This weekend was beautiful; (where) did you ride?

[Kitty]

With the multi-day treat of thunderstorms, and a bit of relief from the worst of the heat and humidity of the past week, Saturday and Sunday were lovely?

I imagine many of us did what we do on most weekends (or days for that matter) and got on a bike. Where did you go? :confused:

I’d planned for this weekend to be a “recovery” ride after Tour de Fredrick, though fortunately I wasn’t sore any more by late week. Regardless on Saturday morning I did “leisurely” C&O ride from Rosslyn to Great Falls and back, which I still found myself racing on because 10 mph is weird to me. I closed out the 30 mile loop with a stop at the Farmers Market in Courthouse. Its been my habit to end Saturday rides there, but with the distances I’d bee training over the past month+ I hadn’t gone in a while. It was fun to see how many things have some into season!

Yesterday I hadn’t planned on riding 20 miles. I just sort of happened. I was on a quest to find root beer beer, which our local Safeway had, but ran out of before we could get it–so I rode to 3 different Safeways. (No dice in the end ) Then I needed to go shoe shopping and figured biking to G-town would be fastest… when they didn’t have what I needed I biked to Pentagon City… and so on.

So if you happened across a women on the trails with a single pannier grocery bag in church clothes, that was me!

What adventures did you have?

[Sunyata]

I rode at Lake Fairfax Friday evening, Patapsco on Saturday, then three laps at Rosaryville on Sunday.

The weather was AMAZING! And the three long-ish rides in a row made me feel a bit more confident about the Shenandoah Mountain 100 coming up in less than two weeks (EEK!).

As for the request for root beer beer… The Harris Teeter in Shirlington has a large quantity of the Coney Island root beer beer. I have not had that one, but have heard that it is less sweet than the Not Your Father’s Root Beer beer (which I can confirm is SUPER sweet).

The rest of the week is looking to be really nice weather-wise also. Today is my “rest” day, so I will just be doing the regular commute and not anything extra. But, the rest of the week will be spent riding bicycles in one form or another! YAY for almost Autumn! 😎

[Tania]

Schaefer, where I got a little too cocky and likely cracked some ribs. D’oh.

It was a BEAUTIFUL day though and a fun ride.

[JimF22003]

It’s getting close to leaf-peeping season on Skyline Drive and the blue Ridge Parkway, so i wanted to do one long ride before the traffic gets too crazy. I did a 104 miles ride (9.5K of climbing) from Explore Park near Roanoke down to Tuggles Gap above Floyd, VA. Except for the climbs past Bent Mt and Poor Mt south of Roanoke, this isn’t the most scenic section of the parkway, since it’s mostly on an elevated plateau through the trees, but there were still some very pretty overlooks. Not too hot, not too humid. It was a lovely ride!

[dasgeh]

It was a beautiful weekend, and I was lucky enough to involve biking in all my errands and “have to dos”. Ending it all with a beautiful Kidical Mass ride last night was a cherry on top!

[lordofthemark]

Saturday I combined errands with exploration around Alexandria – in particular the area south of Chinquapin, and then a spin up the King Street bike lanes. That afternoon I walked the old beater bike to Phoenix, and bid it farewell. Sunday I rode more around east Alexandria. Explore the bike lanes on Montebello, the route up Old Dominion, and ran into ArlingtonRider and RCannon at the Farmers’ Market. Immediately upon departure I got my first flat since buying the Dew (I should not have tempted the evil eye by mentioning that streak at Happy Hour) and managed to multimodal the bike to Spokes, where they replaced the blown tube, and I watched so I could learn how to do it myself one day (note soon, I hope) Rode some more after that, including checking out the “advisory bike lanes” in Potomac Greens.

[ginacico]

Blissful weekend, sigh.

Saturday I combined errands in Falls Church, stopped in to look after KayakCyndi’s kitties then picked up goodies at the farmers market.

Sunday my guy Peter and I did a long ride out the C&O to White’s Ferry. Had lunch in old town Leesburg, then cruised back on the W&OD. After passing up all the brewpubs on the way back, we finally gave in at Caboose and stopped for a refreshing cider and beer. Vaya needed a bath this morning to rinse off the towpath dust.

[consularrider]

Three day weekend in Kyiv (Ukraine Independence Day) and beautiful weather here too. Photos from Sunday and Monday rides are posted in the photos thread. Also rode a west loop on Saturday, a 300 km weekend.

[creadinger]

@Kitty 122693 wrote:

Yesterday I hadn’t planned on riding 20 miles. I just sort of happened. I was on a quest to find root beer beer, which our local Safeway had, but ran out of before we could get it–so I rode to 3 different Safeways. (No dice in the end ) Then I needed to go shoe shopping and figured biking to G-town would be fastest… when they didn’t have what I needed I biked to Pentagon City… and so on.

It’s smalltownbrewery or something right? They have it at Costco in Pentagon City if you’re in the mood for a case of it. I’d buy a 6-pack, but a case is a lot considering how sweet it is. If you want to go halfsies on a case or something let me know. Haha.

I had to work this weekend, so no riding. But I did just make up a plan for a version of the Whites Ferry loop next weekend though.

[KWL]

@lordofthemark 122701 wrote:

…That afternoon I walked the old beater bike to Phoenix, and bid it farewell. …

I did something similar. I rode the 1974 Schwinn Speedster up to Velocity to donate it and then walked home.

[mstone]

Rode around Frederick Saturday, W&OD Sunday. It was weird, people kept talking to me like I was in a race or something, but I was JRA. Stopped for the first time at Crooked Run in Leesburg, two thumbs up, especially the grapefruit saison.

Gotta say, that not your father’s root beer stuff is just nasty.

[DrP]

I rode the W&OD on Sunday morning out to Sterling, at which point we noticed a lot of very large groups of cyclists. Turned around to get out of their way and eventually remembered the Reston Century taking place. It was cool and dry and lovely. The century riders had a great day for it.

On Saturday I walked on the W&OD. There were lots of cyclists out. Only about 1/3 made an attempt to signal their passes to us mere pedestrians. They need to read those Rail-to-trails etiquette tips (see http://bikearlingtonforum.com/showthread.php?9176-What-s-your-trail-IQ). Luckily, I was listening for them. As I do when on a bike, I thanked the folks who warned us.

[ursus]

Saturday was an off day from riding. I am retired and had ridden on Friday. On Sunday, I rode the Custis to the W&OD as far as Clarke’s Gap where I took roads to Waterford. On the return trip I boarded the Metro in East Falls Church. I also noticed some people doing the Reston Century but not many.

BTW, progress is being made daily on the construction at Clarke’s Gap (a.k.a. Le Col de Clarke). I am looking forward to the less steep climb and less sharp curves which will replace the current switchbacks. It looks like all they have to do is start paving.

[mstone]

@ursus 122735 wrote:

BTW, progress is being made daily on the construction at Clarke’s Gap (a.k.a. Le Col de Clarke). I am looking forward to the less steep climb and less sharp curves which will replace the current switchbacks. It looks like all they have to do is start paving.

I’m gonna miss the hill. Won’t miss the really lousing crossing at street level.

[ursus]

@mstone 122736 wrote:

I’m gonna miss the hill. Won’t miss the really lousing crossing at street level.

You can ride up the Dry Mill Road hill instead.

[Author]

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