January ’16 – Trail Condition: That time they predicted mind-boggling amounts of snow

[jrenaut]

Best route from DC up to N Scott in Rosslyn on slicks? Can I do M to Key up the Custis?

[chris_s]

Just a reminder – if people are interested in a means of doing road & trail conditions on a map, I built one. Nobody’s using it at this point. If it gets some solid testing & there aren’t any show-stopping bugs I’ll push it to a wider audience.

@chris_s 132852 wrote:

Anybody want to be a guinea pig? Seems like a good weekend for trial by fire.

The #bikedc crowd-sourced regional trails and road conditions map

It’s a very rough beta, but functional. Feedback welcomed over in this thread.

DETAILS:
To report conditions you’ll need to be logged-in – hit the “register” button to create an account, or you can login using existing Google Credentials on the “login” page under “sign in using other services”.
Once you’re logged-in, just click wherever you want to report conditions for. Pick a “status” and fill in any additional details that you’d like to share then click “submit”.

Condition Reports show up as a color-coded dot –
GREEN = CLEAR (No problems)
YELLOW = USE CAUTION (Some slippery spots or light debris, but not a big deal)
ORANGE = DIFFICULT (Heavy snow, ice, blockages that may require briefly dismounting.)
RED = IMPASSABLE (Severe flooding, official trail closures, etc.)

Click the colored dot for details of who reported it, when it was reported and any details the user included.

Reports disappear after 12 hours so as to avoid providing information that is too stale.

[DismalScientist]

@jrenaut 133510 wrote:

Best route from DC up to N Scott in Rosslyn on slicks? Can I do M to Key up the Custis?

It was OK last night. Used the west sidewalk on Key. M Street was a complete disaster, but mostly a problem for drivers.

[Raymo853]

Jan 28 AM Reports:

S Wash Blvd/Rt 27 Pentagon Path – clear with some ice spots.
LBJ Park – ice and packed snow everywhere, bridge over channel included, evne the parking lot was icy, must have skipped on the salt
Mt Vernon Tr near George Mason Memorial Bridge and Merchant Marine Memorial – this morning was frozen solid deep snow. The snow fence did it’s job of packing snow on the one side. Will be crazy this eve when thawed.
Penn Ave Bridge – Northern sidewalk was cleared few days ago, however, melting snow has covered it with smooth ice. How I did not fall amazes me. Western entrance has no piles, just snow & ice. Eastern entrances has big piles. Southern sidewalk never cleared, horrid.
Anacostia in general – Great. DC cleared parking spacing and bike lanes just about everywhere, so the streets are just about full width

[ebubar]

@Kitty 133485 wrote:

Ironically enough, my biggest “ask” would be access to the Teddy Roosevelt bridge, or at very least Memorial, from North Arlington. They can plow all of Custis, but if it deadends at the bike counter, it doesn’t really help.

I try to avoid any commute through Georgetown via M street on a good day, but right now it seems to be the only connection into the city (from Key). Under best conditions I would only recommend this to a confident (if not foolhardy) cyclist at M street quickly devolves into “Thunderdome.” Based off of yesterday you’d better have a steel spine and think like a Jeep because there is no “shoulder” or room for error.

I’m about to try it again this morning… If I don’t make it, tell Teddy I loved him (and his bridge).

You could cut over to N street on Wisconsin easily enough and avoid a bit of the M street crazies. N is clear and quiet as of this morning around 8 AM.

[dasgeh]

@Kitty 133485 wrote:

Ironically enough, my biggest “ask” would be access to the Teddy Roosevelt bridge, or at very least Memorial, from North Arlington. They can plow all of Custis, but if it deadends at the bike counter, it doesn’t really help.

If there’s any snow on the ground, I don’t bother with the TR. I take the Custis, turn right onto Fort Myer Drive, take that to Marshall and that to the trail along 110 around the Cemetery. Usually, NPS clears the sidepaths from there across the Memorial. I’ve heard mixed results about this route this time. I’ve even emailed (and posted on Facebook and tweeted at) NPS to try to get answers as to when they plan to clear the bridge. It was cleared quickly after every snow last year.

[vvill]

Was thinking of going to coffee club or two tomorrow, so I scouted some trails on a lunch ride.

Custis is clear from Rosslyn to the W&OD which is clear to Falls Church, although there are plenty of icy patches (especially by the basketball court, and after re-freezing, at the Custis/W&OD turn) and there seems to be a large crack/dip in the concrete pavement on the Rosslyn hill which may not be easily visible in the dark. Key Bridge is fine, although there is a narrow “singletrack” bit where you will likely have to unclip/dismount with other trail users around at the intersection of doom.

Also I would take Van Buren to Columbia to Little Falls rather than deal with the official W&OD bit there that no one uses, as the cut through is unplowed and the official bit is icy.

From Little Falls up to and over the Broad St bridge on the W&OD is tougher but rideable (I would recommend 32mm tires at least), but you can’t even get up to Shreve before you hit 2+ inches of “plowed” snow. I turned around there.

The W&OD southeast of the Custis looked about the same (tougher but rideable) but I didn’t try it so I couldn’t really tell beyond what I could see.

The MVT is rideable from Lynn St to the bottom of the ramp at the TR parking lot (aka useless).

Custis near bottom of Rosslyn hill:

W&OD west of Broad St:

[TwoWheelsDC]

Although it effects basically no one but me and maybe Hozn, the portion of the Westover Connector trail, from the northern side of the ped bridge over to McKinley, has not been touched by anyone except a few peds. On 29×2 tires it was impossible to stay upright. A fatbike might be able to make it….maybe.

[Steve O]

@vvill 133517 wrote:

there seems to be a large crack/dip in the concrete pavement on the Rosslyn hill which may not be easily visible in the dark.

Yes. It’s at Quinn St., on the uphill side of the street crossing. It looks like a heavy piece of equipment crashed through the surface of the sidewalk. It’s also mostly buried, so not easy to see. Definitely use caution here.

[Steve O]

@TwoWheelsDC 133520 wrote:

Although it effects basically no one but me and maybe Hozn, the portion of the Westover Connector trail, from the northern side of the ped bridge over to McKinley, has not been touched by anyone except a few peds. On 29×2 tires it was impossible to stay upright. A fatbike might be able to make it….maybe.

I think we have dubbed that trail the Custis Spurt.

[hozn]

@TwoWheelsDC 133520 wrote:

Although it effects basically no one but me and maybe Hozn, the portion of the Westover Connector trail, from the northern side of the ped bridge over to McKinley, has not been touched by anyone except a few peds. On 29×2 tires it was impossible to stay upright. A fatbike might be able to make it….maybe.

I failed at circumnavigating that section this morning. I went south on Ohio/McKinley figuring maybe 4MRT would be cleared or at least stamped down nicely. Well .. it kinda was stamped down, but pulling the trailer was difficult. I ended up walking a fair bit of that (until it met the W&OD). Good to know that it isn’t clear; I won’t bother going that way on the way back with the bike trailer. I’ll just ride down the Custis to Westover Park and take the streets back from there.

[TwoWheelsDC]

@hozn 133526 wrote:

I failed at circumnavigating that section this morning. I went south on Ohio/McKinley figuring maybe 4MRT would be cleared or at least stamped down nicely. Well .. it kinda was stamped down, but pulling the trailer was difficult. I ended up walking a fair bit of that (until it met the W&OD). Good to know that it isn’t clear; I won’t bother going that way on the way back with the bike trailer. I’ll just ride down the Custis to Westover Park and take the streets back from there.

I considered going that way last night, but thought going downhill on the Spurt (since that’s what we’re calling it now) would be easier, but gravity was not helpful. Also, the cleared pathway up to the ped bridge from the W&OD is only about a foot wide, so pulling the trailer up that would also be really difficult.

[Powerful Pete]

I rode in to DC at around 13:00 this afternoon on the Custis. The points everyone else noted are all there. Also, please be very careful on the Custis overpass of Spout Run. Despite the sun and above freezing weather there were still rather large sheets of ice. It will only get worse and completely refreeze for our commute home.

Studs or walking speed on that bit today.

[PotomacCyclist]

@chris_s 133511 wrote:

Just a reminder – if people are interested in a means of doing road & trail conditions on a map, I built one. Nobody’s using it at this point. If it gets some solid testing & there aren’t any show-stopping bugs I’ll push it to a wider audience.

I registered on that site/map. Before the winter storm, I posted a test update of a clear section of road. That showed up on the map. But a couple days later, I couldn’t log back in to the site.

[chris_s]

@PotomacCyclist 133530 wrote:

I registered on that site/map. Before the winter storm, I posted a test update of a clear section of road. That showed up on the map. But a couple days later, I couldn’t log back in to the site.

That’s useful info – are you getting an error? I see your user account in the database.

[Author]

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