfortable, there is lots to see and your bike can come with you! HERE is the schedule!
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