Ride Help

[owlice]

I've certainly seen road bikes with skinny tires on that trail (NCR), but knobby would likely be better, I should think, especially if it's going to rain. The surface is pretty good even in rain, though, at least the times I've ridden it when wet.

For under 30 miles, you have a couple of other good options, depending on how wooded you want a trail to be. The NCR is definitely woods; I haven't been all the way up to the state line, but have done 15+ up, and most of the time, you will feel as though you are in the middle of nowhere. It's great!

But if you want part woods/part suburbia, you could do either the Baltimore and Annapolis trail (http://www.bikewashington.org/trails/ba/ba.htm), which is 13 miles one-way/round-trip 26, or some combination of the Anacostia tributary trails (http://www.bikewashington.org/trails/branches/index.htm). I do NW Branch/NE Branch/Paint Branch, which is 14 miles end-to-end, so 28 RT. I usually start on Paint Branch, because that is closest to my house. Some parts of NW Branch, and even the bottom of NE Branch, some people think are kind of dicey because they are, comparatively, somewhat economically depressed and very high immigrant areas, but I've never had a problem and I've ridden these trails by myself, and with my then-small child, too, many times. (Part of one of the kid's front teeth is out on one of those trails somewhere!)

The Paint Branch/NE/NW Branches ride doesn't feel rural, though there are wooded sections on it; the NCR ride definitely does. The Paint Branch/NE/NW ride gives you the option of Sligo Creek Park, too, which is also suburban mostly shaded parkland (so treed). NCR is not paved, though a good surface; all the others I've mentioned are paved.