angelo

Where does one get a trail map of Columbia, is it online?

balto charlie

They are hard to get. Never found it online. Columbia doesn't want outsider(my opinion). I've seen the maps but never found them available. I think municipal buildings have some. The trails are very twisty so great for rec riding but don't seem great for commuting. At least with the trails I've ridden. Someone should ride the trails with a mapping gps and produce a map.

SaladShooter

You can pick them up in any of the Village Centers, but I HIGHLY recommend picking one up at Race Pace Bicycles on Snowden River Parkway. GREAT shop, I've known those guys for going on ten years now. Plus if you buy something they'll usually give you the $5 map for nothing.

Columbia doesn't care about the folks that live there let alone outsiders, it's a bad town to navigate period. The trails are great for my commute because it is so short, but certainly not the most efficient way to get through town.

The Human Car

That describes most places in MD IMHO. At times I feel sorry for MDOT and those traffic guys, we have got one messed up road network.

I agree that making a "best guess" on what road to take in Columbia is more challenging then in other places.

I think I have done the eastern part of that route after Patuxent River State Park it’s not a bad route.

I found the following about getting a hold of Columbia’s trail map:
From memory these locations have bankers’ hours so getting them at Race Pace sounds like a better option for now. My conversation with Ken Ulman sounds like he is going to try and get the map on-line. Since there was one speculation about the motives behind the lack of the map availability I will put forth my own speculation, which is that they just wanted to recoup printing costs and the Columbia Association already has the Village Community Centers infrastructure up so they just tacked the map distribution through that and for the retirees and stay home with the kids moms this works out ok and they did not think past this point. But for the “I would like to get exercise after work” dads/moms or the “I would like to bike to work” to/from Columbia the current distribution system does not work well at all.

galen_52657

Over the years, I think the Columbia pathways have fallen out of favor. I do recall there were a rash of assaults some time ago and maybe a murder. Some of the paths are well removed from the view of homes or businesses and thus lend themselves to urban ambushers. But, I have not read of any troubles lately. Like a lot of 'feelgood' planning, these paths to know where don't make a lot of sense for through commuting and only really serve the local recreation populace and barely do that.

balto charlie

The problem is that Columbia does not have signs....anywhere. Trying to find a store, gas station etc... is hard. I have climbed there for 5 years and just found out about a nearby bar. They don't like ugly signs blocking up the scenery. I don't blame them. This is what makes Columbia quaint and uninviting to outsiders. My earlier post "they don't want outsiders" is a little harsh but they don't make it easy for us. I look at Columbia as a huge cul-de-sac. Charlie

NoRacer

derath, can you come out and play tomorrow?

So, for me, does this look like a good way to get to New Town High School?
https://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=637497

If it's raining, I won't attempt it. The ride would likely get cancelled anyway.

derath

The only thing I would change is to turn left at Craddocks lane prior to hitting 140 on Greenspring valley. And then you can go straight across the light to McDononogh road. I just thing the Craddocks lane intersection is much nicer to deal with than Greenspring valley@140.

-D

NoRacer

Thanks.

I'm not sure if I'm going to mix two stress--learning a new route and trying to make it to the ride on time. I might have to do something closer to home instead.

NoRacer

Todays long solo ride:

https://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path...urday-20070113

Thankfully, the rain held off for most of the ride.

derath

Nice,

I was all set to take a long ride today. I was dressed. Brought my bike up from the basement. And my 3yo daughter saw it and said "I wanna go with you daddy. Can I?"

Well I can't say no to that.

So I hung up the OCR, and pulled down the old MTB. hooked up the trailer and off we went. We biked around some, and then stopped at this bridge that we usually stop at to throw rocks into the stream. She ate 3/4 of my granola bar (I had brought food for my long ride since it was at lunchtime), and then had to go potty. Hopped back in and rode to the nearest park for a bathroom. Then rode around some more. Stopped and she ate 2 of my clif bloks.

Then on the next leg she fell asleep, so I pulled her an hour more. I didn't get near the distance, but I found every hill I could and pulled her up. Pulling a 34 pound kid in a trailer up an 18% grade is a workout.

Wasn't the long spin I was planning, but I will never say no to my kids wanting to ride...

When we got home she asked "when are you going again?" Hopefully tomorrow.

-D

garysol1 

Sounds like a perfect day D......

NoRacer

+1

Today, it looks like a complete rest day off for me. Usually, I'd go to BWI and ride to the B&A Trail to Annapolis, but intuition tells me that my gf wants me to stick around. I guess that I should let her have her way and stay off the bike today--seems like the most likely day to do so.

derath

Pretty near perfect.

True perfection will be when my son is old enough to come along and it is my wife and I on the tandem towing both kids around.

-D

garysol1 

Call me a wuss I have tried....really tried to ride our Tandem with the wife stoking and our daughter on the trail-a-bike attached to the rear. I looked like a drunk weaving down the road while I tried to ride in a straight line....LoL

derath

Yea I haven't tried a trail-a-bike yet. But towing the trailer isn't bad.

Probably when our daughter gets old enough for a trail-a-bike I will get a child stoker kit. Or if funds allow I would get a triple and put her in the middle with little Bennett in the trailer.

-D

garysol1 

Best bet if you can swing it. The trail-a-bike unlike the trailer has a lot of side to side motion as our daughter tried to see around us and that motion just seems to amplify as it gets to me.

cointelpro

Man, it bums me out that so many people find Columbia such a disagreeable place. I grew up there and used the bike paths to get pretty much everywhere when I was a kid. I rode my bike to school, the mall, my friends' houses, basically a sh*t ton of places I wouldn't have been able to get to otherwise. I don't know how much of the history of Columbia anyone knows, but it was a urban/social planning experiment of sorts by this progressive developer James Rouse. He had a lot of interesting ideas about the way people could and should live and interact with each other.

Unfortunately, after 35 years or so a lot of factors have substantially changed the place. It has begun to suffer from the same ills as pretty much every other urban environment, except on its own smaller scale. The explosion of development in the areas around what is technically Columbia has ironically contributed to suburban sprawl and its attending social and infrastructural ills. The Sun did a good series on Columbia at 30 years of age five years ago or so. There's a good overview about its history on Wikipedia too. Sorry about the monologue, it's just that Columbia was an amazing place to grow up in, and I didn't realize that until I moved away, and I fully realize the place I spent my formative years in no longer exists.

On a totally different note, have any HoCo folks seen a lady dressed in all black riding a road rig on 175? I used to see her occassionally, she was always doing crazy bike ballet type sh*t on the shoulder of the highway in this skin-tight getup, complete w/balaclava (in the summertime). She always gave me a good laugh, she was on some total bike ninja sh*t.

derath

Yep, she is still around.

-D

cointelpro

That's so rad...

garysol1 

And Columbia had a really really fun BMX track. Raced many a race there.

The Human Car

This was my weekend recovery ride:
https://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path...ities-DC-Balto

I road out to see some friends in Glen Echo and took a nice low stress route. There were tons of people out enjoying the trails in DC, this weather is getting freaky. I hit a few drizzles but nothing to get the rain jacket out for.

Columbia is a real interesting and Charlie’s comment about it being a big cul-de-sac is pretty good description. Cul-de-sacs can be a very nice place to live, the problem with cul-de-sacs is not the cul-de-sacs themselves but the mentality that all biking and walking must be solely contained in the cul-de-sac and you have to use the car for any practical trips. Or stated a bit differently roads are designed to get people from point A to point B while the trials are designed to let people wander about and afford people their optional exercise if they have the extra time. Columbia has such potential to be less car-dependent but is currently missing the mark and it is real hard explaining to the planers and such that they need to do more for biking and walking when they have already done so much for these modes of travel.

It does take a lot of practice and skill to do a setup like this not to mention the way trail-a-bikes are designed they do not stay totally upright but clunk to one side or the other. But I’ll mention that I have seen people try to compensate for these things by going slower when you really need a bit more speed for stability, picture riding up a steep hill, in order to keep all your weight balanced on the bike more drastic shifts of the handlebars are needed then when cursing faster, the same thing here. Anyway you should try my set up with two kids playing in the back while I’m riding in traffic.

NoRacer

I guess this is an out-and-back, but partitioned by time. I see that you used RPN to map the route. I always wondered what would be a good way to get between B'more and DC.

balto charlie

Did you ride home after your visit? If you did, what lights/battery did you use. Must have been a motorcycle battery. That's a long ride to go both ways this time of year. Charlie

balto charlie

Here's a link for for a written route but breaking off and going all the way downtown.
https://bikewashington.org/routes/dc2balt/index.htm

This is also shows how one can't bike through Columbia. Columbia has many miles of trails but bicyclist prefer to take the roads route east of rt 1.

cointelpro: I think growing up in Columbia would have been great. Probably still is. It's just a hard place to navigate for a roadie. Charlie