Originally Posted by
rizz
I just moved from the eastern shore to Glen Burnie and while looking around, found the B-A trail is right around the corner from my place. After hearing about it for so long and finally getting a chance to check it out, I was rather disappointed. It's really narrow, has a good amount of on-trail traffic and lots of places where you have to cross busy streets.
As someone who likes to maintain a moderate pace (18-25), is there a preferred spot to travel down the trail where one can find a spot worthy of a faster ride or am I doomed to have to load my bike up on the car and drive somewhere?
And yeah, I tried the search feature but I kept getting the first page of results.
Rizz, I'll second NoRacer's post -- there is some decent road riding in the area. You can use the B&A Trail as a jumping-off point for a lot of it; follow the trail down to Annapolis and points south, or over to Sandy Point State Park. When I lived out your way, I used to do a route that started from Robinson Road that wound around the Severn River area. It was about 40-couple miles, as I recall.
If you just want a ride without thinking too much about traffic, head north on the B&A until you get to the BWI Airport Trail. It's a 10.5 mile loop, and while it is just as narrow as the B&A, it tends to draw *far* fewer of the "kids and strollers" crowd (except for right around the Dixon Observation Area, but you can avoid that part if you want by staying on Dorsey Road.) The BWI Trail also has road crossings, but, especially on weekends, traffic is negligible, and for most of the crossings, the sight lines are pretty good. The BWI Trail also has a few more hills (well, bumps in the road, anyway --
-- "hills" compared to the very flat B&A.)
http://www.bikewashington.org/routes/bwi/index.htm
Edited to add PS: If you hit the B&A Trail very early on the weekends, you'll see a fair number of go-fast guys (and a few girls) zipping up and down.