A Little Exploration and a Little Coffeeneuring

Deciding where to ride when on a schedule can be difficult, especially when exploring new roads or trails (or at least new to us).

Our first stop was the local Safeway Starbucks after about 2 miles of riding to ensure we locked in our coffeeneuring ride.

Tea at the Safeway Starbucks

Since this was a mid-afternoon ride, we decided to skip the latte in favor of a Passion Fruit Tea -- refreshing!

Bike Leaning

Then it was off to checkout a new route, possibly for use on a future coffeeneuring ride.

We took the most direct route to the first connection with a short ICC trail segment.  Fortunately this was a Sunday and traffic was light heading south on MD-650 from Briggs Channey Rd because at first no shoulder exists and we had to take the lane, then a turn lane opens for Norwood Rd on our right (putting us effectively in the center lane), and finally the rest of the route varied with short sections of about 10 ft shoulder and no shoulder.  It was a little ridiculous since I don't think anybody with confident road skills would be able to ride this section.

The ICC trail was beautiful and behind a sound wall so we were not looking and listening to speeding cars (reminds me of the Custis Trail along I-66).  Too bad it was only 0.8 mile long.  Finally, we worked our way through beautiful, quiet neighborhood riding down to Randolph Rd before we turned back to explore an alternate return path avoiding MD-650.

This time we skipped the ICC trail segment and road the neighborhood north of the ICC which gave us a no-light, one-stop-sign route back to Bonifant Rd.   A quick jaunt up to the MD-650 traffic light and a left and right onto Piping Rock Dr brought us another quiet neighborhood ride back to our starting location.  

Conclusion, we'll be skipping MD-650 in the future if we can continue to find great neighborhoods with connections that don't take us out of our way.

The Facts

Location: Starbucks inside Safeway 15411 New Hampshire Ave

Cloverly, MD 20905

Date: 2014-10-12 (Sunday)
Drink: Passion Fruit Tea
Notes: The bike parking is on the south side of the store, but the Starbucks is closer to the north entrance, so we skipped bike parking instead for wall leaning.
Bike Friendliness: 2/5, I dislike grocery stores since they are too busy with people always moving about.
Mileage: 12.8 miles
Must visit? N