Lots of places to ride in both areas. If you have a distance in mind and general starting points I can make some suggestions. I also have many cue sheets for both areas.

Mark

Looking to do 40 to 60 mile rides. staying in Towson for a few nights then in downtown Annapolis for a few nights. Thanks

Make the drive to the Eastern Shore. Cambridge (site of Eagleman and upcoming IMMD) is about an hour drive from Annapolis.

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It's easy to make excuses, but excuses don't make champions.

When I lived in Annapolis 15 years ago that's what I did for some great long rides. The Eastern Shore had some nice scenic loops and a bit less traffic.

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Suffer Well.

There are a bunch of cue sheets here for rides just south of Annapolis (which is where the best riding is)

http://parvillacycles.com/articles/rides-and-events-pg60.htm


Also on Tues/Thurs nights the Annapolis Bicycle Racing Team rolls from the Davidsonville Park n Ride (just off Rte 50) at 6pm for a fast paced 28miler.

Also, Wednesdays at 6PM from Bike Doctor in Arnold.

I'm guessing these guys can :)

http://www.baltobikeclub.org/

Generally speaking from Towson you can head north on Dulaney Valley Road, and within 20 minutes be on pretty much nothing but country roads. Good destinations include Rocks State Park and Pretty Boy Reservoir, which would easily get you 40-60.

From Annapolis you head South on rt 2 and head towards Deale, Gaylesville, or beyond.

My experience has been that you will find more traffic and less friendly drivers in Annapolis, although not enough to deter you from riding.

PM me your email address if you'd like and I can send a bunch of cue sheets for both areas.

Mark

B & A trail.

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Simplify, Train, Live

Ride the 12 mile loop around the BWI airport 5 times....

I worked in Baltimore near the airport and that was all I ever got to do but it was fun enough.

From Annapolis you can head to Crownsville for some great roads. I ride the area 3 or 4 times a week all summer, pretty hilly but nice.

See this page for links.

http://bikedoctorannapolis.com/articles/rides-events-pg37.htm

There are a couple of stretches where you'll be riding on one side of a busy-ish 2 lane road (not a major thruway by any stretch, but it's an artery), but Solomon's Island road is a really long and nice ride from Edgewater out to the Patunxet River. It's around 50 miles, so you can chop it short and turn around to get whatever distance you want. There's also a tri store in Edgewater called Parvilla, if you need anything.

From Towson take dumaney valley or providence road north and check out the garmin cyclig heat map from there.

I am actually headed to Annapolis July 3-5. I know about Bike Doc in Arnold.

But where is Davidsonville Park N Ride to meet up with the Tues/Thurs Ride?

Davidsonville Park and Ride is just off Rte 50 at the MD424 exit. Ride leaves at 600pm

Map link - https://goo.gl/maps/v1rRb

Muchos Gracias!

Hi Mark, similar question I thought you could help me with. I'll be staying in downtown Baltimore for work for a week. I'll have a rental car and am bringing the bike so I can drive the bike somewhere far from downtown and park. Would be looking for a couple of options for 20-30 mile rides early in the morning. Do you have a couple of suggestions?

Gabe

Go north and ride Falls Road. Can be a little tight on the road, but some great rolling climbs.

If you want wide open and good shoulders, go out Liberty Road (Rt. 26) for about 10 miles outside of the beltway.

Howard County has some great roads and less traffic once you are outside of Columbia. Those were my haunting grounds.

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Rick, "Retired" hobbyist athlete
Trying to come back slowly from acute A-Fib

Not a fan of the B&A trail. I guess it is nice if you are scared of roads, otherwise it is a pretty crappy over crowded path with various street crossings with poor visibility. The BWI trail is only slightly better. The suggested options NW of Baltimore are much more to my tastes.

Excellent, thanks for the tips. How's the "car - bike" situation? Anything to be aware of beyond what's normal?

I ride mostly in NYC and New Jersey, used to lots of traffic but on most of the routes the drivers are used to cyclists, so it's hectic but manageable.

Generally the same here. Most people once you get out in the back roads are good about giving space. There is a 3' law in place as well, so more people are aware of it now.

And to the others who mentioned B&A trail? Ugh, no thank you. Avoid that like the plague. Too many start/stops and way too many pedestrians. When I absolutely had to ride that for portions of my training, I knew to just go ahead and drop my average pace 2 - 4 mph on that stretch.

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Rick, "Retired" hobbyist athlete
Trying to come back slowly from acute A-Fib

@gabebk - don't ride out of downtown. If you're not familiar with the roads, it's just a pain. If you're cool with driving a couple of miles, some of the replies have had good suggestions. I'd consider driving up to Meadowwood Regional Park on Falls Road (just north of 695) and starting from there. Falls Road has a small shoulder, but not super heavy traffic from that point north. You can also check out cue sheets from Oregon Ridge Park, which is maybe 5 or 6 miles from Meadowwood, off of Beaver Dam Road. There's a 30 mile route from Oregon Ridge that's used for the Wednesday Night Worlds ride. Once you're up that way, it's pretty easy to navigate if you use Falls Road and York Road as your limiters. Head north on one, cut across to the other, come back down.

If you prefer to not drive, there are a few rides out of the city in the evening. Race Pace on Key Highway in Federal Hill has a few rides, and Twenty/20 in Hampden, a few miles north of downtown, has a Wednesday night ride as well. There's the previously mentioned Weds Night Worlds ride at Oregon Ridge (6pm rollout) and a good, albeit earlier and farther away, 5:30pm ride from Race Pace in Owings Mills.

Happy to provide further info if required.

This is fantastic - thank you.

One more question - I've found a couple of pools that should work for me while I'm there, but are there any good OWS spots that would be easy to get some time in?

There aren't many spots for open water swimming, but here are a couple of suggestions:

Gunpowder State Park, Hammerman Area. It's about 12 miles from downtown Baltimore, but almost entirely a straight shot out Eastern Avenue. It's a state park so there's a fee to get in if you're driving, might be $3 or $6 or something. Lifeguards are there during the day and will typically not let you go out past the ropes, which means there's about 100m of space in between two little jetties. I haven't gotten out there the last two summers to swim, but I remember they usually leave at 6pm so if you go after then, you should be okay to pop out beyond the lines.

Sandy Point State Park is down near Annapolis, at the foot of the Bay Bridge (it's where the Bay Swim starts). Same deal with park fee, not sure about the lifeguard situation.

If you're here next weekend, this event just got changed from tomorrow to next weekend: http://www.harborfestswim.com/

Those are probably the two best options for you while you're here. For pools, depending on where you're staying the MAC in Harbor East has a setup with some of the Harbor East hotels for gym use. And, somewhat surprisingly, we do have some public pools that cost just a couple of dollars. Druid Hill Park has a pool, Patterson Park, Clifton Park. All in the downtown-ish vicinity. Since city-dwellers don't know how to swim they're typically not too crowded.