Rider

Manuel


From Washington DC


Commutes 10 Miles RoundTrip for 2 years and 0 months
Seven days a week, my bike is my primary transportation Year Round

I live in SouthWest DC. I presently work in Crystal City, an area of office buildings and high rise apartments in Arlington, Virginia right on the other side of the river. I have short ride on flat DC streets to the 14th Street bridge across the Potomac to Virginia. There I get on a bike/pedestrian path adjacent to the car lanes which connects with a bike path that had a direct connection to Crystal City. Mostly an all flat ride. The wind along the Potomac in the winter can be very rough. In fact one weekend day during the past winter, the wind speed was so high, I opted to walk my bike across another bridge I was crossing.

Married to a wife who has a car, but doesn't use it much, but doesn't ride a bike much either. I decided to sell my car 9 or 10 months ago. As long as I'm in this area, I don't have any plans to get another. I love not having a car. My goal this summer is to ride a century. I got up to 50 miles last year. In the future, I'd like to ride in some longer organized rides and take a bicycling vacation.

My workplace is only a mile or so from the Pentagon. September 11 was a sad day, however, riding my bike that day kept me from spending hours in gridlocked traffic or wondering whether the subway was working as many other people did. I was living in a different area at that time, but I was able to get home in about the normal amount of time although I did have to ride a little slower getting around all the people walking away from the Pentagon and away from Crystal City since buses were gridlocked and the subway was questionable.

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