Monday, September 27, 2010

Road Biking in Fairfax County, Virginia

We spent last weekend in the D.C. area with family, and were treated to some of the nicest road biking I've experienced. I never knew much about the area, so to provide some background, here's Wikipedia on the subject:


Fairfax County is a county in Northern Virginia, in the United States. As of April 2009, the estimated population of the county is 1,037,605[1] making it by far the most populous jurisdiction in the Commonwealth of Virginia, with 13.1% of Virginia's population, and the most populous jurisdiction in the Washington Metropolitan Area.
Fairfax was the first county in the United States to reach a six-figure median household income, and has the second-highest median household income of any county with a population of 250,000....[2]

But within the seemingly endless suburb of Fairfax and environs there's a region bounded by Ox Road, Braddock Road, and Bull Run where lot size is limited to 5 acres to protect the watershed, leaving significant mature forest, horse farms, expensive homes, and narrow, winding, impeccably paved roads. It's best to go out early before traffic builds, even better early on weekends, and it helps to have local guides to help avoid the busier roads. But when you do, it's like single track for roadies. 

Curves lead one into the other through tunnels of trees, sweeping down hills, through neighborhoods, and across valleys, and past meadows. It's some of the best flow I've experienced off a mountain bike. There was even the very cute historic town of Clifton to provide a hint of the older Fairfax before malls and developments. 

There are many parks and protected areas. One of the best mountain biking trails in the mid-Atlantic is at Fountainhead Park there, along with one of IMBA's gateway mountain bike centers for introducing new riders to the sport at Laurel Hill Park. Wish I'd had time to sample them too. Who'd have thought there'd be such good biking in the national megalopolis. 


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