(8 miles on bike)
The 8-mile ride from the motel into downtown Silver Spring included a stretch on Colesville Road, a main traffic route. As on other routes I have ridden, the speed of rush-hour traffic here seems to be limited only by the laws of physics and people’s desire to stay alive.
The area within the red circle shows there is perhaps 6″ between the white line and the curb, and even less between the bus and the curb. My own desire to stay alive prompted me to walk my bike on the grassy berm for most of this stretch.
Construction of the Metro’s new purple line caused some wrong turns and detours.
The Metro red line has a stop in downtown Silver Spring. When I arrived in the area I stopped at a McDonald’s and swapped my biker shorts and tee shirt for some clean clothes, then to a Fed Ex store to ship everything but the bike back home, and then to a bike shop to have my bike disassembled and shipped home. I walked to the Metro stop, and took it to Reagan Airport for the plane ride home.
My son Manny, who dropped me off at the Amtrak station twelve days earlier, picked me up at the airport.