Bike Videos: Greenbelt is a Great Place to Ride a Bike

Greenbelt is a great place to ride a bike.  We have miles of low-traffic roads nearby in the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center and Patuxent Wildlife Refuge.  Greenbelt National Park has a nice (though hilly) road for exercise rides. It's fairly easy to get around town on a bike, although you sometimes have to find creative ways to cross Greenbelt Road, the BW Parkway, and Route 201. And bike commuting to employment centers in College Park and DC is surprisingly easy, although some of the back roads and trails are not well known.

These five videos are rough edited — not very slick. Someday I'll figure out how to set them to music (so you don't have to hear the annoying road noise from the camera). To see each video, just scroll over the little thumbnail box below the main video picture.

The first video is just a walk around the Labor Day Festival. The second is clips from a weekend ride in the farms and wildlife refuge. (The second video is also a shameless promotion for the Washington Area Bicyclist Association's user forum, which is hosted by Bike Arlington.  This forum is a great place to get tips on bikes, commuting, clothes, etc.)

The three YouTube videos were taken last winter, and show various ways of getting around town. One shows getting from historic Greenbelt to the Metro and toward the access points for the trails to College Park and DC. Another goes from Beltway Plaza back to historic Greenbelt and Greenway Center. The third shows parts of Greenbelt East, including Schrom Hills Park, and then access to Greenbelt National Park. 

The videos also show areas where some simple improvements would really help make biking easier and safer, especially for slower or less athletic riders. Obviously, some of our high-speed, drive-through roads are not very safe for local bike riders, and so creative route planning is often necessary. A good blog for discussion of road and trail improvements in the DC area, which also does a pretty good job keeping up with developments in Prince George's county and the Greenbelt/College Park area, is www.thewashcycle.com .

Some other video clips of local rides and commuting are available for the browsing on Vimeo or YouTube.  Or, if you don't have the links handy, just search for Greenbelt Bike Videos and they should come up.  -Jeff

Download the movie

Download the movie