2014 March Trail Conditions

Many of the roads in our area are not in very good shape. Much of my ride home from DC this afternoon was on roads that were icy and/or had a much more narrow lane that was rideable. Be safe out there tomorrow.

Looks like the Custis was plowed, at least in Rosslyn, but with some of the melt and refreeze today there is a very thin sheet of slick ice.

Most main roads are bare or wet with lots of slush on side streets. Mountain or CX bike will likely still be the way to go tomorrow.

From Falls Church, going west:

On the W&OD, people have stomped down a track that’s vaguely passable on tubby tires (passable in the “you won’t get stuck in the snow” sense). This continues on until Shreve. Between Shreve and Virginia Ln, there’s less of a stomping pattern, so the snow’s significantly more annoying.

Of course, unless you intend to take a really long time to commute, avoid the trail.

Surprisingly, even Idylwood Rd wasn’t clear.

The Gallows bike lane is a gross slushy mess.

@consularrider 78840 wrote:

I skipped the MUPs this morning and took side roads from Westover to Rosslyn. Some were better than others and there were big problems with slush piles at intersections. I was surprised that 15th St from Glebe to Utah was packed snow and ice. Several streets in Rosslyn are a mess of brown sugar slush. I was also surprised that Moore St by the Rosslyn Metro entrance was such a mess. Wasn’t bus service suspended yesterday, I would have thought that would have been cleaned up once the snow stopped falling.

Much of the corridor between Clarendon and Rosslyn gets plowed differently. Rather than send normal plows down the street, they use frontloaders and dump trucks. Most places plow to the side, then scoop it up and truck it away later. The first day or two after a big storm are much more messy in Rosslyn, but they avoid the huge piles of snow a week later. I personally don’t like it much. It makes Wilson, Clarendon, Lynn and Ft. Myer extremely dangerous for everyone in the short term.

Thanks for the report!

From Bilsko

Left my phone at home and twitter is blocked at work. Ride report: cct from foundry branch to gtown is 2-3″ of snow over rutty ice. RCP by Kennedy center is smoother ice with little snow (not too bad for riding). RCP by the Lincoln Stairs is a disaster…
Heavy saturated snow that I couldn’t even get the fatbike through. Ohio drive to the bridge is fine. DC ramp to 14th st bridge is OK (not as bad as last snow storm) **14th St Bridge is a total mess** Avoid it if you can. Thick slushy snow and ice
about 2 hours ago

MVT from the bridge to Crystal City is OK with hard pack ice and only a few rutty sections.

I commuted the same route as described by Harry Meatmotor at 10am. Agree with his descriptions. The 4MR wasn’t much fun due to bumpiness of the ice, but the MVT wasn’t as bad and was downright pleasant near Gravelly Point. The 14th St. Bridge is indeed a disaster. The west side of the bridge isn’t too bad, with just an inch or so of brown slush, but it gets much deeper on the eastern half. I was riding about 2 mph and fishtailing all over (mountain bike with knobby tires, no studs).

This is what most of the W&OD and 4MR looked like:
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Took a gander at the trails as I walked down Walter Reed to Shirlington this AM. W&OD hadn’t been touched by any snow removal equipment and looked like a nasty winter wonderland in both directions at the crossing with Walter Reed. The 4MR trail down Arlington Mill from Walter Reed to Shirlington Road was plowed yesterday but unfortunately is mostly covered with a light sheen of black ice (as of 8:30am). There were some sections that were truly clear but most of it was quite slick…and I was walking, not riding. Hopefully the sun today will melt it and dry it out but I’d be careful either way. The streets along the eastern end of the National Mall (Jefferson and Madison) were snowy/slushy/icy mixes. I took one look at them and decided it was actually safer CaBi-ing on the sidewalks in front of the museums.