Foxy’s Fall Century is my annual bike ride. I say this with equal parts of sarcasm and regret. Years ago I rode regularly or at least enough to consider myself a recreational cyclist and to maintain a level of fitness that comes from cycling.

Dan and I bought a tandem when we were first married forty years ago, and we rode it in several (or a few?) Double Century rides. Now it’s the annual Foxy’s when we ride it. We always get remarks that are similar to what I would expect if I still had my gold ’67 Camero with the black stripe across the front. Here’s a photo from 1973.

Dan got the tandem out a couple of days before the ride and pumped up the tires. A couple hours later one of the tubes exploded he bought new heavy duty tubes. We took the bike out on our training ride the afternoon before the ride. The goal was to make sure the gears and the brakes were all working. Everything seemed fine. We got to within about 20 feet of our driveway and one of the tubes went flat. It turns out that the valve stem was faulty. So Dan replaced that tire and the other one as well.

Chris got here from Boise on Friday night because he was going to ride with us. Dan and Chris went out in the morning to load the bike. The white truck wouldn’t start. This was the same truck on which we had just replaced the radiator because it failed not far from home. At least we’re lucky these episodes aren’t happening far out on the road. They loaded everything into the green truck–the one that had failed us big time on the road a couple of years ago and now won’t make another road trip, at least not with me in it.

That truck made it to Davis safely and we checked in. This is the map of the metric century since we’re not doing the full century and the climbing it involves. For perspective our farm is right about where the “D” in Seventh-Day is in this map. That’s why it was easy for Chris to leave the course and go home for forgotten water bottles, meeting us as we got to the rest stop.

Leaving Davis with the sun low in the sky. Since this is a tandem I can take a few photos along the way.

This is not my normal view because I’m really looking right at Dan’s back and can see off to the side. The phone could see this view if I held it up.

Here’s the view behind me.

Dan told Chris that if he wanted didn’t want to be bored while we took so much time getting up the hill on Gibson Canyon he could go ahead to find Cantelow Road, turn off the course and ride to the top to get a good hill work-out. He went ahead and met up with us later at Rest Stop #2.

Rest Stop with 20 miles to go back to Davis.

Riding through the orchards east of Winters. This is the view I’d see if I could make my eyes go wide-angle.

This is Stevenson Bridge, locally known as the Graffiti Bridge, connecting Yolo and Solano Counties over Putah Creek. It is over 100 years old, had been closed since May for retrofitting, and just reopened a week ago. The Solano County website reports, “The bridge is a rare example of a reinforced concrete through tied arch in California and is the oldest bridge of this type in California and possibly the United States. Often referred to as “Graffiti Bridge,” it is also the only bridge of its type that will remain from its era.”

The bridge connects popular cycling routes west of Davis. After crossing the bridge we were only eight miles from Davis where we had lunch and then came home

We are so glad that Chris made the trek from Boise to share this event with us!