It wasn’t raining when Joe Gorney woke up on Friday, May 20. Since it happened to be Bike to Work Day, he thought he’d try biking to work.
"This is basically a special event," Gorney said. He rides from Fairfax to Leesburg, where he works for the Loudoun County Government.
Bike to Work Day is a regional initiative to try to encourage commuters to get out of their cars and onto their bikes, coordinated by the Washington Area Bicyclist’s Association.
John Brunow of Bikes@Vienna, sponsored a pit stop at the Whole Foods on Maple Avenue. Although the rain seemed to keep down the number of riders compared to past year's event, a significant number of bicyclists braved the weather. "There’s a lot of people that are still splashing through," said Brunow, whose pit stop had 263 registered users.
Some of the people making use of the Brunow’s pit stop on Friday had already been bikers. Jason Miller who rides from Fairfax to L’Enfant Plaza — a little over 20 miles each way — said that Friday was his fifth time biking to work, a practice he had only started a few weeks ago. "It only takes me about 15 minutes longer," Miller said.
He hopes to be able to bike to work about three days a week. "Just to relieve the commute."
"I’m trying to do my part to save the planet," said Katherine Wimble of Falls Church. Since moving to the area in March, Wimble rides to her workplace just outside of Reston. She said that riding to work gives her a reliable travel time to work each day. "And when I get to work, I’m not already stressed from the traffic."