The second half of this summer has been kind of a throwback. Most weeks, I’ve been going in to my office 3 days a week, which I haven’t done since the pre-COVID days. Back then, I used to be a 5-day-a-week commuter, and on 4 of those days (on average) I commuted via road bike. Nowadays, 1 day a week of road bike commuting is more than enough, and I’ve been doing my remaining commutes via mountain bike, on foot (running), or car. This week, though, I took the road bike twice. School has now started in both Baltimore and Howard Counties, which means I have to time when I leave the house to avoid getting caught up in school traffic, unless I take the MTB and ride on trails. I would have done that today, but it was crazy humid, and I didn’t feel like sweating off half my body weight this morning, as I’ll likely end up doing that tomorrow while running.

Anyhow, to make a long story short, I got out of the house later than ideal today. My usual road commute takes me through Relay and Arbutus, and I knew that based on my timing, the school traffic would be bad. If I go through Patapsco Valley State Park and exit via Gun Rd., I can bypass Relay, and by extension, 90% of the school traffic. But, it also shortens my ride, and if I can, I like to try to get 15 miles of road riding in the mornings. Today, I decided to try extending my ride through PVSP as much as possible, and I managed to hit my 15 miles, and still stay out of traffic for most of the ride. Not a bad combination if I do say so myself. Here’s what I did:

• Ride into PVSP on the Howard County side via Levering Ave/River Rd
• Ride one circuit around the main Avalon parking lot
• Ride River Rd out to Orange Grove, follow the River Rd trail until the paved portion ends, and double back
• Ride one circuit around the Orange Grove parking lot
• Cross the Swinging Bridge, turn left, ride out to Ilchester Rd, and double back
• Ride the Grist Mill Trail for its full length and turn left under the railroad tracks towards upper Glen Artney
• Follow Glen Artney Rd until it dead-ends and double back
• Cross back under the tracks, turn left, and ride one circuit around the eastern Glen Artney parking lot
• Ride out to Gun Rd, turn left, cross the tracks, and continue up Gun Rd to Rolling Rd
• Turn right on Rolling Rd and then left on Sulphur Spring Rd
• Follow to Shelbourne Rd, turn left, and follow to UMBC Event Center entrance Rd
• Turn left and ride onto campus. Turn right onto Hilltop Circle
• Follow Hilltop Circle counterclockwise to the top and turn left at the Hilltop Rd light
• Ride down past Performing Arts building to pedestrian walkway, turn right, and ride a single loop to hit 15 miles

I’m kind of surprised that I never tried anything like this during my bike commuting heyday in the 2010s, especially given that I tended to vary my routes much more frequently back in those days. Of course, I was also much more willing than I am now to deal with the day-in, day-out annoyances of road bike commuting, such as school-day traffic, and therefore less likely to go to great lengths to avoid it (with exceptions).