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DAY 1 - BERKELEY TO DAVIS, 60 MILES The most direct route from Berkeley to Davis takes you across the lovely, new Carquinez Bridge but then you're stuck riding along the frontage roads of Interstate 80 - not a pretty picture. Instead we opted to take the BART commuter train to Pittsburg and start from there. This would take us across the Antioch Bridge, through the Sacramento River Delta via Rio Vista and keep us well to the east of Interstate 80 until we actually rolled into Davis. Google Maps provided the route, but what a shock! There were 52 turns to navigate where our usual bike route typically involved a handful of roads. We definitely had to keep the route sheet accessible and watch our odometers carefully so we wouldn't miss a turn. The route was certainly pleasant through the Delta, alongside and on top of levees and farmland, and even through a private pheasant hunting club (lots of birds in the Sacramento River Delta). We also avoided all towns except for Rio Vista which isn't all that big. But a few intersections were not marked with street signs which made things tricky. And there were at least 15 miles where the "road" surface was gravel. We were getting an idea of what Google considered a bike route. All in all it was a really nice ride. And although it was very close to home (for me) it was almost all through areas I'd never seen before - well off the beaten track. If you can handle the annoyance of some dirt roads and poorly marked turns, it seems that Google can map out a pretty decent bike route. Davis is a really charming town and may have the most bicyclists and bike shops per capita of any town in the U.S. John's sister and nephew live in nearby Sacramento and joined us for dinner - a nice time for us. NEXT

Heading out of Berkeley Pittsburg to Davis