W&OD 2-month Closure for Four Mile Run Stream Repair near N. Madison St.

Not sure why anyone would choose N. Manchester over N. Madison. It’s got a much more serious hill.

I suggest this detour (aqua line) instead.
Henry – any chance you can get them to change the signage? That Manchester hill is very steep.

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Really, you should just keep climbing 10th Rd up and over Montana and then use the bike lane on Ohio. Or better yet, use the bike lane on Patrick Henry, climb to 9th Rd, climb to McKinley, and enjoy the down hill bike lane, just don’t exceed the speed limit past the school. :p

@Steve O 186865 wrote:

Not sure why anyone would choose N. Manchester over N. Madison. It’s got a much more serious hill.

I suggest this detour (aqua line) instead.
Henry – any chance you can get them to change the signage? That Manchester hill is very steep.

I contacted the project manager who told me that the reason they selected N. Manchester was because work vehicles, etc. will be using N. Madison, and that she was familiar with the hill. I suggested to her that after about one time using the signed detour and walking their bike up the hill, most people riding bikes will figure out that N. Madison is much better. Hence she should make sure the workers and drivers are aware that most people will ignore the official detour.

I definitely recommend the N. Madison St. route during all non-work hours, including weekends, when presumably there will be no conflicts with workers or work vehicles.

If you ride by here on the W&OD/Custis, take a quick look for yourself and try out the two options. It’s a pretty big discrepancy.

Ugh, this detour is going to be a huge PITA for W&OD>Custis riders. For the more comfortable road riders out there, hopping off the W&OD and onto Washington Blvd at Lee Hwy is probably the fastest way to get to the Custis (or vice versa). I usually take Washington Blvd to the Custis entrance at Aberdeen. If you don’t mind the non-bike lane portions of Washington Blvd, it’s much faster than the trail route, IME.

@josh 186949 wrote:

Washington Blvd is definitely the way to go, detour or no detour. Rolling hills so it’s not that bad to keep your speed up, and the sections without bikelanes are generally the downhills. It is a pain how you have to bounce back and forth when you lose the bike lane, but merging back into traffic has never been problematic for me.

Even in rush hour? Trying to find the best route to work tomorrow (DC) from the Tues Hills Ride. I should just suck it up and take Yorktown to Military.

@Tania 186950 wrote:

Even in rush hour? Trying to find the best route to work tomorrow (DC) from the Tues Hills Ride. I should just suck it up and take Yorktown to Military.

I’m doing a reverse commute, and the time of day when I’m riding it varies day-to-day. In general though, it seems fairly empty in the morning, and more traffic in the evening. See you tomorrow at the shop!

@dasgeh 186951 wrote:

Do drivers ever get frustrated where there’s no bike lane and you take the lane?

I probably should have included the caveat that I tend to try and ride faster with automobile traffic anyways, and I’m usually hammering on this part on the way home anyways, so in my experience no. I believe the longest stretch eastbound without a bike lane is from Quintana to 18th St, and that’s mostly a long downhill to the Ohio St traffic light. IME you’re either going not much slower than car speed, or you’re getting held back (like everyone else) by the cars backed up at the light. If the light’s green then you can focus on maintaining speed up the little hill past the light so you can get back to where the bike lane starts again.

I am curious about the official bicycle route signage where the bike lane disappears, but I’ve never checked it out (I’m assuming it just detours through the little roads south of Washington Blvd and spits you out in Westover).

@Tania 186950 wrote:

Even in rush hour? Trying to find the best route to work tomorrow (DC) from the Tues Hills Ride. I should just suck it up and take Yorktown to Military.

The official detour does not take you much out of the way–I suspect it adds less than 2 minutes–and if you take Madison instead of Manchester, there’s not even a hill.

However, I would never want to deprive you of the Military rollers.