Map My Ride map of Bike DC 2010

As you can see, they chopped a good portion of the route this year. We skipped the upper northwest portion in G-town almost entirely. The good part is this eliminated most of the hills. The bad part is that it skipped Embassy Row, which is always pretty. In fact, very little of Bike DC this year was in DC proper. Most of it was actually in VA. On highways. It's neat being able to ride on something that is normally reserved for cars only, but the novelty wears off after an hour or so. Three hours of it is boring!

Another difference was the reduction in rest-stops. Last year there were quite a few rest-stops with food/drink provided. This was drastically reduced this year, which was not good for me because I was planning on refueling at these. If I had known they were so few and far between, I would have brought snacks of my own. I think there were 2, maybe 3. And no food at the start of the ride either (most places provide bagels, bananas, coffee, etc.). I was a starvin' girl by the time I hit the half-way mark and the first rest-stop.

Also, I lost about 3 miles on this map because the app stopped working for a bit before I realized it had stopped. So it was more like 18-19 miles. According to my brother's cyclometer it was about 19, I think.

This year, I did bike home rather than take the metro. I used the Mt. Vernon trail for the first time. It's really nice. Some afternoon, I'm gonna ride more of it. Once my brother and I got back into DC, we decided to see a movie before biking home. By the time we reached my front door, we had done just about 30 miles. In just one morning!