I changed things up a bit for my ride home yesterday. I typically mix my routes up on my commute to work in the morning, but for the ride home, I take the same route every day. It’s relatively fast, traffic is not too bad, and it gets me home right around dinner time, so I’ve never seen much point in messing with it. However, part of my route home involves crossing a small bridge which is slated for replacement in the near future, which I may need to route around if it’s closed during the construction. I have 2 options for bypassing this bridge: the short way, which includes a brief detour on U.S. 1, and the long way, where I ride all the way through Patapsco State Park, up Bonnie Branch Rd, up Beechwood Rd, then down Landing Rd and left on Montgomery Rd. I tried the long way yesterday, to see how it was. Beechwood Rd. is a steeper climb than Lawyers Hill Rd., and I was on my single speed bike, which made it quite a workout. It’s still easier than the alternative of going straight up Ilchester Rd., though. Landing Rd. in the eastbound direction is not a very pleasant ride. The pavement condition leaves a lot to be desired, there’s no shoulder at all, and there’s lots of traffic that time of day. All in all, an OK ride, but wouldn’t be my first choice of routes. An alternative would be to bypass Beechwood Rd. and take Bonnie Branch all the way up to Montgomery, and ride home on Montgomery. That adds several left turns to the route, though, and there’s even more traffic on Montgomery than on Landing, although Montgomery likely has better pavement and shoulders in that direction. I’ll have to try it and see, but I don’t think it’ll be too much of an improvement.