BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Great Falls of the Potomac is good, but maybe not as near to Georgetown as you want. The park there is nice.

Milepost 0 is tucked in behind the Thompson Boat Center at about 38.899897, -77.057565. There's a parking lot just north of there (I believe it's for Rock Creek Park) 38.901328, -77.057699 that we used for pickup on the last trip. It get's very full and could take some waiting to get a spot. People parked illegally all over that lot, blocking other cars and emergency vehicles that were trying to get through there (why they were trying to use the parking lot to get to the marina I wasn't sure, but a fire truck driver was REALLY ticked off about the illegally parked vehicles). I don't remember seeing a time limit on parking, but if I remember correctly it has meters. There's a parking garage at 1015 Thomas Jefferson Street Northwest, Washington, DC - which is within walking distance. I THINK this is where we parked a vehicle on the trip two years ago, but I'm not 100% sure if that's the right one and I have no idea what it cost. Hope that helps.

Many people park at Regan Airport and take the Rock Creek/Mt Vernon (?) trail from MP 0 to the airport. You can also look for parking in Georgetown at the waterfront where the Capital Crescent Trail lets out, but it gets crowded too.

There are extensive bike trails all over the DC area. I'm pretty sure you coulod find cheap or emaybe even free parking, if you were willing to ride 7 or 8 miles to mile 0.

I like Sara's suggestion of parking at the airport. In addition to riding from there via various trails, it would also be easy to take the Metro from DCA Airport to Foggy Bottom, and to Mile 0 from the station it's a half-mile ride. I would also suggest parking on a quiet residential street somewhere in "Upper Northwest" (http://wikitravel.org/en/File:DC_districts_map_grouped.png) which will probably be a safe place to leave a car for a day (or longer). Be sure to check for locals-parking-only zones; scope out your preferred site with your mapping service of choice and the DC government's website "Residential Permit Parking Block Data Inquiry"--I don't see a map of this anywhere but you can find a couple candidate streets and check to see if they will work out.

Thanks, all for the great suggestions. I perhaps should have been a bit more clear that I needed something very close - if I were on my own, the suggestions of the airport or biking back several miles or to the airport would have worked, but this venture was with kids who were expected to be at the end of their day by the time we hit Georgetown As implied by my use of past-tense, we did this trip earlier this week. Opting for convenience over low-expense, I splurged and parked at the Kennedy center. Expensive ($23 for the day), but very convenient, including reasonably close street spots for loading the bike once the car came out of the garage. Other options that might have worked included the Watergate complex and (as recommended by others) the Loews Cinema by the water in Georgetown. The Rock Creek parking lot was, as stated above, quite full, but spots were also limited to 3 hours. Same limits for the spots (which were available) at the end of the Capital Crescent trail. If (when?) i end up doing this again, I would like park at Fletcher's Cove. Mile 3 on the c&o trail, without about 10 spots that seemed pretty available when I rode by (on a weekday). I couldn't see any signs of time limits there. thanks again for the help.