A WaPo columnist recently tried biking to work and the vaguely amusing, vaguely whiny article that resulted got him a nice cross-section of the DC area bike community to respond. Me? That's almost exactly the same distance I ride, when I ride to work. Fortunately I don't have to deal with the unpaved C&O Canal trail, otherwise I'd probably be on a hybrid of some sort. He's already picked a better route than his first few tries. I got lucky with Google's bike routing and have what I consider an ideal compromise between safety, speed, and lack of hills. Keep riding!