Tom's Maryland Biking page

 

Maryland has many beautiful sites and places to ride.  It doesn't matter what type of bike you ride. You can never have to many bikes. Maryland has something for you! The roads in many parts of the state have wide shoulders to accommodate the Amish and Mennonites with their buggies and us as Bicyclist. There are rail trails, National parks and loads of singletrack too. I ride a well-used Lotus road bike, a GT Outpost with a bunch of upgrades and my most recent purchase is Specialized Rockhopper Comp A-1 FS. The picture on the right is similar to my GT. The C&O Canal Towpath is a terrific place for a day ride or a several day tour of the 184 miles. I have ridden all but the a few miles between Synders Landing and Antietiam. Each year our Ward or our Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints takes a multiple day trip on the towpath. 2002 was my eighth trip and my youngest son's sixth. I have not been able to keep up with him the last three years. My oldest has ridden it three times too. Check out my C & O Canal trips pages.Harpers Ferry WV is only a bridge walk, across the Potomac River, away.

   There are several great bicycling organizations in MD, one of which is PACE (Patuxent area cycling enthusiast). They sponsor several great rides each year including the Maryland May Metric and the Amish 100. The last time I rode the May Metric I had the dubious honor of being the last one in. Every year there is a ride across the state, it's called the Cycle across MD. My Wife and I helped serve dinner on one of the nights they were in our area. I've never seen so many bikes in one place. Some of the people I spoke with had also participated in rides across other states before this one. In 1999 we helped work a rest stop for Cycle across Md's "Great Cookie bike Rally". It was a blast. My wife commented that she didn't really realize that cyclist came in all sizes and shapes. We are not all skinny and in perfect shape. In 2000 My youngest and I rode the 35 mile route in the rain and My Wife and a friend worked a rest stop. In 2001 I rode the Cookie Ralley with some friends while our wives and a friend worked a rest stop. In 2002 Cycle across MD was taken over by another group that no longer does the cookie ralley. There are alot of fun memories of those ralleys. We have a great website forSouthern Maryland. Check it out. It even has some Biking info.

Maryland is a friendly neighbor too. Check out MD's home page and our neighbors' sites:

Here are a couple more Cycling links to check out: