I need a longer route…

[CPTJohnC]

I’m hopeful that some here can assist me with a somewhat odd problem (from many people’s perspective, I’m sure). I presently ride from the Brookland area (actually, halfway between Brookland and Fort Totten) to Union Station and back. My current route takes me from first street to the MBT, and then onto 12th st. This works great, but is about 4 miles each way, which is shorter than I like (until last week, I rode round trip from ~Vienna Metro to Union Station most days). I’d love to have a good option for adding some additional distance in the afternoon. So far, though, every option I’ve come up with save for one involves riding with tons of traffic signals, so there’s more ‘stop’ than ‘go’ which pretty much defeats my purpose. My one alternative (that I haven’t actually employed) would be to run ‘laps’ on the MBT but that just seems weird.

Does anyone have any good ideas for a cycling friendly ‘outer loop’ for this route that won’t involve sitting at red lights more than riding? Traffic doesn’t bother me, and I know I could add a mile or so just by riding North Capital st. and Michigan Ave, but it seems a shame to let a great piece of cycling infrastructure go unused…

Thanks in advance for any ideas!

[TwoWheelsDC]

You have identified one of the top 5 reasons my wife and I decided to leave Capitol Hill and buy our first house in Arlington. The city is great for utility cycling, but frankly, it’s onerous to fight downtown lights/traffic to head out to the trails and/5or more open suburban streets to get a good workout. Anyway, one thing you could do is drop down to Union Station, then head east on Mass to either C NE or E. Capitol and take that out to Kingman Island and the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail system and do some loops between Benning Road and S. Capitol St. on the eastern side of the river…then head back up 11th St SE (the bridge is brand new with a wide sidewalk, and the street is bike-laned all the way up to Lincoln Park) then back on to Mass. to return to Union Station.

[Greenbelt]

From Brookland, head out to the Anacostia Tributary trails for some cruising? Usually not too crowded and you can get a good workout. NW Branch has some good sections, Sligo Creek has some really good sections, and NE Branch is fantastic, although some sections are currently under construction (on both sides of Decatur Street and up to Riverdale Road).

Here are the routes I use to get from the Met Branch trail to the Anacostia Tributary trails:

http://ridewithgps.com/routes/1672118

[CPTJohnC]

Thanks for the great suggestions. I spent some more quality time with Google Maps this morning, and checked out the Anacostia and Western Branch? trails, which are a mere 2 miles from my ultimate destination, and the street access doesn’t look too bad. Head there, do some miles and return sounds like a plan that will work for me!

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