First Crossing

 

Yesterday was the first day the Woodrow Wilson Bridge was open to bike and pedestrian traffic. Despite the cold I'm recovering from, I decided I wanted to be part of this history. So I met up with a bunch of other bicyclists on the Maryland side. (For those of you from out of town, the Wilson Bridge is the part of the Beltway that goes across the Potomac at a relatively wide point.) Going with a group definitely gave me the confidence to do this, but now that I know the way, I realize that the only difficult part is going uphill to reach the bridge. (Contributing factors may have been my cold, and the fact that I was nervous about shifting the front gear to first based on some recent problems.) I shot the video below from my handlebars.



The organized ride included 4 more miles around Alexandria (or a longer trek to Mount Vernon). Once I realized, though, that I could just turn around and go home, I opted to turn back. Anyway, it's a neat new place to ride...you can look off the bridge at the Capitol and Washington Monument, for example. Hopefully in coming years, Maryland will connect it to more of its trail network.