[SkateDC] After-Skate Report, Sunday Intermediate, May 17, 2009

[Bill English]

No rain during the skate today, but the forecast looked very rainy. I was surprised anyone else came out, but 11 skaters did. Five went on the advanced skate with David Hunter, and six went on the intermediate skate with me.

Intermediate skaters were

Bill
Jackeline
Jose
Céline
Søren
Jon (who travels from Mexico to visit us ocasionally)

Advanced skaters were

David
Steve
Mo
Fabio
Rudy

By coincidence, David and I had similar routes in mind. David decided to keep us all on the same route for a while before splitting up. We went to DuPont Circle, the Exxon Station in Georgetown at Q and Wisconsin, the campus of Georgetown University, and the Key Bridge into Rosslyn, VA. After the bridge, we went separate ways, but the Intemediates somehow managed to pass the Advanced group just before the Iwo Jima memorial later on. Guess the Advanced people didn't eat their wheaties this morning!

The intermediate group did not see the advanced group again after passing them. We continued on to the Iwo Jima USMC Memorial, the Netherlands Carrilon, and then the bike path to the Arlington National Cemetary Main Gate and the Memorial Bridge.

The route through Georgetown and Arlington seemed quite hazardous today, worse that I thought it would be. Lots of Georgetown traffic with a graduation event, and rough pavement all over Rosslyn. That was a surprise since the route we were using is basically the same as one we have used many times since it was created for Memorial Day Weekend 2005. It is a credit to our intermediate group that no one crashed today (except for a minor stumble near the White House later on). The fast downhill run from the Netherlands Carrilon scared most of us because the pavement was kind of wavy on the road just before we had to jump a speed bump to enter the bike path. I took it at nearly full speed, almost crashing when I applied a bit of heel brake just as the pavement got wavy on me. The following skaters noticed my near-fall and slowed quite a bit to more cautiously get onto the bike path. It was kind of fun to hit that speed bump at high speed, if you know
 what to expect ahead of time. 

We vistited the Lincoln and WW2 memorials next, then crossed the Kutz bridge over the Tidal Basin onto Independence Avenue. We took Jefferson drive through the Mall to the Capitol, then Pennsylvania Ave back the the White House. Just when our group got going really fast downhill with a strong tailwind on Jefferson Drive, Céline yelled out that we should stop. The reason- she believed that we all needed to stop and smell the flowers, exploring the fine gardens around the Smithsonian Castle. So since we had already stopped for her, we went ahead and slowly skate through the gardens. Céline is a landscape architect, which is why she cannot contain her enthusiasm about gardens. We decided to skate to  Baxburg Manor to buy club t-shirts, but did not get an answer when we phoned ahead so we skipped that.

I will remember to pre-view & edit this route before I use it again. I feel lucky that none of us got hurt today. Sorry about the hazards.

Thanks to all the participants.

Bill