Metric Century

I just signed up for my first bike event! I will be riding the Eat A Peach Bike tour out of Westminster to support the Brain Injury Association of Maryland. The bike event features a 12, 33, 40, 67, and 100 mile bike ride. I might be biting off more than I can chew, but I really want to do the metric century (67 miles, 100 km). I won't be competing for a place, so I can definitely take it slowly. I am going to try and get out a lot over the next few weeks for logner rides. I want to go out and try a 50 miler this weekend to see how much I can actually do.

Also, a coworker sent me a pretty good article on the B&A trail that I've been riding a lot. You can read (and see some cool pictures) HERE. (It is a pdf file)

Riding in to work

I really enjoy the ride to work. There are very few people on the B&A trail; the few that are on it are also commuting to work. After the end of the B&A, you ride along a few roads until you get to the Naval Academy Bridge. Not sure if thats the actual name, but since it overlooks the Naval Academy, thats what we call it. On the hill before the bridge is a World War 2 Memorial very similar to the one on the Nation's Capital. I thought I took a picture of the memorial without my head in the way...but I guess I didn't.

From Biking the Bay

You can see the start of the bridge there on the right hand side. The view on top of the bridge is great. You overlook the entire Naval Academy and the few rivers surrounding Annapolis.

From Biking the Bay

From Biking the Bay

From Biking the Bay

Once you get down the bridge, you have an option. To get to work in the quickest way, you bypass downtown Annapolis and ride along the Naval Academy's Stadium. I don't like that way. With how early it is, there are so few cars on the main street (West Street) and I really enjoy seeing a completely unpopulated small town.

That store with the white sign makes a wonderful cup of coffee!

From Biking the Bay

This is overlooking the Harbor... which you can't really see. Bad cameraman is bad.

From Biking the Bay

This is the church in the middle of one of the circles,looking up from the harbor.

From Biking the Bay

This is the state capital, also looking up from the harbor.

From Biking the Bay

Good ride in. On the ride home I don't go this way. Much too busy.

I haven't been keeping track of my miles, and it is something I really wanted to do. So for a recap of the past few days:

Friday: 26
Saturday: 24
Sunday: 17
Monday: 10
Total: 77

BWI Loop with coworkers

This past Saturday, a coworker set up a bike trip to tackle the 11 mile BWI loop. I had never ridden with a few of the riders and I was excited to get out and ride with them. My fiance's friend's boyfriend tagged along with his Cannondale Mountain Bike, which I thought would have been slow. But, it was a damn nice bike and he was easily able to keep pace for a majority of the ride. It might have been a hindrance if we were going full speed, but since it was a fun ride, there wasn't a problem. I got to ride it for about 3 miles and man, it was awesome. I forgot how nice it was to not have every little bump on the road get transferred directly to your ass.

Anyways, I did the loop again on Sunday solo and think it is a good training location. A coworker just invited me to do an organized bike ride, the Eat a Peach ride, so I think I am going to sign up to do the metric century there.

Either way, here is my coworkers and I at the end of the loop.

Biking along the B&A

I have mentioned and shown a few pictures of the Baltimore Annapolis Trail. It is a pleasant 13 mile trail going from the BWI Airport to just outside the Naval Academy in Annapolis. It follows Route 2 and has a few busy intersections, but mostly travels along right behind peoples houses or strip malls in nicely wooden areas.

Mike, my coworker who I ride the most often with, has an awesome camera mounted to his handlebars. He took the following video a few weeks ago, prior to me getting my new bike (and before I even knew he had a camera). It was during our ride home from work and the day after a terrible storm ran through the area and knocked out a lot of branches. Sorry for the audio... I am getting a bit tired of trying to put any music on a youtube video with their strict filtering process. Not too interesting, but it kinda makes me want a camera mount.