50 MILES / 285 FEET

• American River Parkway Bike Trail from Carmichael to Discovery Park, El Centro Road to Sacramento International Airport, and the Garden Highway.
  
  

• SETTING

  • The American River Parkway Bike Trail, affording us a quiet, traffic-free, scenic, and direct conduit through the metropolitan area.

  • The Garden Highway affords nice views of the Sacramento River on returning from the airport.
    
    

• START

  • Carmichael:  mile 13.5 of the American River Bike Trail, William Pond Recreation Area, Carmichael, CA

    • Travel to the intersection of Arden Way and Fair Oaks Blvd in Carmichael, CA (immediately east of Sacramento).  Park in the Five Points parking lot (SE corner of Arden Way & Fair Oaks Blvd, away from retail outlets) or on Arden Way, west of restricted parking.  Mile 13.5 is at the intersection of the American River Pkwy Bike Trail and the Arden Way access path.

  • Any portion of the American River Parkway Bike Trail can be used as the start / end point.
    
     

• RIDE CHARACTERISTICS

  • Climbing:  285 feet.  This is about as flat as a ride can get!

  • Difficulty:  easy.

  • Risks:  Inexperienced cyclists on the American River Parkway Bike Trail:  particularly on weekends there can be significant numbers of young cyclists who are utterly ignorant of the "rules of the road" and who can act entirely unpredictably.  Occasional assaults on bicyclists have occurred on the American River Bike Trail between the H Street Bridge and Discovery Park.