Tennish / Ghost Town

#263 & 264 / #76

Two rides today, one with the casual bike riding group (10 easy miles in Folsom). Then one on the spooky deserted American River Parkway Trail.

The 10 mile ride was Red Leader and my usual 10 mile route on Folsom's bike paths. It was great to share it with new people! There were not many people out on our outbound leg, more on our inbound leg. My theory is that our outbound leg required some connecting the dots to get a whole bike path route. And the inbound leg was more straightforward.

Ok, on to ride #2

An article in the Sacramento Bee has caused a bit of a flap, detailing as it does the plans of the Sacramento County Parks authority to begin the process of enforcing the 15mph speed limit already in place (but totally and utterly ignored) on the Parkway Trail. Lidar guns and warnings and citations and all that jazz. Here's a link to the article.

Whether it was from the strong Delta breeze this afternoon, or the faster riders avoiding the Parkway because this is the first weekend of enforcement, the trail was quite empty. I saw only a handful of riders I would characterize as "fast".

I'm not sure now if I am in favor of this enforcement or not. It was a royal pain in the ass checking my speedometer to see if I was exceeding 15mph. I did, several times.
It also means that I have to kiss my attempts at a 15mph AVERAGE on certain routes goodbye.

I have a bunch of thoughts rattling around in my head about this, which I will lay out in no particular order.

I think I'll be riding on the roads in Folsom more often, I'll load up my trike with some extra bright red flashers and maybe see about getting some hi-viz gloves for better signaling visibility.

How are the Park Rangers going to catch a speeding bicyclist to warn or cite? Their own bicycle? Motorized vehicle? I'm interesting in learning this.

This enforcement, by not happening from the beginning of the parkway trail's existence, but by suddenly being enforced years after the 15mph limit was put in place, means many riders of this trail will choose to leave the trail. Is it still a MULTI-use trail then?

Anyway, I'll still ride the trail and wait and see what happens. Should be interesting.