DC to Poolesville

This is my mid-day route and it takes about l and l/2 hours if you ride quickly and 3-4 if you take your time and some photographs. The route as I have outlined it starts in NW DC but if you are coming from Virginia, you can pick it up at Key Bridge or Chain Bridge. Plenty of coffee shops, adequate gas and scenery that goes from the eccentric architecture of Cabin John,the historic C*O Canal and rural Maryland horse country. Be careful as the deer are plentiful and as usual suicidal. I normally begin the ride with a high speed seven mile run out Clara Barton Parkway to warm up the bike. MacArthur parallels Clara Barton so I take that on the way back. You can stop anywhere along here to walk on the C&O Canal and will pass the David Taylor Naval Research Laboratory just before you merge with MacArthur Blvd. Take a left onto MacArthur and within a mile you should slow down for the Kayaker Parking lot and the usual two motorcycle police with radar gun. As you go up hill, you can pick it up a notch. After another mile, you can go to the left and visit Great Falls or as I normally do, bear right onto Falls Road for about three miles and take a left onto River Road(coffee shop and hardware store in shopping center to right). River Road winds out for ten miles through horse country and T's out on Rte 112. At this point, either a left or right will take you out into the Maryland countryside. The roads are a bit funky and there are tractors, horse riders and lots of gorgeous scenery. Don't get too distracted as the locals drive fast.If you go left, you are riding parallel to the C&O Canal and can stop in quite a few places to enjoy one of the many restored Canal Locks in this area. The great circle as it's outlined above can take up an entire afternoon and either a left or a right at Rte 112 will make for a satisfying ride. You can visit Edwards Ferry off River Road or continue on and after you go through Poolesville (good restaurants/gas), take a left and go down to White's Ferry. I scoot around the traffic waiting for the ferry and stop at the general store, grab a drink and watch the ferry load. Note: on the way back, you can take River Road but this is unpaved which is good or bad depending on how bad your bike needs to be cleaned. ps: Yes, it's a Buell Blast. Yes...thank goodness, it's gone!!!

This is a motorcycle ride in the states District of Columbia, Maryland. This motorcycle route has 6 scenery characteristics and other road conditions to help you plan your road trip. This motorcycle map was created by srbphoto in February. Click here to see other Motorcycle Roads by srbphoto