seoul search

The weather has been quite incredible lately, it’s kind of hard to believe that it’s November. I for one would like to take advantage of the awesome weather to get a little bit more riding in, before it gets cold and rainy.

Today I rode with Fan– he’s been wanting to ride for a while, and this has been the first day that we’ve been able to get our act together and actually ride. We decided to bike to Seoul, one of my favorite Korean restaurants in Sacramento.

The ride starts out on the country roads in Davis then climbs up onto the causeway.

The causeway brings us from Davis to West Sacramento.

After the causeway you ride along West Capital, which dumps you off near the Tower Bridge.

From there you ride through Old Sac.

And then onto the short river path that takes you to Discovery Park.

That short path ends at the Discovery Park bridge. Once you cross the bridge, you’re at the start of the American River Bike Trail.

We are so blessed to have this bike trail. It’s gotten even better lately, they’ve been repaving the entire path, so it’s incredibly smooth.

It’s really nice this time of year, with the fall colors in some of the trees along the path.

To get to Seoul, we continue riding until we hit the Watt Ave bridge. What’s Fan staring at down below?

There was a fly fisherman below the bridge. I guess it’s salmon migration season.

After you cross the bridge, it’s just a short ride down La Riviera to get to our destination.

Seoul Restaurant.

From my house to Seoul it’s a bit over 25 miles.

The reason why I go to Seoul is the lady there is super nice– she lets us bring our bikes into the restaurant.

The side dishes are another reason why I like Seoul. We ended up ordering four plates– a ridiculous amount of food. I was amazed that we actually finished it all. The waitress lady was even more amazed– while I went to the bathroom I heard her laughing about it with the cook lady in the back…

We rode a bit further on the bike trail, to this river access point, before turning back home.

When I got back to Davis and crossed the bike overpass, the sun was just beginning to set. By the time I had gotten home I had cranked out about 55 miles for the day.

The first time I ever rode the American River Bike Trail was with actually with Fan, many many years ago, back when he was in youth group and I was a youth counselor. We had these two crappy mountain bikes. I think we got in like 7 or 8 miles before flatting all our tires. We ended up having to walk all the way back to the car. It took forever, we didn’t get back to the car until like 2am.

It’s amazing how much things have changed. Even just 7 miles felt incredibly long back then. Nowadays even 50+ miles is not too big a stretch. Well I suppose most of it is because of the better bikes we ride nowadays, but I’d like to think that at least some of it is because we’re in better shape too.

Things I’m thankful for:

• efficient road bikes
• the American River Parkway– we’re seriously blessed to have this bike path
• Korean food… Rice and kimchee is premium biking fuel– Good amount of carbs and electrolytes…