
When I first heard about BikeDC a few years ago I thought it was a little crazy to pay $35 to wake up early and ride in the streets of DC as I do on a daily basis. I emailed the organization because I was curious about the entry fee. Most of it goes to the permit they need to shut down the major roads and highways of DC for a few hours. Last year I was thinking about doing it but it rained. This year there was a perfect weather forecast so I registered the night before. It was an intereting course starting at the Capitol building, going past the White House, past the Kennedy Center, across the river and up the GW Parkway, then around the Marine Corps Memorial to the Air Force Memorial, before heading back across the river and finishing in DC.
As I was riding across the river in to DC to the start I saw the first riders going up the GW Parkway. I showed up at end of the allotted start time but people were still arriving and lots of people still milling around the start. I took what I thought was a very nice picture of the Capitol building with many bikers in front. Later I realized I was missing my memory card. Along the ride I saw people of all ages and types including a lot of kids and kid carriers. The most interesting was a tandem bike with mom up front, son on back, and the younger sister on the kid-bike-attachment as the third person. Everyone was having a good time riding in the open streets of DC.
There was a little bottle neck at the VA side of the bridge because the exit ramp was split with riders going in both directions. The GW Parkway was nice. Longer than I expected when looking at the route. Lots of hills that some people had trouble on. The experienced bikers in the group were held up a lot by the more casual and slower people. We'd form small lines on the left and slip by when we could between the packed lane on our right and the on-coming traffic of riders on the left separated by a traffic cone on occasion.
It was my first time at the Air Force Memorial. It has a decent view of DC. People must have wondered what was going on with about 5000 bikers showing up. The Memorial was designated as one of the few rest stops with food, water, and bathrooms. It was a pretty nice event. The turnout was big and the weather was almost perfect. I only saw one crash or actually the crash aftermath. I saw a couple Capital Bikeshare bikes which would have been expensive and difficult to take up the hills. I'd love to do the event again next year and start at the beginning of the line.
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