February 2021 Road and Trail Conditions

[jjlis]

Riding Thursday afternoon on W&OD, it was pretty much dry pavement in both directions between Shirlington and Benjamin Banneker Park, with some wet spots here and there in Bluemont and Banneker parks. I used the connector trail from Banneker Park to ride to Van Buren Street and 19th Road in East Falls Church, which were both dry pavement.

However, W&OD was snow-covered starting where the W&OD meets the 19th Road connector, alongside the unfinished bike trail bridge over Lee Highway. Cyclists coming from the west said the W&OD was snow covered through Falls Church City.

[n18]

W&OD West, Thursday afternoon from Vienna to Reston: Clear pavement in sunny areas, car tire wide single track in few shaded areas. Had to walk my bike 3 to 4 times. West of Hunter Mill intersection was fully covered for 50 Yards or so. No snow on the east side of the hill(Buckthorn LN), but there was snow fully covering the downhill west side, which probably a single track or cleared by now. Clear pavement or single tracking afterward until the two blocks east and west of Wiehle AVE. They were fully covered with snow.

It took me twice as long as normal.

[CaseyKane50]

The bike lanes on Potomac Avenue were being cleaned this morning.

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[Steve O]

The bike lanes in and around Pentagon City / Crystal City (if only there were a single name…) look like this:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]24206[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]24207[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]24208[/ATTACH]

Meanwhile, in Alexandria, the Potomac Yard trail looks like this:
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[smb9600]

Protected bike lanes in Crystal City are still largely untouched. Rode along both Potomac Yard & Eads (Eads below – parts of it were worse than this).

Four Mile Run was completely cleared, but lots of large puddles. Unless there’s some amazing drying out tonight, I’d expect some sheets of ice tomorrow after overnight freezes.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[n18]

W&OD 12:00 PM: From Vienna to Clark’s Crossing Park(Google Maps Link). Only 1/4 (1/3 if including Semi-single tracking) of the trail is clear pavement. The rest is icy with footprints. Only proceed if you love flinstoning for 20 to 100 Yards at a time.

[DrP]

At about 7am the trails could be treacherous. The rime wasn’t too bad in terms of being slippery, but all the re-frozen melt was bad. If we freeze again tonight, these areas might be a problem:
– Custis on the bridge over spout run.
– MVT in several places: the trail cross-over in the Roosevelt parking lot (the plow had pushed a large lump of snow/ice onto the southbound trail lane – northbound was passable yesterday morning, but clearly some had melting and this morning it was solid ice. Exactly where you need to turn. Ouch. They need to plow all the way off both the road and trail), Columbia Island from the north end to the GW Parkway crossing (i.e., the usual places, although extended at each), bits and pieces soudn of the humpback bridge to the airport, the area by the economy parking at the airport.
– 4MRT in a few places: (I didn’t attempt the hill going under Columbia Pike, it could be clear, but I suspected ice because it is always we there), the area around the south ford of Glen Carlin, the area around Carlin Springs Rd. (north side of the hill and the whole access from W&OD until underneath Carlin Springs Rd.

The cars found it bad too. There were two cars had left the GW parkway between trollheim and boundary channel. I am not sure what happened. One had travelled across the trail and was in the trees and shrubs. The other was on the trail with tow cables. Not sure if both went off at once or if one was getting ready to be pulled up when the other went over or was it being towed, broke loose and ended up on the trail. Not the easiest to get around since the trail was quite icy there and the grassy hill quite steep.

[jjlis]

W&OD Trail in Arlington from Columbia Pike west to the under-construction Lee Highway bridge is in good shape, with a couple of easily avoidable icy spots on the sides of the trail and some wet spots from snow melt. There are some icy spots in the shadow of the new bridge on either side of Lee Highway, as well as in Falls Church city, particularly on the Route 7 wooden bridge. W&OD Trail is icy beginning a the western city limits of Falls Church, literally at the Entering Fairfax County sign, just before Shreve Road.

[consularrider]

I rode the complete W&OD, Shirlington to Purcellville and back today. It was 99% clear and 97% dry. Unfortunately, that 1% (or less) could get you really hurt.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]24501[/ATTACH] There was a really nasty section in Leesburg just before Dry Mill Rd. That cyclist made it, but it looked like he would go down to or three times.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]24502[/ATTACH] Then at Clarks Gap there were three bad patches.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]24503[/ATTACH] The old connector to Dry Mill Rd was bad.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]24504[/ATTACH] Another at mm 43 and four from the Rte 7 overpass up to Hirst Rd.

[Author]

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