My wife has done the metric the last couple of years, she says it is mostly rolling hills. Rather than running up the mountains like the century, this ride rides the ridges parallel to them (at least that's what I think). It doesn't go through Antietam but does hit Gettysburg.

By the way, the century does a lot of climbing but after most of it (I'm thinking around mile 65) there's a bailout that takes you back to the beginning of the ride, mostly downhill. Taking this bailout gives you a total of something like 77 miles. I had a friend do this a couple of years ago, he said it was a great way to end the ride. The bad thing about the bailout is that it skips Gettysburg, the good thing is that it cuts out 25 miles of mostly grinding it out, including one more big climb.

Here's a nice map that shows all the routes, the black is the full century, the dotted black is the bailout (highway 550): http://www.baltobikeclub.org/uploads...Routes_Map.jpg

Jim - getting excited as well, a bit nervous as I haven't tested my legs like this so far this year. Not sure if I'll ride a lot or be moderate this weekend, got lots of projects but I should probably put on some miles!