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Hunter Jackson Pressey walked his 2005 Coast Chopper, a custom-made bike, for roughly two miles before running into American River Bike Patrol members.
Pressey, 19, said his chain was loose and fell off, along with part of his custom bike frame. Had there not been anyone around to help him, he would've had to walk his bike roughly 12 miles from Rancho Cordova to Roseville, where he lives.
“It would have been six hours of walking all the way to Roseville,” he said. “Riding, I think two and a half hours.”
Pressey was able to borrow tools from the bike patrol to fix his chain and was ready to get back on the trail within five minutes. Situations like this are common for the bike patrol, an all-volunteer nonprofit organization that provides emergency medical and mechanical assistance to anyone along the bike trails they monitor.
In 2023, the group collectively contributed over 5,000 hours of their time patrolling hundreds of miles of trails they’re in charge of, which includes the American River Parkway, Roseville bikeways and the El Dorado Trail that stretches from Folson to Camino.
This Saturday, the bike patrol and the City of Sacramento will announce a new partnership agreement adding 72 miles of city bike paths that its volunteers will be in charge of.
American River Bike Patrol members during a ride Monday, April 28, 2025, in Rancho Cordova.(Gerardo Zavala/CapRadio)
Jim Cheng, a former patrol director for the organization, said they’ll need more volunteers from Sacramento to be able to patrol these newly added bike paths, which include the Sacramento Northern Bikeway and Del Rio Trail.
“We’ll train you, we’ll provide you with equipment,” he said. “We’ve been raising funds to do so [and] we’re committed to doing that.”
The bike patrol currently has around 110 volunteers. Rich Fowler, an advisor for the organization’s youth patrol program, said the group would need at least 10 volunteers from each region of the city close to a bike trail.
“The reality is that we’re spread pretty thin and my sense is that we as a patrol need to really focus on recruiting, training and bringing new people into the service,” he said. “I think we can do it and we will do well, but that’s going to be a major focus.”
He asked anyone interested in volunteering to visit a public celebration of the city’s partnership with the bike patrol 9 a.m. Saturday at Charlie Jensen Park in Sacramento. Bike patrol members will demonstrate how they respond to heat exposure cases and lead public rides north and south along the Del Rio Trail.
Shannon Brown, assistant director for the city’s Youth, Parks and Community Enrichment Department, said the city is excited to partner with the organization, noting that they have a similar “mission and vision” to provide services to under-resourced areas.
“We encourage alternate routes of transportation, and biking is exactly what we want to do,” Brown said.
She noted that her department is charged with providing safety and education along bike trails, and argued that this partnership will “create another level of safety.” Brown encouraged anyone interested to volunteer to be a bike patroller.
“It is a wonderful group and we are fortunate to be in the City of Sacramento, which has a lot of wonderful trails,” she added.
Patrolling the trails
Cheng likes to be prepared for every situation when he patrols a bike trail. The bags hanging off his bike’s cargo rack are filled with medical supplies and tools, which he said are important given the range of issues other patrollers have run into.
“We’ve actually been responsible for three life-saving events,” he said, referring to other patrollers. “Two cardiac arrests and one heat stroke, so it’s been phenomenal in that regard. I’m just really proud of what we’ve become and what we’ve grown into.”
His supplies include respiratory masks, cardboard, which he said can be used to make quick splints, Narcan, bandages, a one-way breather mask and tourniquets.
Cheng has done more medical training than most patrollers, but newer volunteers would still be required to do some basic bike repair and medical training.
Jim Cheng shows the medical and mechanical supplies he carries during his rides Monday, April 28, 2025, in Carmichael.(Gerardo Zavala/CapRadio)
Fowler knows a lot about repairing bikes, so his bags are filled with more tools than Cheng’s. He used to be the director of Catholic Charities for the Diocese of Stockton, but now he enjoys patrolling the American River Bike Trail and helping people with their bike woes.
“More than anything else, we provide a presence that says, ‘You’re safe here,’ so it’s been worth it for all that,” he said. “And then the additional reasons of saving lives and helping people with their mechanical problems. That’s kind of the cream on top.”
Trail etiquette and e-bikes
Assistant Patrol Director Kathie Mahdavi said the biggest issue patrollers dealt with when the program started five years ago was people, particularly walkers, not understanding proper trail etiquette.
“Within two or so months of being out riding on the trail, the walkers were walking on the side that they needed to be [on],” she said. “It’s made a really big improvement.”
Fowler said he and other patrollers have noticed that city bike trails don’t have these etiquette rules, meaning most people are “walking all over the place.”
“We’ve really been talking with the city about making sure that the rules here are the same as there,” he said. “They are now putting up signs that will make it the same for both places.”
But one thing Fowler and his fellow patrollers are concerned about is e-bikes because of their speed and weight.
“That’s an issue that’s concerning us, the [rangers] and the people who are out here,” he said.
The speed limit along the trail is 15 mph, which Victor Massenkoff, a spokesperson for the group, said is easily exceeded by e-bikes.
“Unsafe passing is where we have some of our most serious life-threatening injuries from these accidents,” he said. “And it’s easy on an e-bike [because] you’re not having to pedal that hard. You have to pass safely, and sometimes that means not passing at the time and just being patient and finding a safe moment.”
They noted that class one and two e-bikes, which are essentially any pedal-assist e-bikes, are allowed because they stop assisting riders once they reach 20 mph. However, class three e-bikes, which have a throttle, are prohibited because they have top speeds of 25 mph or higher.
Fowler recommended anyone interested in getting an e-bike and biking along the trails to avoid a class three e-bike.
The California Bicycle Coalition put together a guide to e-bike classifications to ensure people understand the differences between them, which includes where they’re allowed and age restrictions.
To learn more about the bike patrol and how to sign up to volunteer, visit their website.
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