BikeDC / Route 110 OR 27 shutdown?

[chris_s]

It looked to me like it was just that choke point on Marshall Dr due to those metal plates in the road. Once a big pack of people started funneling in there it started backing up. Looked like a lot of the family ride folks were pretty tired out by that point also – lots of folks walking bikes. It definitely caused confusion for folks coming back around into DC on the full ride.

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[eminva]

Brendan, I don’t know if this is what you are referring to, but I was on the 11 mile family ride with my son. When we crossed the Roosevelt Bridge, we were directed to the 50 West off ramp if we weren’t interested in riding on any part of the GW Parkway. Once on the exit ramp, those of us on the family ride actually had to cross oncoming bike traffic, which at the point we got there, were the frontrunners in the 25 mile race (and yes, I use those words intentionally) preparing to come back to DC. I had to get off my bike and yell at people to pause so the family riders could cross the stream of traffic.

I don’t know if this was a mistake in route planning, or if it was intentional, to have cyclists crossing each other. I also don’t know how it went later when more people were coming through in both directions, which may be when the backup occurred? There were NO course marshalls there when we went through. It was pretty scary.

I’ll write more later about the event generally (with photos), but bottom line, I think all of us need to volunteer to be course marshalls next year rather than riding.

Liz

[KLizotte]

I would send an email to WABA about the issue of crossing bike traffic. Talk about a bad idea! I presume this is what led to the backup on the Roosevelt Bridge at the “fork in the road”. I ended up walking my bike for that bit.

Overall it was a great ride/day; thanks to WABA and all of the volunteers!! Great weather, exercise, etc. I got to meet Jeff, Laurie, and Melissa for the first time (though we got separated on the Bridge). All the riders were well-behaved and friendly.

ArlingtonRider – I saw you heading down the hill from the AF Memorial. Didn’t get a chance to shout out hi. So sorry you have to work this afternoon.

[TwoWheelsDC]

I must’ve come through about the same time as OP…clearly there was some confusion even on WABA’s part as the small pack I was in was directed to stay left coming down from Lynn onto 50, where we inexplicably found ourselves riding into families who were riding on the same side of the road…them someone yelled and told us we were supposed to be on the right, but there was nothing to indicate that. And the people heading toward Iwo Jima were taking up the entire road, so it was pretty dicey.

Other than that though, I thought WABA did a good job directing traffic and making the route very easy to follow. I heard grumblings of registration issues, but it took me all of 5 seconds to get my little bike bib thingy, at 0630ish.

[DaveK]

I don’t have any insight into why things went down as they did, but WABA didn’t organize the ride. WABA is a beneficiary but they didn’t design the course.

[rcannon100]

WABA didn’t organize the ride

That is a distinction that will be lost on a lot of people. I am hearing a lot of grumbling about BikeDC

[eminva]

I was going to start a new thread, but might as well continue it here. I did think overall it went well and appreciate the efforts of the organizers and all the volunteers (I forgot to mention on the photo page I also saw consularrider). To say nothing of the various jurisdictions’ police departments. The weather couldn’t have cooperated better.

Aside from the unintended (I hope?) misrouting discussed above, the major downside (which probably contributed to the confusion discussed above) was an insufficient number of course marshals for an event so large, involving such a wide range of riders and riding styles. My son and I got separated at the point where we were narrowed down to single file (where there were metal plates on the other side of the road). After waiting for him at that loop by the Iwo Jima (hoping I’d catch him coming out if he’d gotten ahead of me or that he would catch up if he were behind), I couldn’t find anyone to report the lost child to. There didn’t seem to be any event volunteers around. Eventually I found a guy with a walkie-talkie (who was not in the green t-shirt, so he wasn’t obvious to me) and a park ranger who got me to a park police officer. I eventually met back up with my son at the Air Force Memorial pit stop. I was in full maternal freak out mode but it barely registered with my son.

I realize the family ride is very popular, but I kind of wonder if it works given how large this event has gotten. As it is, I would advise parents not to bring their kids unless: (1) they are attached to your own bike (baby seat, trailer, trailer cycle), (2) they are teens or older or (3) they have a cell phone on their person to contact you if you get separated. There were just so many pinch points it seemed like there were a lot of places families could get separated.

Assuming I am in town and available next year, I will volunteer for the event and would encourage others to do the same. I think it is a fabulous resource for our region and I would hate for it to become a victim of its own success.

Finally, does anyone know how to reach the event organizers? I assume they have heard about the routing issue, but I just want to make sure.

Liz

[Rootchopper]

I never got to the Air Force Memorial or the Iwo Jima Memorial. At Marshall and Meade I and several hundred others were denied access to Marshall Drive and told to turn around. I have no idea if I was even on the right part of the course since I was given a Family Ride map by the volunteer at the start. This turn around led to a massive salmoning and chaos at the 50 ramp to Meade.

I subsequently learned that riders were allowed to go to the IJM and Air Force Memorials.

There were no marshals at all to direct us once we returned to DC so my group ended up wandering around Foggy Bottom in traffic.

This isn’t the first time Bike DC has been a mess. I’ve done it after hurricanes, after 9-11, and in the pouring rain. The problems with those rides were beyond the control of the organizers. Today’s wasn’t. They simply were not up to the task.

It’s ironic that the self-guided 50 States Ride has minimal support and is much more festive. (And a hell of a lot harder.)

[rnapiza]

This definitely could have had some more marshals, along with some more signage.
I was trailing behind some of the lead group that ended up taking a wrong turn at the end of the Rock Creek Parkway segment. We all ended up on the Whitehurst Freeway then crossing over the Key Bridge and getting back on the GWB. Luckily it was still fairly early in the morning, so car traffic was light.

Other than that, I was able to ride the entire route w/ no issue.

[Mikey]

We also signed up for the family ride, once across the Roosevelt bridge we were directed to rout 50. We got up above the IwoJima memorial, and were told by the police to turn back, without making the left down the hill with the metal plates, even though we could see people below. We were then told to go back across the bridge, and all of the marshals were confused, plus we were forced to cross over on comming bike traffic twice. Not wanting to end our ride after 30 minutes we elected to ride up GWP and by the time we made it back to the IwoJima statue it was back open again.

[brendan]

I don’t think rootchopper mentioned it above, but he seems to have been close to where the incident occurred (excerpted from http://rootchopper.blogspot.com/2012/05/bike-dc-on-fumes.html ):

We passed Rosslyn and then doubled back on US 50 to take the exit near the Iwo Jima Memorial. A left hand turn took us to the road along side Arlington Memorial Cemetery where we (and I mean at least 200 cyclists) were stopped and turned around. I was told there had been a nasty accident, two cyclists collided head on near the bottom of the hill. So hundreds of cyclists found themselves riding into hundreds of cyclists. Brilliant!

Brendan

[eminva]

Oh wow, I’m very sorry to hear the news about a possible accident. I hope everyone is okay.

@Rootchopper 19528 wrote:

It’s ironic that the self-guided 50 States Ride has minimal support and is much more festive. (And a hell of a lot harder.)

I agree — but that is probably a self-selective group and a much smaller one at that. Still, when I did it last fall, expecting to be fully self-supporting, it felt like the course marshals were everywhere.

On a happier note, I should have mentioned earlier how great it was to see such a great turnout of not just us hard core cyclists, but so many casual cyclists and diverse in every way conceivable. I hope no one was injured seriously and that most people were able to enjoy their day pedaling the major thoroughfares.

Liz

[DCLiz]

I’m curious when this hour-long backup happened, and when people were turned away from Iwo Jima and Air Force Memorial? I did the family ride, and we left the starting point right around 8 am. There was definitely a back-up at the off-ramp immediately following the Roosevelt Bridge, but only a few minutes — no where close to an hour. Just had to get off and walk through the choke point. EDIT: It sounds like the accident shut down that part of the route before the family ride got under way, so I guess we missed it.

Part of the backup at that time was due to the fact that family riders and full riders were mixed in with each other. There was some confusion as everyone got sorted into the correct lanes. As a slower family rider, I was naturally on the right (and the full riders were on the left). We than had to navigate across each other to get pointed in the right direction. I feel that if the volunteers had megaphones at that point and were further into the traffic, they could have gotten people into the correct lanes earlier, to alleviate some of the crush.

Also, once the family riders did get on Rte 50, there were some scary moments were there was no instruction whatsoever as to what side of the road we were supposed to be on. The outbound riders were supposed to be on the left while the inbound riders came in on the right (their left, I guess). This is completely non-intuitive — as a vehicle, you are used to riding on the right, and at this point, it was the first time we were on a two-way stretch of the route. A volunteer, or even a sign on the cones saying “keep left” (which ironically were present later on the ride), would have been helpful.

Riders were riding fast inbound, shouting at very confused people to keep left.

But, we made it to Iwo Jima and the Air Force Memorial with no further problems beyond what is expected when so many people on the road together. I think we got there a little after 9 AM.

EDIT #2 — Just read Mark’s post at WABA. Seems like there was an issue with the route to the finish line for earlier riders too: http://www.waba.org/blog/2012/05/recap-bike-dc-2012-edition/

This was my first Bike DC, and I had lots of fun. The weather’s always this good, right?

[dbb]

This year’s BikeDC was a first for me, and although there were some hiccups I think it went really well. I had fun and it was a great day. While I wanted to scream down the hills, the number of other cyclists (particularly the families and neophytes) made that ill-advised. I’m cool with that.

The construction to the south of the Marine Corps Memorial was a bit annoying but given the number of riders, I am willing to accept the glitches.

As I said, BikeDC was my first. I plan on riding next year.

[JustinW]

Ok, there were routing and support issues, yes. Part of the problem may stem from the issue each year of “exactly how many riders will we have” and of course what will the weather bring…Gotta think that separating the full ride traffic from the family ride traffic – and then blending it back together again – makes trouble.

By the time I got to the approach to the IJM, we all had to stop and wait for 10-15 minutes. Not really sure why, tho I expect this was to alleviate crowding somewhere down the line. The subsequent hill with the metal plates was really tight going down and jammed beyond reasonable capacity going back up. Silly – that part of the route should not have been scheduled as supporting 2 way traffic.

Still many positives enjoyed, including:

– Friendly ride marshalls (when they were present)
– 2 dogs riding along
– 2 or 3 immense unicycles
– Copious snacks and water
– Wonderfully smooth pavement on the GWP
– And at the end, genuine BikeArlington telescoping Vuvuzelas! (Now I need to craft a special holder on my bike for the new accessory…)

[Author]

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