Maryland Bike Routes

200k Patapsco to Sugarloaf Loop

2011-12-27T16:28:00.001-08:00

48 miles Sugarloaf Dirt

2011-10-04T19:02:00.000-07:00

Lots of dirt roads in this ride from Mt. Airy to Sugarloaf Mt and back. I hope the roads are all passable; not sure at this point.

Update 10/16: Rode with John. The dirt roads are great! Riding around Sugarloaf was a blast. It is a challenging course: first windy, then gravelly, then hilly.

Penn Shop Rd. and Fingerboard Rd. are very crowded with traffic and no shoulder; I think next time I will figure out a workaround. Peters Rd. was dirt and pretty rough. I found it to be right at the limit of what I could ride on 23s, and it looked very likely to flood if the creek is high.

Here's the modified route that misses the busy roads early in the ride.

Lost River State Park

2011-09-16T09:09:00.000-07:00

West Virginia Century

25 miles WB&A Trail - Crofton

2011-08-26T08:35:00.000-07:00

25 miles exactly.

Used this course for a 25 mile Breast Cancer Awareness Ride from the shop. I was really excited to get some great feedback from riders who enjoyed the route! A few people told me they didn't know there were any country roads like Cecil Ave or Dicus Mill or Severn Chapel anywhere nearby.

200k Partial Preride

2011-08-15T16:40:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow's preride of part of the 200k course I will be doing at some point over the next several months. Mapped out 40 mile loop from the BWI trail, from the shop via Burns Crossing about 70 miles.

Update 8/16: Great ride! The roads around the Hollofield area of Patapsco Valley State Park are worth the trip. Narrow roads in poor condition with no traffic and steep hills. Beautiful farmland and forests out that way. Wrights Mill Rd and Davis Ave in particular were great. Watch out for the washboarded descent of Old Frederick Rd down to the river.

10/4: I've done the ride twice now and it is definitely going to be a go-to in the future. It's easy to start from the Patapsco park and ride which is convenient for those who live in Baltimore.

44mi Dirt and Gravel Thurmont

2011-08-15T12:34:00.000-07:00

Not yet tried. Looks brutal.

Metric through Deale

2011-08-14T19:24:00.000-07:00

One last option doesn't share (have?) any park rest areas but hits some great, tiny roads in Deale and Churchton.

Alternate 25 miles - Generals Rest Stop

2011-08-14T19:22:00.000-07:00

Modified Shop Training Loop with a halfway point rest stop shared by the metric. This may be the way to go.

Alternate Metric - Generals Rest Stop

2011-08-14T19:16:00.000-07:00

Alternate metric with rest stop on Crownsville Rd.

Double Metric work in progress

2011-08-14T08:58:00.000-07:00

In progress

Slightly modified for more dirt.

Bike to Work

2011-06-27T17:35:00.001-07:00

Possible least-bad route to bike to work.

75 miles Baltimore-Monkton-Baltimore

2011-06-27T17:19:00.000-07:00

Route to try for a three-quarter century out of Baltimore city and back.

Shop Training Loop

2011-06-14T19:02:00.000-07:00

Shop training loop: just over 20 miles of rolling hills and flats with a few short climbs. John and I ride this several times every week before work.

62 miles South County

2011-06-08T10:24:00.000-07:00

Possible metric for October through south AA County.

25 Miles Shop to Davidsonville

2011-06-08T10:10:00.001-07:00

25 miles shop to Davidsonville

10 miles Odenton to Trail

2011-06-08T10:03:00.000-07:00

10 miler on WB & A Trail from the shop.

10 miles Shop - Crofton Pkwy.

2011-06-06T14:32:00.000-07:00

10 mile route to Crofton and back.

Google Maps updates

2010-07-10T17:52:00.000-07:00

I realized looking back at some of my old posts that as Google has updated its maps, it has sometimes changed recommendations for the best route between two points. Consequently, some of my routes have changed (for instance, Hamburg Rd. in Frederick Forest was apparently decided too obscure, so some descents of it have been rerouted.)

As a result, if any of my directions include interstates, or U-turns, or anything else that seems out of place, chances are they have been changed by updates. Feel free to email me or post a comment if you are planning on using a route and something seems off.

Civil War Century preview

2010-07-10T17:22:00.000-07:00

Back to it! Here is a loop I am planning to ride later this month with several friends who are going to do the Civil War Century for the first time. It previews the two longest climbs in the 100-miler, and has a good high-speed descent along Harp Hill Rd. I definitely recommend trying the century, especially if you have done one or two flat centuries and want something with a bit more scenery (and climbing, and descending, and history...)

Information for the ride is found here: www.civilwarcentury.com.

Google Maps Bicycling Directions

2010-03-15T18:30:00.000-07:00

I was ahead of the curve on this one. I've been using Google Maps for bike routes for a while! It seems like most of the bike trails in our area are mapped now, which is great. It even looks like there are marked bike lane routes in the city maps!

100 miles around Anne Arundel County

2009-10-02T07:05:00.000-07:00

A century ride that I might be doing later this month. Substitute the B & A Trail for the section along MD-2 through Severna Park.

50 Miles: Thurmont - Greenbrier Loop

2009-07-11T12:17:00.000-07:00

A link to an alternate half century loop from Thurmont Community Park. This one goes counterclockwise, and after descending Hamburg Rd, a technical descent of several miles, is fairly flat for the last 12 miles or so back into town. There are refueling points in Smithsburg after about 15 miles and Meyersville after about 28 miles. The route climbs three distinctive mountain passes: up MD-77 at the start, around Greenbrier State Park on Keadle Rd, and over the Gambrill Park ridge on Crow Rock and Highland School Roads. However, all of the other "rolling" roads out here always have a tendency to be more hilly than I remember them.

Here is a 40 mile version that avoids the second mountain ridge for a little less mileage and a lot less climbing. It's probably more fun, to be honest.

54 miles: Thurmont - Catoctin Mountains

2009-06-26T15:09:00.000-07:00

This is a route reposted from an earlier entry. I plan on doing this route on a group ride in July. It'll be a good bit of saddle time, and a lot of climbing. I've ridden most of these roads riding with Ernest and Mark, one of our sales reps and a friend (and a great climber). After I ride the whole thing I'll update the post.

61 miles: Columbia - Woodbine Loop

2009-06-26T05:54:00.000-07:00

Another route I came up with to possibly use on a group ride next month. Going to go try it out today.

Update: Not a bad route, on a cloudy day. All the roads are rideable and reasonably safe, and there are several convenience stores and gas station marts at which to refuel. The ride was also quite hilly—it was always climbing or descending, never much in the way of flat roads. There were two roads that were really great: Woodbine Morgan Road, running for one mile through the woods along a branch of the Patapsco River; and Shaffersville Rd, a tree-lined road gradually descending for 1.7 miles southeast of Mt. Airy. Almost the entire rest of this ride was in the sun, and with not a cloud to be seen and temperatures in the 90s, I was exhausted by the time I finished.

72 miles: Mt. Airy - Thurmont Loop

2009-06-15T19:41:00.000-07:00

A possible ride for 72 miles through the rolling country east of Frederick up into the Catoctin range and back again.

29 miles: Point of Rocks to Mt Airy

2009-06-10T05:51:00.000-07:00

The rest of the loop back to Mt. Airy from the last post. In between that and this is about 14 miles of C&O Canal towpath.

54 miles: Mt. Airy to Harpers Ferry

2009-06-10T05:32:00.000-07:00

This is a one-way route across the Catoctin and South Mountain ridges linking Mt. Airy, east of Frederick, to Harpers Ferry West Virginia. I'm planning on making this part of a longer loop that incorporates the C&O Canal towpath - but I can't map that using Google Maps!

45 Miles on Day 30

2009-04-30T15:27:00.000-07:00

Here is the link to the ride Andrew and I did on our 30th and final day of riding our bikes this month. It was a great route (even with the long out and back section on Patuxent River Rd). The weather cooperated for us and it was a fantastic way to end our daily-ride challenge.

Challenge: 30 Days of April

2009-04-25T18:37:00.000-07:00

I'm taking part in a challenge between a few of us at the shop. Sometime in March we decided we were going to ride for at least 45 minutes on every day in April. We're now 25 days in; Andrew, Scott, and myself have all managed to ride on each of the last 25 days. I've been trying to take a camera on each ride, or at least take a before- or after-ride picture. The link to the Flickr page with my photoset is here.

The whole endeavor has changed my view on riding a little bit; on group rides I find myself much more content to let people break away, figuring I'll eventually catch back up. I've been spending a lot of time in the little ring so as to rest my leg muscles as much as possible. It's also been a new experience going for short rides every day, instead of long rides a couple times a week with plenty of time in between to recover. It's been a lot of fun and a neat accomplishment... but I'm really looking forward to day 31.

35 miles Park & Ride Loop

2009-04-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to tomorrow afternoon's ride around Anne Arundel County.

50 miles: Shop to Harwood Loops

2009-02-27T05:35:00.000-08:00

Here is a link to a route from the shop through Davidsonville to a loop used by one of the local cycling teams as a weekly ride. All these roads are a lot of fun and I've ridden them many times.

62 miles: Columbia Triathlon + 37

2009-02-27T05:12:00.000-08:00

Here is a Google Maps link to a route that starts at Centennial Park in Columbia and covers the whole route of the Columbia triathlon. It branches off, however, to add another long loop out through the rolling terrain up toward Woodbine and through Patuxent River State Park. I will post an update once I get the chance to ride the whole loop to verify road conditions etc.

75 mile Glen Burnie to Sykesville Loop

2009-01-20T05:11:00.000-08:00

Here is a link to a route from my Glen Burnie neighborhood out through Patapsco Valley State Park and past Columbia. It loops around out in the countryside near Sykesville on US-32 and comes back, avoiding major highways. A section of the BWI bike trail can be easily substituted for Dorsey Rd. south of the airport.

Old Rag 70 Miles - Culpeper, VA

2009-01-19T19:24:00.000-08:00

Here is a Google Maps link to a ride I mapped based off of available cue sheets. It is a nice 70 mile ride through the foothills of the Blue Ridge in Virginia. It takes roads that pass by trailheads leading to Old Rag Mountain and Shenandoah National Park. I've hiked all through that area but haven't ridden there; I'm looking forward to trying this route out in the spring.

63 miles Frederick Countryside

2008-12-22T05:08:00.000-08:00

As of December 2008, I haven't actually ridden most of these roads yet, so this route is more in the planning phase.

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54 miles Thurmont - Greenbrier Loop

2008-12-21T17:59:00.001-08:00

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34 miles Shop - Davidsonville - Gambrills

2008-12-21T16:59:00.001-08:00

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57 miles Park & Ride - Owings - Galesville

2008-12-21T16:17:00.000-08:00

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28 miles Shop - Crownsville

2008-12-21T15:53:00.000-08:00

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