Blog / Random thoughts and musings.

Summer cycling

Kat and I bought bicycles last weekend, and are hoping to use them to get outdoors a bit more than we usually do. So far it’s been quite fun, and we’re looking forward to exploring lots of the W&OD trail and other areas. I took off work Thursday and we had our first test-ride with Scott, going around 12 miles on the trail, from the Rt 28 / AOL entrance, to the LuckStone Quarry overlook and back. Of course we had to finish it off with a chocolate malt and food at Cheeburger Cheeburger!

Today we left the car in the garage and rode from the house to my office in Herndon. I’d been toying with the idea of biking to work occasionally, but Kathie had the good idea of trying it together during a weekend first. It was 7.1 miles each way, and surprisingly almost all of it was on residential roads, the Fairfax County Parkway Trail (really just a wide sidewalk along the parkway), and the W&OD. There’s also a short jaunt through the woods at the end of our street, a 100-yard path that saves 1.5 miles and eliminates “roads you’d be crazy to bike on” like Seneca Road, Georgetown Pike, and Rt. 7.

The last mile of the trip, on Van Buren St. was more of a challenge, since we had to choose between the sidewalk or the road with no shoulder. We tried both, and while the road was fine on a Saturday morning at 9am, I’m not sure if I want to do that during rush hour on a weekday. Fortunately the speed limit on the road is 25mph and it’s aggressively enforced (don’t speed in Herndon!). Bicycles are allowed on sidewalks in Virginia (yield to pedestrians) so I’ll have to try both. It was a fun morning, and we’re both looking forward to a lot more biking!