Tour De Patapsco - Day 6 - Banneker, Grays Mill, Hilton

Ride 6: Banneker, Grays Mill, Hilton
This ride will show you how to link rides to and from Avalon from old Ellicott City. Unfortunately to link “Avalon” to Ellicott City it does require some road riding and some bike path riding. There is about 3 miles of road riding in this route and a total of about 1 mile of paved bike path, but I’m guessing we will hit some stuff most don’t usually on this route. For some reason, the trails on this route have a lot of short punchy ups and downs. We’ll also have a bunch of rocks once over in the Hilton area on this ride.

Waiver: Mountain biking is a risky sport, By signing up for this meetup you are agreeing to our MVD Mountain Bikers waiver located here: Link to MVD Waiver, as well as you will need to sign the standard MORE waiver (link to follow).
What’s the schedule? I will give a brief overview of the ride around 9:00 / 9:15, with the plan to roll at 9:15. We will meet in Lot A in Old Ellicott City.

What’s the Terrain? Except for the hilton part of the park where there will be a bunch of rocks, the terrain will be mostly intermediate for this ride. There are a couple spots most will need to walk, but overall, an intermediate will be able to ride most of this route. Expect punchy / steep climbs over and over again on this route though. Intermediate fitness will get you through this ride though.

Also, keep in mind, I will be stopping a lot, as there are multiple turns on this route and want to keep everyone together. Just be forewarned.

Mileage / Speed? Mileage will be just 15.2 miles but 1,650’’ feet of climbing. Due to the terrain, the front of the pack will be moving pretty good on this ride (i.e. 8 to 9 mph). Don’t be scared of the pace, as we will stop a lot, give people a chance to breathe, and keep this super casual.

So, what’s the route? It’s always fun. Starting off in the lot, we head up the paved trolley trail and then make a right and climb up into banneker park. We then do a figure 8 in the park, and then drop down on to Oella Avenue, and then make a left onto Old Frederick Road, and then a right on to Thistle road, where we make a left back on the trails off of Thistle Road. I’ll note that these roads are popular with road cyclists as they tend to be low volume, and Frederick Rd has a huge shoulder in this area. Off of Thistle, we make a left onto the Grays Mill trail. We will then make a left onto the old hilton trail, and then take this all the way to Sawmill at the top of the Hilton area. We will then hit Hilton, but mostly different trails than day 2 of the tour. We will take buzzards down this time, then pedal the flat paved grist mill trail unit we climb up Backside of Nuns to trip Log. We’ll end up on a part of Santee weh did during tour day 2, but then turn onto the campground loop over to some good rocky stuff on un named trails, and then climb back up to Hilton, and roll back the all new greys mill, eventually dropping down to river road, where where we will pedal back river road to old frederick and then back to our cars.

Here is the Strava Route. There is a button under the title to “Export GPX” for those who want to pull this down for their mapping devices: https://www.strava.com/routes/3309659901467534582

Tour De Patapsco Overview
What is the Tour De Patapsco?
It is 8 days worth of rides throughout just about every part of the Patapsco Valley State Park trail system, where we have minimized trail overlap in an effort to showcase the entire park. We have made the routes available for you to do on your own, or if a group setting is what you are looking for, Craig will be leading a ride just about every Saturday from 4/19/25 to 6/28/25. The only saturdays we will not ride will be trail days and the 6 hours at Woodstock weekend. If you do all 8 days you will get around 116 miles and 13,485’ of climbing.

Could this all be done in one day? Sure, but we wanted this to be more accessible to everyone, so each day will be between 10.5 and 18 miles and will have between 1350’ and 2150’ feet of climbing, but for the crazies, we even have a 93 mile route posted.

It’s just Patapsco. Won’t it all be the same? That’s a big nope! Some may be familiar, some new to you, but each ride will definitely have it’s own feel, as the different parts of the park have different terrain, and trails are definitely built differently in each part of the park. Most people don’t realize that we have a little of everything here, from fast and flowing, to some decent hills, and definitely some more technical stuff.

Okay. What parts of the park are we hitting and when? Well, we will be hitting Avalon, Orange Grove, Glen Artney, HIlton, Rockhaven, Pickall, Hollofield, Alberton, Daniels, Woodstock, and McKeldin, so just about every area where we have rideable terrain. Also throwing in Banneker Park into the mix.

Are the start / finish in the same spot? Each ride will loop us back to our start spot, but we will be starting in many different locations throughout the 8 days. For the most part the routes take us in big loops, where I tried to minimize hitting the same trail twice. In some areas this is harder to do then others, but in most cases when we do double up it will be in opposite directions giving you a different feel of the trail

Will the courses be marked? That’s a no. Again, the logistics of marking 116 miles of trails, and making sure they stay in place over the duration of the tour would be impossible. Instead we have posted these as strava routes and group rides. There will be a lead, a sweep, and probably some people in the middle that will know the route, and help guide / take care of any on trail issues. Not sure how big each ride will be, but if we get too big, we may need to split into groups, and the rides could be extremely slow, so stay patient.

Can we go ride by ourselves? Absolutely. This event is all about exploring the park.

Are the routes available for download (i.e. GPX files)? Yup. I’ve created them all in Strava as routes, and the GPX file can be pulled down from there. I have created separate rides for each day to describe the mileages / terrain, and will have a link to the strava route for that day there.

What happens if it rains? Well, we don’t ride if it’s muddy, so stay tuned to our MVD Facebook, and Meetup events, which is where I will post if I need to cancel a day or two.