Crossing the Wilson Bridge

The Woodrow Wilson crosses the Potomac River on I-95/495 as the southern point of the Washington DC beltway.    We here in the DC area have been dealing with the congestion that goes with constructing a new bridge for years now.  The old bridge was completed in 1961 and was designed to handle 75,000 cars a day and by the end of the 90’s was handing something like 200K a day.  Needless to say there was one of hell of a bottle neck.  The new bridge which was completed this year has a bike/pedestrian lane which I have been dying to traverse.

So this morning as I started my 2 hour ride, I headed down to Old Town Alexandria and across the bridge into Maryland.  The bike lane is at least 8 ft wide and handles the flow of traffic for walkers, runners, and riders very nicely.   At the apex of the bridge are a couple of stations for looking back into DC and the Alexandria waterfront.  You can watch planes lining up to land at Reagan National Airport, view the Washington Monument, and the see the dome of the US Capitol. 

After I crossed the bridge I rode over to National Harbor which a new and very large convention area.  The bride and I have been been over there for a food and wine tasting in the past and it a very impressive facitilty.  Disney is even going to be opening a hotel there sometime in the future. 

When you are coming from the Maryland side you get a very good idea of just how massive this bridge is.  The grade is not too steep but  for those us who bike in the flat lands around here,  it is nice to have a something to climb.  I then biked through Old Town and headed over to Hains Point to complete the two hour ride.  I was rather disappointed in my overall mileage.  I only did 30 or so miles in the two hours.  But riding on through Old Town with all the stop signs and then fighting with “social walkers/riders” on the Mount Vernon trail on a Saturday morning can be a real pain in the ass.  I was very happy with my hard 8 miles at Hains Point.  I was able to average close to 18mph for the 8 miles of limited traffic that makes Hains Point just a good place to ride. 

After the ride, the Bride and I headed over to the Alexandria Pool and I got in an easy 1000m of swimming.  This evening we are heading out to one of favorite restaurants and tomorrow is an hour run with running buddy.  I hope everyone had as good a Saturday as I did.