We all had a great time!

Ack! Let's just quote the law:

21-1205 Riding on roadways or on highway.
(a) Riding to right side of roadway. – Each person operating a bicycle or a motor scooter
at a speed less than the speed traffic at the time and place and under the conditions then
existing on a roadway shall ride as near to the right side of the roadway as practicable and
safe, except when:
(1) Making or attempting to make a left turn;
(2) Operating on a one-way street;
(3) Passing a stopped or slower moving vehicle;
(4) Avoiding pedestrians or road hazards;
(5) The right lane is a right turn lane; or
(6) Operating in a lane that is too narrow for a bicycle or motor scooter and another
vehicle to travel safely side by side within the lane.

Eh close enough, thanks

On a one way street, you can ride on either side of the road as far left or right as practicable and safe.

With a strong sense of worry, the long ride.

Yesterday I played hooky from work, riding up to Carroll Manor Park in the morning to ride the BBC 70 miler, Rocks, Slate and River.
Great ride and very nice group of five riders. After getting back around 3pm, I rode all the way across the county to Owings Mills to finish a small project there, then home. (120 miles?)

I better rest my legs for this: https://www.google.com/calendar/rend...rue&output=xml

Thanks. I will just continue to take up that whole lane and the ridicule it may produce from drivers.

Jealous. I had heard of the Bellemore race. I'm in though I plan on 80+ on Saturday so.

Anybody have plans for Memorial day? thinking of roundtrip to Gettysburg.

Okay. So.

I don't really post here much... I probably should, but I'm a rather freelance cyclist. But I have a question for those who are used to the area; I'm from the Eastern Shore, but I'm currently living in the Baltimore-Washington metro area. Baltimore, specifically, but that's not important for my question, which involves US 301.

On Tuesday, I took the B30-bus down to Greenbelt Station and rode south through DC and out of there on MD 210. No problems yet... but because I wanted to be brave and take the shortest route eastward, I took a few back roads which were mercilessly hilly. No problems yet, except for pollen, which were making it rather difficult to breathe well. So eventually I pop out on US 301 (just north of MD 5: Branch Avenue), and head north. And, oh my goodness... motorists are just horrible.

My goal was Annapolis, which was bad because inhaling all that exhaust, namely that of all the people intentionally revving their engines at me and the occasional person blowing their cigarette smoke over my head, severely slowed me down. Add people honking you off the road, yelling at you in hopes of scaring you off your bike, and otherwise... on a completely legal highway with a friggin' shoulder, and I have to wonder:

Are motorists just LIKE this on this side of Maryland? Is this childish antagony just normal for cyclists to get?
Because I seriously never got this on the Eastern Shore. But then again, most of the tri-county knew who I was, anyway.

Honestly, I stop at all signs and signals that tell me to, I obey all rules of the road, I stay off on the shoulder if there is one, and I try to ride as predictably as possible. I'm never obstructing traffic and try to get out of motorists' way whenever possible, whenever there's no room for the two of us in that lane. So it's not even like I'm in anyone's way. That said, the trip was 68 miles long. Could have easily done more, and faster, if I could breathe.

US 50 and 301 are prohibited for bicycles - See Map 1 here: https://www.mdot.maryland.gov/Plannin...ycle_Maps.html

Map 1 shows prohibited areas as:
----------------------------------
US 50 from Washington, D.C. line east to MD 3
US 50/301 from MD 3 to the US 50/US 301 split near Queenstown
US 301 from MD 544 to MD 291
US 301 from MD 290 to MD 299


You can ride US 50 from Queenstown on the Eastern Shore to Ocean City, but there's much quieter routes that I can point you to.

There are also better routes going east from D.C. I have one, somewhere, where I did a ride starting in D.C. (with the DC Randonneurs) to Annapolis to visit the Velo Orange bike shop, then ride back to D.C. I believe that ride had lots of trails while in D.C., then switched to roads for the remainder of the route.

What NR said.

Also, I don't know if there was some reason you needed to get to Greenbelt first, but if you're in Baltimore and want to ride to Annapolis, there are *way* easier/nicer ways to get there.

Sorry you had such a rotten first-time experience over here on the Other Shore! All of us have had occasional brushes with rude or clueless motorists, but for me, those brushes have been thankfully rare, and I've never encountered the sort of pervasive, constant abuse on a ride that you described. Don't give up just yet. Do some map-perusing before your next ride; even here in the busy part of the state, there are often (at least somewhat) quieter side/back roads that can be used as an alternative to nearby bigger, busier roads. It's true that such detours may cost you in a few extra miles or hills, but it makes for a much more pleasant ride overall.

I don't know why such surprise at rude drivers, pushy drivers, inconsiderate drivers, I face it every day, though some are considerate and I really really try to focus n that. We live in AMERICA, a land ruled by the motorist, a ubiquitous appendage of our bodies, so much in our blood, our landscape's dominant feature, the car.
Only we cyclists see how insane and sick this is.

I breathe in so much s--t every morning that I doubt my cycling is adding to me years. Can't wait to get an extended ride outside the beltway.

Go to Europe and ride, or better yet don't, because when you return you will really see how sick we are.

Not particularly familiar with wear you are starting from but Baltimore to Annapolis = B&A trail

not exactly from baltimore but I could point you to some good routes to BWI to start the trail, nice way to get down there

Dude! You rock.

(btw: you need to start wearing more black)

oh btw,

I scratched my eastern shore tour and rode out to the C&O towpath for a two day trip. been working on a journal entry with pics ill upload later today hopefully

The "surprise" is because it was unrelenting on certain roads of this guy's ride. We all are familar with harassment by motorists, but that was a little extreme with respect to frequency. I can go weeks at a time with out any beeps, yelling, swerving... but I can't recall a time in which I was constantly harangued by motorist, even in Maryland.

Although -- and this is a little of a disclaimer -- of all the Maryland riding I've done probably the least was done in Prince George's county -- and that's sort of my home base in Maryland, i.e. Oxon Hill.

P.S. Riding on MUPs doesn't count.

He -was- on a road prohibited for bicycling, so... I would expect no less.

Naw, wrong part of US 301. See my map here:
https://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&sour...,1.146698&z=10

It's the north-south part in PG County, Robert Crain Highway, not the 50-301. I know that the basic rule-of-thumb is that we're prohibited on all freeways. Thanks for the maps, though; these will be useful.
That said, I was specifically trying to get to Point B on my map (so I spent, like, a week planning the route; I guess I didn't consider hills and high traffic very well), and just chose to barrel out to Annapolis as a bonus and an essentially free bus ride back to Baltimore; yay for monthly college passes. That and enjoy Southern Maryland away from all the development and freeway tangle.

I would like to go down to Southern Maryland again to rack up some miles; the flat highways down there are attractive to me, reminiscent of the fact that I only had highways (and no freeways ) to work with on the three lower counties of the Eastern Shore. And I got along rather well with them back then.

Also, to Maxine: This isn't my first time cycling on the Western Shore; I've been living in Baltimore for two and a half years now. Granted, I haven't had much opportunities to ride around since college and work are so prominent. And I think some of the worst experiences I've had don't even involve leaving the city. D:

He says he wasn't, but for just a minute let's assume he was; that wouldn't explain the excessive harrasement of the motorists.

Motorists don't really know or care if a bicycle is on a prohibited road unless, of course, the cyclist is slowing down the motorists. When I first read his post I immediately thought back to my tour up the east coast, specifically on the eastern shore of Maryland. We were riding torward the chesapeake bridge but couldn't ride on Hwy 301, despite there being a very nice and large shoulder. I guess the idea was because the bridge is closed to bikes, but not a reason in my mind, not all cyclists are headed to the bridge. However, even if they are (as we were) still not a reason, but this is all speculation....

I've been on many roads that are legal, but much more dangerous to ride than that road. I would not have guess that that road is illegal if not for the sign.

BTW, this was near Barclay and Sudlersville Md. I ended up riding on a combination of roads, including 300, 213 & 18.

P.S. This was back in 1993 (had to refer to my journal for names of alternate routes), so not sure of the road conditions/rules today.

Ok... got it. I'll check out the route from your map. A quick look piqued my interest.

Bring me some weekend stories kids. I know NR hit a p.b. mileage for may. anybody go to Bike Jam?

I rode the Bellemore hill time trial on sunday morning. Very fun and funny. I showed up on my surly single speed and eyed up the rest of the "field". I think I was the only rider who didn't have shaved legs. I had done a couple test timings of the hill during the week before. My times were around 4m:30s. First rider on sunday goes up the hill and logs a full minute off that time. Uh oh. One guy breaks the 3min. mark. (that's obviously what happens when you shave your legs)

My turn comes up. Joe from the bike shop holds your seat post while you're clipped in, ready at the line. I am actually getting nervous and staring up the hill, keeping my weight back on the saddle to balance a bit better. 3. 2. 1. GO! I jam the pedals and immediately the front wheel comes off the ground rising more that a foot off the ground. The rest of the guys behind me hoot loudly. I manage to shift my weight quickly, the tire drops to the ground and I'm off like a juvie- way too fast at the start.

I tear up the first steep section, then bog down on the second and then manage to recover with a long sprint in the upper section. 4m:02s
Bob's first race.

Hee hee, man Bellemore on a fixie, phew. You should have at least gotten a prize for that category. I signed up for the hill climb but obviously was a DNS. My plan was to do the coffee run to Fells Point with a few friends. Turned out to be quite slow. Found myself in Fells Point at 9:30 and figured not gonna make it. I'll have to time myself going up, I do it quite often but never really know the time.

Saturday I headed down to that big PPC club ride in AA county.. I parked at the Davidsonville P&R so I could get 20 more miles to make it an 80 day. Well, I miscued a few times on the club ride, which was a huge turnout BTW, so had 80 by the time I got back to the start. I hitched a ride back to the P&R from some really nice folks, very pleasant to chat with. I chastised myself for not adding the extra ten miles but then i wouldn't have met those fine people. Was kind of more about not pressing my lovely wife Melissa's patience with my biking life.

On the club ride I generally kept to myself, grabbed a paceline for maybe a couple miles, hung with two other riders for a while doing a lot of pulling. Thought I was taking it easy, looked at my computer at one point and was averaging 20. So dialed that back and then after the miscues I must have done 40 all by my lonesome. Kept thinking "okay, get your head around doing 200 miles, don't wonk out on distance or speed, just keep the breaks short and keep moving. I could have used some aero bars, I find on long rides my torso getting very heavy.

Doing a Skyline drive ride on 6/9 a Thursday. 100+ very hilly miles. Of course work could interfere.

Hah!! Great story, Bob!

Saturday, I stopped in at Bike Jam for a few minutes and took this picture a picture before heading south. At Bike Jam, I talked to Aaron Mongeau from TeamBBC... the team's only CAT3 racer. (Apparently, Rod and Lenora Bruckdorfer stopped by too)

Here's the link to the album I made in Facebook. It should be accessible to everyone, as is:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?s...1&l=8d9e69d543

I didn't make it to Annapolis--getting too hot, so I turned around at Bolter's Way. On the way back home, while in Fells Point, I got into a black & white picture mood that lasted until I got back to Essex. [Hope you guys can see the album]

I looked over that route and I didn't see anything that would raise a flag to me, except cloverleaf crossings. The only thing I can think of is that not enough bicyclists have ridden that section of 301 and so, motorists are likely under the impression that it's suppose to be off limits.

In my opinion, motorists do feel entitlement to "their" roads (Interstates and the other car only highways). It's a territory thing. I think you would get the same harassment if you tried to ride I-495 or I-695; I-95 or I-97.

That's pretty much the only theory I have myself. Either way, I think I'm just going to look at this as a learning experience, and not allow the restless locals to run me off completely legal roads.

And yeah, I don't like cloverleaf interchanges much myself. I was thinking of avoiding that US 301 @ MD 4 cloverleaf by using Old Crain Highway in Upper Marlboro... and that was my original plan, but I didn't want to chance more hills and I kind of grew to love US 301.