Rides 9/14

Even though I've been riding a new route since July and even though I've been getting lost in trying to get to and from work, I don't think I've really ridden on any new roads. You commute long enough or if you ride around aimlessly on weekends and a few years pass, it's likely you'll ride on most streets at least once and I think it's pretty safe that say that that's the case with my new commute route. There's really only so many ways to cover the three miles between Dupont and AU. However, today I rode a new road and it wasn't even a road I knew I could ride, but I did it and oh yeah, it's also the access road to the zoo parking lots.

I don't spend a lot of time at the zoo. The last time I was there was Brew at the Zoo and the time before that was...2003? And I'm not sure that I've ever driven to the zoo, or at least parked anywhere near the official zoo parking lots. All of this is to say that I'm not very familiar with the Zoo access road, but it turns out that there is one and it goes from Connecticut Avenue down to Rock Creek Park and it's downhill, at least in that direction. It's two lanes and it bans pedestrians. I guess they spent all the sidewalk money on signs that say 'No Pedestrians" and "Watch for Pedestrians," the latter being placed at the few crosswalks from the zoo side to the parking lots and the former being placed everywhere else. I don't see any reason why there couldn't or shouldn't be sidewalks, but apparently that's something the zoo isn't interested in having. Caged animals indeed.

There were no signs about bikes.

The best part about the zoo road (North Road, as it's called on google maps) is that no one else was on it at 5PM on a weekday and so I could ride it leisurely, though the rumble strips were hardly that. The worst part about the zoo road is that it empties you at Harvard Street at its base in the Rock Creek Ravine. That meant riding up Adams Mills Road, which is hilly, but a fun kind of hilly and then it was back up to Calvert on the east side of the Ellington Bridge. The zoo road lets you skip Connecticut and Calvert, but you trade that for a hill. But it's still a new road and you can't put a price on a new road. Is it practical? This is bike commuting- what does that matter?

Guys, the zoo road

Zoo gate. It doesn't so no bikes which means yes bikes obviously

Yup, that's a road. But to the right is a zoo. So that's cool.