It All Started on the W&OD Trail

On your left ... on your left. (Photo by Jahi Chikwendiu/Washington Post)

Just another day on Northern Virginia's W&OD Trail?

OK, well maybe it's not quite that bad, but the 45-mile paved trail that Mike Armellino and I usually ride weekends is picking up increased traffic, according to a front-page story in last Friday's Washington Post.

Three cyclists have been killed on the trail in the last year, and that is the kind of thing that tends to attract media attention.

Mike and I usually start out in Reston, at about the 17-mile mark, and head west to Leesburg. The roundtrip to Leesburg is about 34 miles; through Leesburg about 41 miles; and to Purcelville and back 56 miles. There's less traffic going west than east, and fewer road crossings as well. The roundtrip ride east from Reston, or Vienna, to Alexandria (home of Mike's restaurant, Bilbo Baggins), ranges from about 48 to 60 miles, and takes you along the Potomac River, with the famous Washington D.C. monuments just across the river. Very pretty, but it's dangerous to exceed about 15 mph along the river, where the trail passes Reagan National Airport and gets fairly congested with riders, runners, rollerbladers and walkers. Going west, a good speed for me is about 17 mph; Mike could easily do 20 by himself.

I have my own W&OD story, of course. Nearly four years ago, on Nov. 20, I was struck by a van in a crosswalk across Belmont Ridge Road. The driver clipped my rear wheel and send me flying like ET on that bike ride with the moon as a backdrop. It was seven months before our big Trek Travel trip, and I wasn't recovered enough to resume training until the end of March. So the climbs in the Pyrenees were something of a triumph for me. I suffered some cracked ribs and a small crack in my pelvis, and as Mike knows, I worked hard to get in reasonable shape for the wonderful week of riding with Granny, Tooth and Mike.

There was more to the triumph, of course. Cyclists are always at fault in Virginia, and an unsympathetic Loudoun County policeman issued me a ticket for failure to yield (the way I flew through the air, I'd say I yielded plenty!). To this day, I still don't know how that van got that close to me, especially if it was doing the speed limit, but I know I didn't bolt into the road, as the officer assumed -- certainly not onto a road on which the speed limit is 45 and cars and trucks often approach 60 mph.

I took the case to court, and for about $2,200 (I could have paid the $50 ticket and been done with it), my superb attorney, Fred Greco, got the charges dismissed when the driver admitted for the first time in court that he was "blinded by sun" and never saw me. Who knows what he saw or how fast he was going; the officer never questioned that. The judge was not amused with the driver or the officer and scolded them both. And I won the first court case involving a cyclist in Virginia state history.

But that is all behind me now. I thought a lot about Our Boy Lance during my recovery, and I've never been as strong on a bike as I was that summer. I was never happier on a bike than I was during those wonderful rides in the Pyrenees, Bordeaux and the great finale on the streets of Paris. And I never enjoyed a group of riders more than our Trek Travel group.

I returned to Belgium and France for the first week of the 2004 Tour; got to ride with Jonathan Vaughters and Eddie Mercxx. But there will never be a week quite like we all enjoyed in '03.

So this weekend, I'll be back on the W&OD. Maybe you'll all join Mike and me one of these weekends.

On your left ...