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Thank you for all the work you do. The teams are unbelievably well matched and organized. I don’t know how you do it.

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I have two entries for London Bridges:
1. A fall on black ice last night around 6:30 pm on the College Park Trolley Trail in Riverdale Junction. It was so slick that I kept sliding once I hit the ground. I probably only traveled 20′ but it felt like I was sliding forever. Would have been funny to have a video of that.
2. Another fall this morning, on the Klingle Valley Trail, which was a sheet of ice. I was riding on the leaves/gravel on the side of the trail and hit a hole underneath all the leaves. Luckily, that fall was padded by a big pile of leaves and I was going slow.

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I’ll be there.

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@Harry Meatmotor 168220 wrote:

I was going to go with, “lets start a thread about triathletes with poor bike handling skills,” but that would’ve been too snarky.

Let’s admit it, how many of us would have been able to pass all the cupcakes, pastries, and macaroons on M-Street without stopping? These are highly trained, focused triathletes we’re talking about, not undisciplined, hungry commuters that can’t go three blocks without a coffee, beer or pastry.

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@Rod Smith 161622 wrote:

Bryan Close

Yes. That’s me. You’ll see me cruising around town blasting tunes from that portable speaker.

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I used to live in Salt Lake City too, where those winter inversions really got me down. It sure is hard to ride outside with all that dense smog in the air. One of the things I really like about DC is the generally good air quality. As far as bad ozone days, DC seems to stay within the zone where the benefits of riding outweigh the air quality risks, in my opinion.

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@mello yello 159199 wrote:

Both great options. Thanks Bret L and closebr. I didn’t realize my option #2 had taken me through the restricted Beltsville Ag Research center. Actually, that route added another 300ft of elevation gain all told.

I’m looking forward to this now. I’d like to do it once or twice before BTWD, and probably periodically after that. closebr, I’ll definitely take you up on that offer, I’ll probably be PM’ing you, maybe as early as next week some time, if it’s nice. I’m probably not ever going to become a regular, but doing it periodically sounds good.

Just let me know when you want to ride, I could meet your somewhere along the ART.

As a side note, you were asking about transit options. I do keep a bike locker at Greenbelt Station and just take the metro from my house to there sometimes, it reduces the ride to 7 miles. The station is along the route we sent you. You can exit out the west side of the station and connect to Rhode Island Ave. The bike lockers cost $120 a year, and are a good option for overnight bike storage in my opinion. I can send you the bike locker info if you want.

I thought about using the MARC too, but found that the schedule was set up more for inbound riders than outbound riders, so wouldn’t work for me. Plus the MARC does not have bike lockers.

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I commute from DC to Laurel on a daily basis. This is the route I would recommend (it is similar to what I ride every day):

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/20661801

This is similar to the Route Brett L. recommended with a few changes. You’d be on nice trail most of the way, the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail (awesome), the NE Branch, College Park Trolley Trail, then Rhode Island Ave. up through Beltsville, then a pathway along the side of Route 1 (one narrow spot), to Konterra (wide bike lanes), Van Dusen (one narrow spot), then mostly neighborhood roads through Laurel.

Let me know, I’d be happy to meet up with you and ride any day.

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I am bringing a +1.

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@kensei 157464 wrote:

Congrats all! It’s been my first year doing Freezing Saddles, and I couldn’t asked for a better team to ride with, whether that be in-person or even seeing you ride on Strava, it got me out and riding when I saw everyone else putting in the miles.

Quick story, on yesterday’s WABA Vasa ride, a rider from team 5 remarked on how social we are as a team, with seeing our group rides.
Thanks Jeff for planning most all of those, and Brett and David H planning rides as well.

I hope to see you all at the final happy hour. I regret skipping out on the first one.

I second what Kensei wrote. Congratulations to all. Team 7 was a lot of fun to be a part of. It was great to be a part of such a social, friendly and active team. Thank you to all for your hard work in planning and riding. Yes, at Vasa, folks were commenting on how fun it was to watch our team on Strava, commenting on how much camaraderie we had. Kudos to Jeff for planning all the group rides; To Brett L for planning while Jeff was on vacation; To David H, David Q, Ricky L A, Kensei T, Rosalind W, George T, Geri R, and Jon Ro for being solid team mates, great fun to ride with you and watch you on Strava. Hope to see you all at the final happy hour, I’d love to meet those of you I haven’t yet had the pleasure of meeting.

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I will be there.

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I’m planning on being there. Starting at Proteus.

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@AFHokie 156623 wrote:

I routinely point out the 15mph signs to drivers who blast by me on Jefferson & Madison. Surprisingly, one will occasionally slow down.

What makes it funny is my average speed is ~15-17mph on those two roads.

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On Beach Drive between Tilden and Blagden, if I ride 15 MPH or higher, no driver gets upset, if I get any slower than that, like on the hill up Blagden, people start getting angry.

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@ursus 156607 wrote:

Doing loops on Haines Point which I do a lot of since I live in SW DC, I have always found that drivers on Buckeye Drive are very impatient. Many people who use it use it as a short cut and think that the 25 MPH speed limit does not apply to them, I often wish that there was a sign on that stretch that I could point to.

(That’s two posts in a row that I remembered to answer the random post before posting.)

Those pesky short-cuts in DC are a problem. I often have problems with impatient drivers on Beach and Blagden in Rock Creek Park. The speed limit is 25, but folks want to go much faster. Those roads probably shouldn’t be used for through traffic anyways, too narrow, but unfortunately make good short-cuts. To top it off, they are the only good options for cyclists.

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I will most likely drive to Proteus to start at 7:45.

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