Tomorrow is Celebrate Trails Day—there are a whole lot of cool events happening and the weather looks perfect for a day outside. Here are a few we’re working on:
- Oxon Cove Trail Cleanup with Potomac Riverkeeper Network, Friends of Oxon Run, the National Park Service, and the Anacostia Parks and Community Collaborative. There are two volunteer shifts, with access from both the DC and Maryland sides of this hidden gem of a park.
- W&OD Trail 50th Anniversary Appreciation Cleanup. The Friends of the W&OD Trail are coordinating a HUGE cleanup along the 45-mile trail in honor of its 50th anniversary. Join a cleanup crew on a favorite segment, the segment closest to you, or come explore a new segment! WABA will be at Mile 12 in Vienna tabling and helping out with an invasive removal project – stop by and say hello!
- Celebrate Trails Day on the Met Branch Trail. Join Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, REI, Streets Calling, Varlo, the DC Trail Rangers, and others for an 8-mile family friendly bike ride on the Metropolitan Branch Trail and hang out to connect with people working across the region to make it safer and easier for everyone to walk, bike and be active outside.
More Things to do this week:
- Saturday:
- Check out a traffic garden at UMD—great for kids, parents & beginner riders to learn the rules of the road.
- Ride on the Northeast Branch Trail to visit REWILD West, REWILD DC’s plant fair with activities, art, food, prizes, and even a mechanical bull. WABA will be on hand with a bike valet to store your bike.
- Join Hill Family Biking for their April Anniversary Ride!
- Check out EmpowerDC’s Environmental Justice Summit
- Sunday: Check out City Nature’s challenge and raffle at Oxon Run
- Monday: Grab that old Bike to Work Day t-shirt you’ve been using to clean your bike and head to Conte’s for a Spring Cleaning maintenance seminar.
- Next Saturday is also packed with fun stuff:
- Don’t miss our own colorful spring bash, the Bloom Ride & Spring Picnic!
- The Tree House Tour de Cookie is The Tree House’s annual non-competitive, family-friendly, fun-filled bike ride fundraiser.
- Black Women Bike are hosting a Family Biking Clinic!
- Celebrate the Marvin Gaye Trail with a clean-up and photography trail walk.
- Or, if you want to head out of town, check out the Maryland Coast Bike Festival
- Join almost 5,000 people who’ve signed our petition urging Mayor Bowser not to cancel the Connecticut Ave bike lanes.
- Register for Bike to Work Day—it’s on Friday, May 17th this year and the t-shirts are a peppy orange. If you want to lead a convoy to a pit stop, sign up here.
A fun route idea for the weekend:
Celebrate trails by riding on a bunch of them! Here’s a metric century (plus a little) that’s almost entirely on trails, starting at the Reston Wiehle Metro station and ending at the Shady Grove Metro station. It’s also a fun way to experience different approaches to trail development—some classic rail trail (W&OD), some wooded park trails (Sligo Creek, Custis, Rock Creek), some recreational hubs (Anacostia Park), and a few bits of urban active transportation trail (M St SE, Hyattsville). What’s amazing is that this isn’t even the only all-day, Metro-accessible, mostly-trail ride you can take in the region. You can ride from Springfield to Silver Spring or Greenbelt to Bethesda, or any number of others.
Have a great weekend.