Tour De Patapsco - Day 5 - Daniels from Mt Hebron High School

Ride 5: Daniels
So this one is all about the hills. The good news is that there are ways to bail to easier terrain to get back. Our ride will stay up on the ridges and hit a lot of the longer / harder climbs, but also reward you with some of the best down hills. Much of Trail fest and the enduro route are featured on this route. Get those legs and heart ready for this one!

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 by 9:15.

What’s the Terrain? This one will have a little bit of everything, but mostly large climbs, flow, and some technical sections thrown in for fun. Nothing too aggressive, but will require intermediate fitness, and we will be in intermediate terrain. This route definitely features some of the longest climbs in the park, and they feel like they just keep coming at you. This route is for all the people who like to punish themselves with hill climbs.

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? Day five will be 16 miles and 2,250’ feet of climbing. Pay attention to that elevation. You will be climbing during this ride! Due to the climbing, the front of the pack will be moving at a moderate pace on this ride (i.e. around 7.5 mph average, but expect fast on the down hills). Don’t be scared of the pace, as we will stop a lot, give people a chance to breathe, and keep this super casual. Just know there is a lot of elevation that comes at you quickly (and believe it or not there is about a 2 mile flat section in this. LOL)

So, what’s the route? Starting at Mt Hebron High school we’ll have about a mile of paved path before hitting dirt. We get dumped right into the heart of the daniels section of the park, and then we head left onto the daniel’s single track and then up Davis trail, We then drop down next to the train tracks for a brief second before climbing up a portion of the Affeldt climb, and then head over to to little bird. We then climb the Woodstock station trail and finish the Affeldt climb, and then hit the Affeldt me Gasoline loop. Then we head across the stream and do a loop on the lower and upper woodstock trail and cross back across the stream and up Davis hole and then the second half of the Affeldt climb again. We then bomb down the Davis trail and double back on on the Davis trail to the smokey downhill to the old train bed for a bit (leveling us out some). That is until we climb up the Daniels single track to come back to the flats again. We stay flat all the way to daniels road and then climb switch plate / daniels single track, and then get all of the fun downs and ups in this section, then a short run on the flats and then climb back out to Mt. Hebron..

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/3330374388076912982

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.