Author: acrosvezda

  • Day 2 Week 1: 21 April 2025

    Ready to go! In the Marriott Courtyard lobby

    Today was a good checkout for everybody, making sure we and our bikes are ready for the journey. It was a short day from our hotel down to Mt. Vernon, then back up to DC where we had lunch under the arriving flight path of jets landing at Reagan International. Always cool to see these huge metal birds fly over your head at 200 feet. How the hell can those things fly? It still amazes me after 60 plus years of watching airplanes. We then continued up to DC and did a quick tour of the city, led by Terence who used to live in Manassas and worked in the city for many years. This town is amazingly bike friendly with the multitude of bike paths and really wide sidewalks. We got back to the hotel by 3:30, so having started at 8, it was a nice relaxing 8 hour day!

    Here is a short video of today’s ride.

    Below is the GPS route of the ride. 43 miles at a leisurely average pace of 11 mph. As you can imagine, in the city amongst all the strollers and pedestrians we went very carefully slow!

    With ol GW
    Mount Vernon Inn- we will have to stay there next time
    The whole group at Mt. Vernon
    Airplane coming in! Lunch under the Reagan flight path
    Dipping the rear wheel in the Potomac- close enough to the Atlantic Ocean for me!
    In front of the Jefferson Memorial
    The Korean War Memorial- one of many memorials we visited
    Had to shake hands with JFK at the Kennedy Center

    Ready to head out West tomorrow for the real start of our journey. It will be a 60 mile day going leisurely uphill as we follow the Potomac up towards Cumberland, MD. Our first camping will be at Brunswick MD- enough of this posh hotel living!

  • Day 1 Week 1: Sunday 20 April 2025

    Arrived at the Marriott Courtyard in Crystal City, Washington DC around noon. After lunch with my wife, we said our good-byes and she was off to back home in Williamsburg VA. Reality is now beginning to sink in!

    We had a group meeting at 16:00 to introduce everyone and talk about logistics for the ride. Our group is down to 12 plus the two ride leaders. A good group- 10 guys and 2 women. One guy from Australia and another from the Netherlands. Everyone else is American hailing from all over- from California to New York. Ages appear to be in the late 60s and the 70s. We went over the ride for tomorrow- just 37 miles mainly on the Mt Vernon trail along the Potomac. Easy peasy!