NoVa road route suggestions?
 

I recently purchased my first ever road bike (have been a MTBer for a few years) and so far pretty much all of my rides have been on the MUPs in NoVa (W&OD and Mt. Vernon). I'm getting bored with those trails, and riding these on the weekends is a nightmare with all the families walking 3 wide with their dogs and strollers and kids running all over the place.

Can anyone suggest any road routes in NoVa, preferably within 30-45 minute drive from the Beltway/Mixing Bowl area? I'm looking for something as rural as possible that will be safe for me to get some experience on and not have too much traffic to contend with. I'm fairly new to the area and rarely get outside of the Beltway, so I'm pretty clueless.

One place I'm considering is down in Prince William Forest Park, the last time I was down there I saw several people on road bikes riding the roads through the park, but I'm not sure what kind of mileage one could get in there.

You should check out the Potomac Peddlers and Oxen Hill Bike Club web sites. The have large cue sheet lists with a lot of routes in the DC Metro area. The PW park is nice. There is a seven mile loop that you can do that has some nice hills. Other possible routes are available on bikely and mapmyride web sites.

A handy place to park and use as a central location for rides in almost any direction is the Park and Ride lot in Marshall. From there just about any road will take you on a mostly safe and interesting ride. A good loop is out Carters Run to Warrenton, and then back via Blantyre Road to The Plains. But really you can't go wrong in that area.

I'd recommend one of the Potomac Peddler rides out of Nokesville. Good rural roads north and west of Quantico with very little traffic and few hills. A multi-class ride is coming up on Oct 4, another C level on the 31st.
Other PPTC rides coming up:
Oct 3 and 25 around Poolesville
Oct 11 from Brentsville
Oct 17 from Marshal

Going out on a group ride is a good way to get to know the roads and pick up cued routes.
http://www.bikepptc.org/Oct09Rides#Oct3Sat

Thanks for the suggestions... I think I'll try to check out some of the Potomac Pedalers group rides.

Were you able to find any good roads with Potomac Peddalers? For the most part I have the same question as you. Where are the good roads in the area?

Here's a link to PPTC's cue sheet library.
http://www.bikepptc.org/cuesheets/by-dist

I'll also chime in with a recommendation of PPTC rides. Just make sure you catch a ride that matches your pace, because the differences between rider level classifications can be substantial: the AA/A riders are a tick below race-level, using a lot of racing tactics, the BBs are a tick slower than that. The B and below tend to take the "Touring" bit of PPTC's official name to heart: a more social pace.