Mission Accomplished Part II

I did the ride in the posting mentioned below - the link is here and the map (with distance in km) is shown above. The idea was to do 40 km., the distance for the triathlon, and I got close enough. I didn't track the time, but when I was on the open road on Beach Drive in Rock Creek Park, I was averaging near 20 mph or higher.

Riding in the city and along the bike trail is pretty slow: lots of debris on the trail, as well as lots of traffic: walkers, runners, other bicyclists.

Once you get a fair bit above the National Zoo, you can go faster. On the weekends, much of Beach Drive is closed to automobile traffic. There are lots of walkers, runners, and bicyclists. Many of the bikers are families with very young children: I think it's great for families to do that kind of thing together.

Still the road is a quite-wide two lanes, so it's easy to get up some speed along the way. There was a bit of a breeze from the South. The road surface on Beach Drive is pretty good for the most part, so I was able to get some real speed: up to 23 mph on flats, and close to 27 mph on the few smallish downhills.

I got a latish start, after 4PM, but made it back before 6PM.