Tim Johnson’s Ride On Washington: Come Ride With US!!!! HOLD THIS DATE!

[Dirt]

More details will follow on this. I just want to get people thinking about taking part of a day off… or even just a long lunch break to join us.

TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 2012

I’m not talking about riding the whole thing… but just the last day… or just PART of the last day.

Last day will be Baltimore to DC. The route is about 50 miles of rolling hills. Things move along at a fairly spirited clip for the first 35 miles of that.

But what we’d REALLY like is to get a good group of people to join us for the last part of it… Between College Park and the Capitol. We’ll publish the exact route we’re taking and a pretty good guestimate of when we’ll be where. The plan is to pick up people along the way and get a nice, huge group of riders for the last few miles. We’ll pass many CaBi stations, so some folks can grab a bike and join us.

This section of the ride will be casually paced. Tim might have to jump ahead to do some schmoozing at the end, but there will be guides and other riders to lead the whole group in, so we lose no-one (Like we did last year when Tim was late for an ESPN interview and wound up conducting it on his cell phone while flying through the city at 18+mph with the rest of us chasing like crazy.)

At the end of the ride we’ll have a big gathering with a bunch of riders and cyclists. Festivities are in the works…. as is the exact location of the final arrival point. We’ll have all that info finalized soon.

This was by far the funnest part of the ride last year. Please mark that date on our calendar and come out and welcome us to DC!!!! I’ll post up more details when I’ve got them!!!

http://rideonwashington.org/

Topic

[DaveK]

I’ll definitely be at Proteus for the rendezvous one way or the other, but don’t expect me at the Union Station meetup.

[dbb]

I will be meeting the group at 9th and T with a coworker I invited along.

Alas, no pink is in my wardrobe.

[jrenaut]

I need a second water bottle for the long day – I wonder if Target has them in pink?

[elcee]

@Arlingtonrider 16681 wrote:

I’m inviting anyone interested (lurkers included) who would like to ride metro to get to Proteus to meet me at the Greenbelt metro station (just outside the tunnel toward College Park/Lackawanna Street) for a short and easy bike ride to the shop. We’ll leave the station promptly at noon.

Bikes are allowed on metro after 10 a.m. (and until 4 p.m. or after 7 p.m. for anyone planning to metro home from DC).

Metro has scheduled track work all this week.

Green Line

• Monday through Friday, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. each day, trains will single track between College Park and Greenbelt for rail, fastener, tie and insulator renewal. Customers should allow about 10 minutes of additional travel time.

[Arlingtonrider]

Thanks for that info, elcee. Ten minute metro delays shouldn’t make too much of a difference, but I’ll wait around a few minutes extra in case anyone didn’t find out about that in time.

Update on the TJROW crew – They made it safely to Baltimore, and if the reports I read are correct, have raised over $80,000 to show that Bikes Belong!

[Dirt]

Y’all are amazing. Thanks so much for all that you’re doing. It means a lot to me. Today was a long, long day in the saddle. It was really great though…. It helped knowing that I’d be riding into town with such great people.

I’ll write more in the morning. I need a burger and a beer.

Pete

[jrenaut]

Oh, boy, thunder and lightning! Should make today interesting.

[Arlingtonrider]

The hourly reports show that it should be beautiful until 4 pm or so, and even then, only a 30 percent chance of isolated thundershowers. The worst is over. Ride on!

[americancyclo]

I’ll try to meet up with everyone right after you get off the MBT on the way to the capitol. Hope my kit has dried out by then!

[jrenaut]

Awesome riding with everyone today.

[eminva]

Just a quick response before I head off to evening duties — it was great to ride with everyone, and I’m sorry I’m not on Twitter to publish my thanks more publicly.

I rode from Vienna to DC this morning, met up with Mark Blacknell, vvill and elcee and later with DaveK, jrenaut and dbb and his colleague. We all rode out to Proteus and I do believe we did not make a single wrong turn! It was exciting when the “through riders” arrived and after a brief visit (which included the through riders inhaling cookies), we took off for DC. It was sort of like a snowball rolling downhill, as we picked up riders here and there and had an estimated 100 riders as we reached the US Capitol. Amazingly, the group mainly hung together on the streets of DC.

There are already some photos on Twitter, but I will post some of mine later tonight if they turned out okay.

I had a great time and it was very exciting! It was nice to meet all the cycling dignitaries and Tim was so nice. Richard was very funny. If you haven’t already donated, feel free to donate to me, or even better, Pete.

Liz

[Greenbelt]

I don’t really get the whole facebook thing, but I think these pictures are public. If not, I’ll upload some individually. -Jeff

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3379494122367.2157214.1119818483&type=1&l=c1b6136d72

[Tim Kelley]

Awesome ride today and what made it even better was how many people came out on a Tuesday to show their support. I only rode to Baltimore and back, but had a total blast. I can’t imagine how on top of the world Pete is feeling tonight!

Here are my ride routes:

http://app.strava.com/rides/5486629

http://ridewithgps.com/trips/552623

I made it up to Baltimore on my own and found the support cars, but it turned out that group made a wrong turn and was going on a different route. The straight line around mile 55 or so is where we jumped in the car and leap frogged the group so I could catch on.

Thanks again everyone. As Pete would say, “Ya’ll Rock!”

[Arlingtonrider]

Tim,

Love the Strava track. So you rode to Baltimore and back to College Park, did the Ride on Washington, made a loop around Hains Point, rode up to the (Memorial?) Bridge, came down the MVT, made a side trip to Mt. Vernon Ave. and back to FMR, and then headed home via the Walter Reed hill with a KOM time?! You earned your chicken – the whole thing! Great to see you and everyone today! Awesomely fun day.

– Kathy

[Greenbelt]

This is pretty cool — Shannon from College Park Patch did a live feed today, with lots of pictures, audio: http://collegepark.patch.com/articles/live-patch-rides-along-with-ride-on-washington

[Author]

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