41st Street

[cmj7gh]

Following up on Steve O’s offer to give advice from another thread. Figured it’d make more sense to start a dedicated thread.

I ride over Chain Bridge from Arlington with some frequency, and I usually take Military rd up to the Randolph/Richmond loop, past that awesome treehouse on Randolph, and then down a crazy hill that google maps doesn’t identify as a road but some maps call 41st st.

I haven’t successfully ridden 41st street yet – either up or down. At this point I just walk the little switchback between Randolph and the cul de sac, and then ride the rest, but even that walk can feel sketchy when I’m wearing my slippery road shoes. I’ve tried riding down the switchback a few times, but I’m always scared that I’m going to go over the handlebars.

I ride other hills without any problems, but the combination of the steep grade and that switchback adds a bike handling component that I can’t get over. I’m sure it’s just a psychological block at this point, but I’d love any advice/encouragement y’all can offer!

Separately, I sometimes bypass that hill by taking Glebe road down – it works well enough when there’s rush hour traffic slowing it down in the mornings, but I don’t know if I’d ever feel safe riding up Glebe road there.

Topic

[cmj7gh]

Just reporting back to say that I did successfully ride up 41st street this morning. Thanks everyone for the advice and encouragement!

Steve O gave me a good piece of advice last week that helped a lot and that I haven’t seen written online anywhere, so I’m writing it here in case it helps anyone else: right before the super steep part, there’s a flat little driveway/cul de sac off to the left. It helps a lot to turn in there and use it to get a running start up to the switchbacks.

[huskerdont]

@cmj7gh 174530 wrote:

Just reporting back to say that I did successfully ride up 41st street this morning. Thanks everyone for the advice and encouragement!

Steve O gave me a good piece of advice last week that helped a lot and that I haven’t seen written online anywhere, so I’m writing it here in case it helps anyone else: right before the super steep part, there’s a flat little driveway/cul de sac off to the left. It helps a lot to turn in there and use it to get a running start up to the switchbacks.

Excellent.

Yeah, the driveway is essential every time I go up with the fixie.

[josh]

Stumbled on this old thread that has some more stories about 41st St among other hills.

[Author]

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