Am I Still In America?

I basically took a rest day today. I slept in until 9:30 at my host's house and the we biked into town together to a little "greasy spoon" spot he knows. I planned to spend the night in Davis, but I didn't expect to end up within 24 miles of it last night. Instead of trying to knock out the last 110 miles to San Francisco all in one day, I'll just take today extremely easy and set myself up for a 70 mile day into the Bay Area.

After a nice brunch, I moved on to Davis. Wow. This place is insane.




This picture represents just one street of an entire city that looks the same throughout.

Davis, CA is FULL of bikes. Every street has a bike lane in both directions, some streets are only for bikes, the cars are outnumbered 5 to 1 and they all stay out of the way. The sidewalks are all smooth and wide to accomodate more bikes and other alternative modes of transportation. The entire city is defined by biking.

There are bike racks along every street and in front of every business, there are people all around me on bikes of all shapes and sizes. My mind is going to explode! I've spent the last 45 days defending my life against ignorant and blockheaded drivers and I am suddenly thrust into a world in which bikes are the main means of travel. This isn't the America I know! There is no one cursing out the window at me, no one trying to run me down, no one laying on the horn because I'm in front of them. This is just wierd.

All along the trail from Virginia, I would always ackowledge other cyclists and sometimes even stop to chat, but here in Davis, I'm just one of thousands in view at any given moment. It took me a few minutes to figure out that I don't need to wave at all of them.

Anyway, Davis is awesome. The guy I'm staying with tonight explained that way back when they first settled the town, the city planners wrote into the laws that all development would be required to supply bike paths. The city was designed from the start to encourage bicycle travel and everyone who lives here bikes. It's shorter and faster to get anywhere in town by bike and there's absolutely no reason to drive within the city. It's flat, too, so you don't need to be a great cyclist or in fantastic shape to get around. Imagine if the entire country was set up to encourage healthy and positive lifestyles instead of aggression and haste. They just built it into the infrastructure from the start, but there's no reason that other places couldn't make changes to encourage citizens to get out and do something.

Location:Davis, CA