Bad pavement by Pentagon

[KLizotte]

FYI: The pavement on Columbia Pike, at the border of the Pentagon reservation next to the merge with Washington Blvd, is filled with long skinny ruts that are perfect for catching road tire wheels and throwing cyclists on to the ground. I found this out the hard way last night. There is always a lot of large gravel on that short stretch too. It is best to take the full lane and avoid the area on the right if you are heading west. Unfortunately you cannot avoid it if you are coming from the Columbia Pike trail heading east and have to salmon that short bit to pick up the Washington Blvd trail. The pic below makes it look more innocuous than it really is.

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Topic

[jhr]

I think if you’re going to take that sidewalk path going east you’re better off just using the Washington Blvd on-ramp just outside of the frame to the left of that picture:
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You can then cut onto the path:
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On the other hand, if you’re coming from the right lane you do have to go about a meter in the wrong direction, but there aren’t that many cars coming out of the Pentagon in that spot so it’s not really that bad.

The gravel section you have indicated is indeed pretty dangerous and it would be good if they either fixed it or rerouted bikes around it somehow.

[PotomacCyclist]

Yeah, there’s definitely some rough pavement on that section of the road. When I do hill repeats up the Air Force Memorial-Columbia Pike hill, I start off at that point. Since I’m just turning around there at very slow speed, I haven’t tipped over. But I do have to take care to avoid the ruts in the road.

I’ve done my last planned hill workout of the year. So hopefully someone will repave that stretch of road before next year. Then I’ll never have to deal with those potholes again.

Other stretches along Columbia Pike are also in poor shape, but I have noticed that a small section of the connection from southbound Washington Blvd. to Columbia Pike was repaved this year. This is about 300 ft. to the west from the spot you pointed out.

http://goo.gl/maps/TSWKx

[Author]

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