Tour De Patapsco - Day 3 - Woodstock, Alberton, McKeldin

Woodstock, Alberton, Mckeldin
We’ll hit some of the most popular trails most ride from the Woodstock Inn on this one. To keep interesting we’ll be going old school on our way out so expect some punchy climbing, but we’ll eventually be rewarded with some of the best flow trail in the park, and then we hit all of the good stuff of the Cadallic loop.

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. Meet at the bike Kiosk Station in the main parking lot. Please park in the spots for 2 hours or more parking.

What’s the Terrain? This one will be one of the flowiest routes of the tour. Just keep in mind we will also be riding some of the old / less travelled trails on this one, so they’ll be a bit washed out and there are some brutal climbs also. But you are rewarded with some great flow also, plus a couple of fun down hills, some of which were on the enduro routes over the years.

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? 16.2 miles and 1,750 feet of climbing. The faster people up front will be around a 8.5 mph pace on this one, as there is nothing too technical to slow you down. 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 (believe it or not there is about a 1.7 mile flat section on this route.)

So, what’s the route? Brutal climbs with fun downs! We’ll start at the Inn, go across the bridge and into Woodstock. We will turn left on the Thru trail, then head up More fun (i.e. Dixon’s ridge). We’ll take More fun to the upper through trail, take the old school wash out climb up, then drop down to the train tracks / river via the RxR down, but we’ll be busting a u turn at the over look rocks before we head all the way to the river on to double trouble. We follow that and its ups and downs back up to the BGE access road, and then take burnout down, and then up the new overlook trail, to the middle through trail all the way back to blasphemy down to the lower thru trail. We take this all the way to the Cadilac/woodstock loop (that area is technically McKeldin as a FYI). We’ll take Quarry trail all the way to the Quarry and then turn righ and go down Joes trail, and then up an unnamed trail to the Chevy trail, and take that all the way to the old dump, and down to the river to thru trail and back to the Inn.

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/3309670056375068444

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.