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DAY 2 - DAVIS TO OROVILLE, 78 MILES There's a pretty narrow weather window for this route. Summers can be extremely hot around Sacramento and California's central valley, and even in the Sierras. And winter snows can begin in mid October in the Sierras. So our early October trip looked like the perfect time. When we got on the bikes in Davis this morning it was sunny and mild just like yesterday - ideal weather for cycling. Although we were 60 miles farther away from Berkeley and San Francisco, this is still a very populated area with plenty of traffic. So again we relied on Google to map out a route that avoided the major highways. And again it did a great job. We had almost no traffic on the back roads through agricultural areas and a few small towns. But again, we did have another 15 miles on gravel roads and a few tricky turns that weren't well marked. At one point we were supposed to turn onto Levee Road in Yuba City, but Levee Road turned out to just be a levee and not really a road. For 15 miles we bounced over gravel, stopping every mile or two to climb over, crawl under, or skirt around a gate. It was a bit of a jarring ride on road bikes with skinny, high-pressure tires. But the scenery was lovely and of course there were absolutely no cars. On our right side was the meandering Feather River and on our left, down below the levee, were miles of walnut tree orchards and small farm houses. Aside from being chased by a few local dogs (including a massive Great Dane) it was a very nice ride. You see lots of stuff on these back roads that you miss when traveling the highways in a car. Although this was a long 78 mile ride, it was absolutely flat and the light winds were favorable if anything. So after about 6 hours (including a stop for lunch and repairing a couple of flat tires) we rolled into Oroville not too exhausted. NEXT

Davis to Oroville