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My husband has done a Trek tour in Austria/Czech Republic and a “self guided” tour in New Zealand, I’m pretty sure on the North Island. While Trek was very nice, I think he actually preferred the trip in New Zealand. A company set them up with bikes and cue sheets, and they had reservations at B&Bs along the route. The B&B owners drove their bags to the next stop every day. The pictures and stories are AMAZING. Let me know if you want more info…

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americancyclo, those are great maps. Thanks. I’ve never used that site, but in my head you had to ride all of those routes to get that data. Don’t correct me (or I’ll waste far too much time playing around with routes).

Justin, I forgot to mention that going East bound, you can go through Fort Myer then bike down the hill through Arlington Cemetary. It’s my morning commute and it’s AMAZING – one of the best parts of the day, every day (especially without Tourmobile).

Also, if you don’t make the Henry Gate window (6am-8am, 4pm-6pm), you can go around to the Hatfield Gate at 2nd South (just over Washington Blvd from Courthouse Road). The best way to get there is to take that left on the big hill, then turn right at the T. From the gate, you can go straight on 2nd Street S and cross 50 on the Ped bridge near TJ Community Center, or take Courthouse Road down to the mini-trail, which goes under 50. Turn left just after going under the bridge, and you can get on the “trail” that runs along 50. You can get from that trail to the WO&D, but I forget exactly how.

Maybe americancyclo can “ride” those routes and give us the details. Man, those maps are cool.

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I put mine in. I had to guess big time. I hope I didn’t throw anything off — midway I accidentally hit Enter, which took me to the confirmation page. So americancylco, please disregard my first, incomplete entry.

Thanks for compiling!

G

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@5555624 12564 wrote:

A face shield or scarf, that you can pull down is probably easier than taking off your helmet and balaclava. (Getting an ID out while wearing lobster gloves is a pain in the butt, too.)

I’m confused. I can pull my balaclava down far enough that the guards can see my face (well eyes-mouth). Even though there’s a constant rotation of mostly-unfriendly (to bikes) guards at Fort Myer, I’ve never had a problem while bundled.

Getting the ID out and especially back in again is a pain in the butt, but I’m clumsy-fingered without gloves, so that doesn’t change with the weather.

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@Justin Antos 12567 wrote:

The Custis from Rosslyn to Bluemont is hilly, but a good workout. The only alternative to avoiding it is going all the way down to 4-Mile Run and through Shirlington, which is a bit of a long-cut.

Actually, there is another route that’s not so long and avoids the killer hills of the Custis. You can take the Memorial Bridge to the trail by the cemetary/110/Iwa Jima. Then you can either go through the base (if it’s 6-8am or 4-6pm) or along the trail along Route 50 (which seems to still be open despite the road construction — I’m sure someone will correct me there if I’m wrong).

To go through the base, keep straight on the road to the South of the Iwa Jima (the trail there is sketchy at the bottom of the hill) to go into Fort Myer (you have to have a photo ID, and if it’s not a government employee id, i.e. driver’s license, they’ll write down your info). Continue up the hill through Fort Myer, turn left when you’re about to run out of road, and take the second right onto Henry Pl, which takes you to the Henry Gate. This Gate is only open 6-8am and 4-6pm. This hill sucks, but it’s the only real hill on the route. And you can make it a little longer and less steep by taking the left turn about 100 yards after the hill pitches up on the base, then turning right on the first road after the stop sign, right at the next stop sign and left onto Henry Pl.

From the gate, go straight on Pershing (which has some rollers, but nothing like the Custis), then work your way to Quincy, Fairfax and finally the Bluemont trail to the W&OD. *From Fairfax you could get on the Custis, but I think you’ll be faced with a few more big hills before getting to the W&OD. I’m sure another forum-er or the internet can confirm or correct this. If you do go straight onto the Custis, you’ll shave off a bit of distance.

This map shows Memorial Bridge to the intersection of Custis and W&OD using the less steep way through the base: http://g.co/maps/gcq57 It actually may be shorter than the MVT-Custis route.

Another thing I just noticed — google maps took you from the Memorial Bridge down to the MVT, which has you cross the GWP at the crosswalk of doom. Plenty of people make that crossing just fine, but I do what I can to avoid it. If you are going the MVT-Custis route, you may want to consider 14th St Bridge or Key Bridge (I’m also not a fan of the short-little-barrier-of-doom that is along the Teddy Roosevelt Bridge trail).

Good luck and happy riding.

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Today was my first of the year as well (I had excuses yesterday, but they were just excuses). Wow, it was cold. But I’m a total Sporthill convert — one pair of tights of Sporthill pants kept my legs toasty. Three layers on top were great. I’m still over the moon about my Shimano MW80s (the WARM shoes I got as an early Xmas present) – I was fine with those and a normal pair of winter wool socks. Add to that a balaclava and scarf and my only complaint was that the tips of my fingers went numb despite 3 layers of gloves — but I wonder whether I just cut of blood supply with overkill…

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And happy New Year to all! (I wish I had more to add, but your in good hands with people who know that area better than I).

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I’ve had my pants get caught in the chain and rip exactly once, but it was scary enough that I cuff every time that I wear non-biker pants on a naked-chained bike. Plus, they were the pants to my favorite suit, and they were beyond repair. And I had to show up to a meeting like that. Like I said, last time I chanced it.

I find the fold-and-cuff method to be more reliable than any ankle strap, though sometimes I’ll throw an ankle strap over a fold-and-cuff if I can find one…

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We’re in a house in Arlington, but don’t have an indoor place to do bike maintenance. In the winter, we fire up the propane heater on the deck to keep warm. You’re welcome to come by and use it. We’re out of town for the holidays starting this week, but the back yard and heater aren’t locked, so you could just come by. If you don’t want to haul your stuff, we could coordinate a day in the New Year. (PM me and I’ll give you the address)

(I have to confess, my husband does all the bike maintenance, and he’s from Iowa, so doesn’t mind the cold as much as I. Put I think the system would work even for me, as long as I’m close enough to the heater).

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Our little family went out on our holiday lights ride, basically sticking to the route I posted earlier. It was great, though I felt a little bad when (1) I realized it was snowing, and (2) we got home and I realized the baby had lost a shoe (we were in a rush and didn’t strap her in properly after our pit stop). So if anyone sees a baby-size 5 brown croc with fleecey lining laying around the street in Arlington, please let me know. (I could go on and on about how I hate baby shoes — so cute, but so expensive and prone to fall off at the worst possible moment).

My only comments on the route are that in Lyon Park, there are more lights on letter streets (Ivy, Lincoln, etc) then there are on number streets. If you’re out to see lights, I’d leave enough time to meander up and down to see the good ones. The best ones we saw were the ones marked on the map. We didn’t make it into Lyon Village enough to know what’s there, but I suspect there’s a good amount.

Happy holidays, everyone!

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And back to the original topic… did everyone see this: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/adventure/2011/11/women-and-the-way-of-the-pedal-empowered/? Good post

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@Mark Blacknell 12086 wrote:

I can imagine a number of venues that might be great for a Family Bike Show & Tell.

Maybe we can team up with Kidical Mass DC (does anyone know who organizes it?) — have a FBST at a given farmers market from, e.g. 8am – 11am, then have a kidical mass ride leave from there at 11am. Let the LBSs in the area know, not to put it all on them to demo, but so they’ll see the demand in their area for these types of bikes, and maybe even decide to add some to their normal inventory (or at least order a few special for the spring demoing season — I’m sure if a LBS had a bakfiets to demo for May-June, it’d be sold by the end of June, and they’d probably get a few more orders…).

As far as publicity, there are a number of parents-listservs (urban moms, metro dads, nova moms, etc) that would be good to target, once we get details and close to the date.

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@eminva 12075 wrote:

I’m sure it is a lot of work to get a new event off the ground — there are boy scouts all over the region looking for Eagle Scout projects so that might be a source of volunteer labor . . .

And Girl Scouts looking for Gold Award projects. (This is a thread about women on bikes…)

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@Mark Blacknell 12071 wrote:

How about coordinating a “Family Bike Show & Tell” sort of thing? One of the reasons you don’t see lots of family bikes, cargo options, etc. at local shops is that inventory is expensive (and moves relatively slowly). Of course, that lack of hands-on inventory is one of the reasons that people don’t buy them – that’s frequently a lot of money to drop on something you’ve not seen. If it were sufficiently publicized, and enough folks were willing to stand around and talk about their own rigs, I think it could work out pretty well. I’d love to do it on something like Clarendon Day, reaching a more general audience.
http://www.copenhagencyclechic.com/

That’s what I was thinking of. We could even expand it to a family biking event, and have a bike school for kids. We’d have to shut down one of the side streets, but there are a couple good options just north or south of Clarendon/Wilson (Fillmore, Garfield, Highland…)

My only complaint is that Clarendon Day isn’t until September, and I’m totally impatient. Clarendon Cup is in June, which is much sooner.

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@KLizotte 12059 wrote:

An enterprising LBS would do well to set up a table and have some entry-level bikes with kiddie seats/trailers set up in front of a school so parents can stop by and ask questions and try out the bikes. Spring time in the afternoon seems ideal. Maps of the area trails could also be given out along with info from WABA on membership, safe riding classes, etc. Having a parent or two who actually rides to answer questions would be useful too. Combining this effort with a local running shop to show off their running strollers would also be a good combo.

I can see it now at next year’s Clarendon Day, Clarendon Cup or Bike to Work Day… a booth next to a side street with cargo bikes, dutch bikes with front and back kids’ seats, trail-a-bikes, strider bikes (I think BicycleSPACE has some good options, and we may be able to get someone to bring in a baakfiets or similar), someone could sell kids’ helmets, maybe even jogging strollers (Pacers is the likely ask for those) — let people test drive things on the closed side street. Maybe even organize a kidical mass to leave from there, so you can see the different options…

@americancyclo 12063 wrote:

The trick now is to find a way to return some of that time to my wife as well. […] Weekends I ride less so she can exercise more, but I wonder if we can find a better solution, or if it’s just a matter of waiting for the little one to get a bit older.

We’re in the opposite position: my husband’s at home with the kid, and I bike to work. I fit in runs at lunch when I can (which is not very often), so I get most of my work outs in during the week. He runs most errands (grocery store, to/from preschool, etc etc) on the bike with the front seat, which is good for general fitness, not so much a workout. He has a trainer (and netflix) for naptime/weeknight workouts. On the weekend, I take the kid so he can do his team and/or shop ride. Sometimes I’ll take the kid in the jogging stroller while I run. He gets way more exercise than me, but that’s personal choice, not forced by our schedules.

It’s not perfect, but it’s a pretty good balance. It’s a good point that there’s not much exercise on the bike with the kid (as opposed to the jogging stroller, which I think makes running even more of a workout).

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