Reading FatguyRacer's patapsco report made me want to take another look around that area. I've been getting familiar with those roads since I moved here in April. I've seen river rd (all the way to old ellicott city) and thistle, but not hilltop (the three roads which branch off the north end of illchester, pretty much all leading to points at varying elevations on rt 144). I also wanted to check out college ave. So, on a whim, before I went home after work I decided to take a little drive and did the following route:

-north on illchester
-left on bonnie branch
-right on college ave (WTF ! ? :eek:)
-... east on 144
-right on hilltop down to river rd/illcehster

First off... College ave looks insane. Although, once up that first hill, maybe I'd be able to use momentum to crest some of the 'gentle rollers' that follow. I don't think I'm yet ready for that road, but I think I may add bonnie branch to my regular route.

around patapsco, loop back via bonnie branch.

Try it this way:


- Start in Ellicott City
- east on 144
- bare right on to river rd
- south on ilchester
- right on beeachwood
- cross over to college ave
- little jog right to st paul
- take st paul to 144 again
- bare right on river rd (again)
- left on hilltop
- left on to 144
- west on 144 back to Ellicott City

:eek:

True to a point. But the family aspect is managable. The big killer for me was the loss of my lead IT consultant back in February. I just last week hired a worthy replacement. That will get me back on track with work, which has already started to free up my time.

-D

I'll give it a go tonight. Im bailing on G-belt. I havnt ridden in 2 days, my bike and team kit is a mess from Sundays 4 hr slog and still a mess and the team kit is in the wash. So i've got a dirty bike and former team kit from 8 years ago to train in tonight.

Yea I spent an hour cleaning up my bike last night. GRIMY

-D

I finished the Lancaster ride just before it started to rain, so... not much to clean up for before the Greenbelt race this evening.

Speed demon...

I rode in the rain just long enough to trash my bike. I took all down the other night and cleaned it up like new again. You must have finished around noon time.

Started at about 8am, averaged a little over 19 MPH, and finished in about 3:15. Only one #1 break, so probably around 11:30am.

Yea after that first hill College ave isn't bad.

-D

Heheheh, it only looks bad because its 8.7% for 1/4 mile.

I just got home from a really instense but throughly enjoyable workout on all these hills EXCEPT Ilchester itself. Only went downhill on that one time. Managed to give notice to a minivan driver who thought he was gonna pass me. I ended up dropping him. He's probably still shaking his head. My new top speed this year is now 49.7 mph. I hit that thru the very last 18% pitch just before Bonnie Branch Rd.

Here's how the workout went.

I left my Jeep in Columbia near the office and rode the 6+ miles as a warmup to the bottom of Ilchester Rd. I took River Rd all the way to Rt-144 and made a l/t for E.C. Once over the bridge, i made the left at St. Paul and took the road straight up and left on College Ave. That climb from the Phoenix Inn to the top just before the construction site on the right is .94 mile @ an avg 5.3%. From there a bunch of rollers to the stop sign @ Bonnie Branch. I took Bonnie Branch left to Ilchester and left again to start another lap around.

BTW - Those stone houses on Bonnie Branch are awesome. And the family on the other side with the private bridge is living the dream. All nice places.

For lap 2, I went up Thistle to Rt-144 and turned left again back to E.C. and did repeat #2 of College Ave. Thistle is 1 mile @ 4%.

Heading down Bonnie Branch the 2nd time i ran into a group of 6-7 riders heading the other way and one of them was a guy I knew from way back. Good to see an old familar face. We chatted a couple minutes and I excused myself to finish my workout.

For lap 3, I went up Hilltop to Rt-144 and turned left again back to E.C. and did repeat #3 of College Ave.
The hard part of Hilltop (the very begining up to the power lines) is 1/2 mile @ 9.1 percent.

For what its worth the avg. for Ilchester @ 1.1 miles from bottom to top is 6.3%. Mercifully those 18% pitches are short.

My teammate Chris who lives in the area is spot on. Hilltop is the better climb. Its pretty steady the whole way.

Once after repeat #3 of College Ave i took the right onto Beechwood back to Ilchester and right back to Columbia. I had no desire to do Ilchester from the bottom at that point so i wimped out and took the easy way back to Montgomery Rd.

My total elevation gain for the 33 mile ride was 2441 ft.

Great workout. I think i make this a regular Wednesday thing.

Good job, John! :beer: x 6

I've been following all these comments with much interest -- I moved to Catonsville in May, but just haven't had much time to ride lately, especially to check out new routes, so when I have had spare days, I've been heading back to my old 'hood up in Sparks. Some great hills up there, very pretty countryside, and it's easy as pie to put together a nice 50-mile route (or even more, if you like.) But I'd like to be able to just ride from my front door again. One thing I was wondering about -- can anyone comment on the traffic on these routes? I can cope with sharing the road with lots of cars (I used to live and ride in northern Anne Arundel -- :eek:) but I sure did get spoiled on those virtually car-less country lanes in north-central Baltimore County.

Hi Maxine! How have you been doing?

To address your question, these roads are fairly light, except maybe closer to rush hour. Route 144 is busy much of the time, but the others are relatively light. I wouldn't classify them as "virtually car-less", though.

Hey, NoRacer! I've been busy, busy, busy. *sigh* Things should be easing up shortly, though, and I'm looking forward to finally getting to ride more consistently.

That was one of the things that kinda suprised me. Lots of cars. I got passed by 3-4 cars on Hilltop alone. If you've ever seen the start of Hilltop, it looks like a road straight out of Deliverance and you wouldnt expect any traffic on it at all. Unfortunatly it's a back way into a high density neigborhood once you get past the power lines. I thought i would hit the most traffic on the narrow windup on College Ave, but I hardly got passed by anyone there. Ilchester and River Rds were the busiest.

But as No-Racer says, rush hour. I was riding between 5:30pm-7:30pm. I have to take Snowden River Parkway to and from my office, so im used to getting buzzed by cars.

My real surprise were the number of other folks out riding. This little corner of Howard/Balto Co seems to be a midweek mecca of sorts. I can certainly understand why, as it will probably become mine too.

Thanks! (my reward was an extra bit of Pasta)

How was the race?

It was not my best. I didn't feel like working that hard, got gapped by about 5-6 highly motivated folks at the front, and wound up working the rest of the race with a CAT 4 woman who rides for DC Velo, the sponsoring Greenbelt team. She and I worked well together with the only problem being that on the downhill from the start, she kept running into my wheel during her draft--maybe 2-3 times over 2-3 laps out of about 12 laps. Luckily, she would bump it square and not from the sides.

We finished together as 13 and 13 even though she told me that I should cross first since I dragged both of us up the climb leading up to the start for the majority of the laps. It was ok. A decent workout according to my iBike PM.

Good for you! You probably did better than i would have. Probably just as well i didnt go.

BTW - Dimitri's on Rt-144 is evil. Both times i rode by the smell of crabcakes was killing me. :D

They serve crabcake there?! :eek:

Scroll down halfway...

http://www.dimitris.us/catonsville_b...eek_salad.html

There is no mistaking that smell.

Wow... I'll have to roll by there sometime. I've been meaning to head over to timbuktu's (I think that's what it's called... it's just off of coca cola dr.) as well. I haven't been there in years, since I moved out of Balto. City.

How about this weather, eh?

Yesterday I substituted for the ride leader for the Gwynns Fall Trail ride (http://www.baltimorespokes.org/artic...07082419560236 ) but nobody showed :( (I really could not blame any one as it was really hot and humid.) So I decided to head up to Loch Raven to add a couple more bike trails to my mapping project, not to mention the opportunities to splash around in some streams to cool off.

After I recorded the route with my GPS a nice cold drink sounded real good so I had my GPS locate the nearest store and I set off. In route I pass this party going on in the front yard and one of the fellows asked if I wanted a cold beer. So anyway I ended up staying at this party for awhile met some fun and interesting people (though none road a bicycle) and I had a real good time (note to self spend more time in Parkville.) FWIW I got in 90 miles that day.

Today I dropped my daughter off at the light rail should she could get to work at game at the stadium and the light rail was running terribly behind schedule. When a train came up the wrong side of the tracks saying “not in service” we decided to bike downtown. Anyway a few kids in the neighborhood also work the game stayed for the train which apparently came soon after we left and they got to the stadium 10 minutes ahead of us, not bad for a bike hauling an extra 110 lbs over 10 miles.

Oh, If anyone is interested in helping out with my mapping project feel free to send me a GPX file or a link to a site that allows downloading or exporting a GPX file (like Bikely.com .) If you are interested in seeing what I have put up so far, though it still is in its infant pre beta stage: http://www.baltimorespokes.org/stati...70815081612328

Also note that I am interested in bike trails or transportation routes as I feel if you want rec rides join a bike club or search Bikely.com .

Blue Ridge Extreme Century:

The following pink-jersey folks did this ride yesterday:

http://www.blueridgeextreme.com/

Deborah Chaney
Julie Boughn
Jeff Blankman
Manuel Ferrer
Isaias O'Daniell
Lukasz Szyrner

To me, this was the hardest ride I've ever done in my short cycling career. I place it on the list of trying to run a fast marathon. The pain factor was the same for me. At one point, I had to be SAG'ed from rest stop 7 to 8 (a very steep section on the CAT 1 climb) due to leg cramps even though I was trying to stay on top of my hydration and electrolyte pill consumption.

It was fun, but it sucked big time, too.

Hey - I was out there in a pink jersey as well - though not part of your group. Actually I knew that the 2nd Cat 1 climb would be a bit much, so I opted for the metric. Mt. Vesuvius (Cat 2) was one hell of a climb as well - I made it through but was thankful I didn't try the full century. Next year I'll try - I will be geared better, I'm going to a compact crank!

Got to say - it was one well supported ride - probably the best I've been on. Plenty of rest stops, good food before and after and showers! That made the trip back home much more pleasant.