The thunderstorms last night took a toll on the Custis Trail. I biked in this morning from W&OD near Falls Church to DC. The entire route was fine except the Custis Trail. From where the W&OD intersects the Custis Trail until around the 2.5 mile marker (roughly around Spout Run and the shopping center with the Giant/Big Wheel Bikes/Italian Store) there are two trees blocking the trail entirely and another one or two spots (cannot recall exactly) where downed trees block most of it. The worst is near Spout Run where I had to detour through the parking lot of the Giant/Big Wheel Bikes/Italian Store shopping center, otherwise at worst you'll have to get off your bike to walk around the trees. There is also a stoplight in Rosslyn on Lee Highway that is not working so the cars get a little antsy, be wary crossing that. All in all, it's not a big deal, just budget a few extra minutes and be on the look out.

yeah,

same issues this morning. The Rosslyn crossing was a bit tight as they just didn't even want to see me there.

Thanks for the warning. Hope they have it cleared by Sunday when I'll be using it.

I saw the radar pic about 2:45, and decided to bolt out of work to try and beat the storm. My mistake. By the time I left, the sky was BLACK. I made it about a mile down the trail when the storm hit. I was able to dive under the 66/Metro overpass and was able to wait out the bad part of the storm.

After the lightning dissipated, I got back on the trail, and had to dodge lots of small debris...but once I got to Gallows road, there were several places that were blocked by trees, some I was able to ride around, but a couple I had to dismount and carry over, around or THROUGH the downed tree. (Evidently a tree crushed a truck on Gallows Road in Annandale, killing one of the occupants).

There were 3-4 other spots with downed trees across the trail in Reston (just before and after Wiehle avenue). I turned off to the FFax Cty Pkwy trail, which was fairly clear, but several big puddles to ride through..

After I got home, I realized that maybe I should have waited out the storm from the office......

You'd have been waiting a while! I watched the storm roll thru Tysons at around 3 yesterday, clear up for a bit, then come back with a vengeance around 6. Got a ride home w/ co-worker- took an hour and change for the 12 mile drive. I don't think there was any 45 minute window from 3pm onward that would have presented a good time to sneak home on my bike.

Drive in today and will drive home with my bike in the trunk- probably a good rest after one of my highest mileage weeks ever.

Yikes, I normally don't get on the trail that far west for my commute. After two days of biking all the way into DC, I took a break yesterday and just biked to the EFC metro, about 1.5 miles from my home. The return trip in the afternoon on Metro and biking was not nice. Metro was down from EFC to WFC for awhile and the EFC station was chaos. People were walking all the way down the W&OD from EFC to try to get to Dunn Loring or WFC. Then it started pouring rain at 6:30 again and there were a lot of nearby lightning strikes. Guys in business suits without umbrellas were resigned to getting drenched and were trudging down the trail, each step causing more water to ooze out of their soaked dress shoes.

I wonder how long it will take to clean up the Custis and W&OD?

The Annandale death was about 1/4 mile from my house. I jogged past there, and Hummer Rd. was closed to traffic.

A good part of the Tour de Cure on Sunday is on W&OD west of Reston. Does anybody know if there was any major damage from there to Purcellville? I presume if it's just downed trees they'll have those cleared by then. Hopefully the stream crossings hold up.

It took over a year for them to fix the bridge that washed out this side of Hunter Mill Rd...

Tour de Cure is on Sunday???
Uh, ho!
PPTC is doing an end-to-end W&OD ride that day.
Going to be crowded.

Does anyone know the condition of the CCT and MVT after the storm?

Don't know about conditions west of 7100 - (turned off there), but I'm glad I left when I did - I was home when the second wave of storms hit. Other than the 30 seconds of torrential rain before I was able to dive under the 66 underpass, it was a normal (if rainy) ride home. It even stopped raining by the time I got to Vienna, and I was really only wet from stepping in a puddle or two to heft my bike around some downed trees in Reston.

Lights were out at Gallows and Maple Street in Vienna. Cars stopped to let my by, but in both cases, there was someone who was trying to get around the stopped traffic, so it was good that I was anticipating that. At Hunter Mill Road, there was a downed tree across the road, so FFax police were there blocking traffic to let the crews move it off the road.

Lights were operational at Wiehle, and all down the Parkway....but I almost got beaned at Wiehle by (what else) someone yakking on a cell phone.

You should have started a little further west - it got pretty nasty halfway between Vienna and Falls Church too, trees down and such. I rode in from Reston to Arlington, tons of fun. I think there were a total of 5 trees down on the trail that I recall.

Worst part was all the little debris. Trees I can see, but little pieces of branches, pine cones, etc aren't fun when cornering.

I think I'm glad I started where I did - if I had gone past the 66/Metro underpasses, there's no real shelter on the trail other than the little huts near the fire station, and next to the trail every couple miles or so....the bridge was the absolute safest place at the time.

The debris wasn't much fun - (I don't like the twigs popping into the spokes/chain), but I did get to do a little bit of trail hopping (one of the great things about a cyclocross bike) around some of the smaller downed branches. The fenders helped with the big puddles. I hosed the bike down to get the crud off of it when I got home. I've got a tune-up scheduled this week, too - since I'll be off the commuter until at least next week for my trip down to Mt. Mitchell. That's what the road bike is for.