wsmith

I apologize in advance if this has been posted before. I looked and didn't find it.

I am planning to ride from Roseville (NE of Sacramento) to San Rafael (Marin county) next Saturday and would like to do it in one day on relatively safe roads if possible.

I'd be tempted to drop down to the American River Trail to Old Sac, over the Bridge and out the Yolo Causeway to Davis and on from there. However, I will be starting in Roseville and have heard rumors that Hwy37 can be treacherous on bike.

Please advise me. I appreciate the help and directions.
Thanks in advance,
W.Smith

Radfahrer

I have a suggestion to help you plan. Google maps now has a couple of features that make this task easier. You can enter your start and end addresses, then check the box that says "Avoid highways". Then, as you review the directions, you can zoom in and drag the blue route marking line to other roads, and it will update the distance and travel time.

Sorry I don't have any concrete route descriptions (never done that ride, myself!), but this could help.

Good luck!

wsmith

Thanks for the good advice. I'll check that out on Google.
I've just heard bad things about Hwy37 over to Marin County and wish I could get either confirmation that stretch would be OK... or an alternate.
Thanks again.

ConstantRider

There are people that ride 37. For most of it, the shoulder seems pretty wide, but I think there may be sections (on a bridge nearer the Novato side, for example) where it gets real narrow or disappears altogether. And then there are some entrance/exit ramps that you have to cross where traffic is going very fast.

I would avoid it, but the other flat alternatives (116, or taking 121 part of the way to cut out some of 37) are pretty much the same -- lots of fast-moving traffic, very little shoulder.

If you don't mind lots and lots of climbing, with some very steep pitches, there are other calmer options once you make it to Napa. But to get there, you'd have to be traveling on 121 or 128 already, and those also have a lot of high-speed traffic -- so if you're comfortable riding on them, you may just find 37 acceptable.

wsmith

Thanks. I appreciate the input.
I'll plan accordingly.

abrinton

How about the ToC route stage 2 route from Davis?
https://www.amgentourofcalifornia.com...stage2map.html

You could cut down to Petaluma on 116...

wsmith

Helpful link. Thanks.
Seems more scenic as well.

ConstantRider

There is at least one 2-mile or so stretch you should be aware of on 116, between Sonoma and Petaluma (more specifically, between Arnold Rd. and Adobe Rd.). It's a two-lane highway, with lots of high-speed traffic coming in both directions. To complicate things, there's a rumble strip.

At some points, there is a little space to the right of the rumble strip, but it occasionally disappears so you have to ride over the rumble strip into one of the lanes when that happens (unless you want to ride on the rumble strip, which didn't seem like an option to me the one time I biked that road).

When I did it, there was also a lot of muddy patches on the shoulder. So my tires got muddy and at one of the points where I had to cross over the rumble strip because the shoulder disappeared, my wheels slid out and I ended up going down in the middle of the lane. Luckily, it was one of the few moments of the ride where there wasn't a car passing at 50+ MPH -- so I managed to get up and out of the lane before any cars came.

It wasn't an experience I'd want to repeat, but on the other hand, it is only two or three miles -- when you hit Adobe you can take that instead of 116 into Petaluma, and Adobe was a great road for cyclists, with a wide, mostly clean shoulder.

Ultimately, unless you're willing to do a lot of climbing, you're going to have to take some pretty busy roads to get where you want to get.