Every year (sometimes twice) the weekend time and weather gods align and I will ride from our house in Ashton MD (midway between Baltimore and Washington DC) southeast to the house of friends of ours who moved down to a waterfront house in Lusby MD, near the Solomon's Island/Drum Point area. My wife and other friends of ours drive down later in the day, bringing food and we have a feast.
Trek Domane SL6 with bikepacking bags to carry clothes to change into, plus usual tools and the like.
Over the years I've lengthened the ride to avoid the dodgy sections, like interchanges with major Interstates and the like. I've done it as low as 75 miles and as high as 85 miles. This 82 mile route is a good compromise that bumps up the climbing to almost 3000 feet but avoids the tense stretches. A few of the back roads are in horrible shape after a tough rain/ice winter, but had hardly any traffic so I could easily navigate the potholes.
The route. The wind was pretty much heading from the red dot directly towards the green dot...
The heavy rain from the night before dropped a few showers right before I started and the roads were still wet. Even worse, it left behind 20 mph winds from the southeast, which were in my face for about 65 of the 82 miles, feh! I stopped at 37 miles in Harwood, where the flag was whipping, and at 63 miles in Prince Frederick where Route 2 was kind of funneling the winds right at me in stretches, but occasionally the road would meander east and I got more of a side wind.
Horizontal flags aiming away from the destination are not my friend.
I made it down in a total of about 6 hours with stops, and was showering at Chris and June's place when the carload of others arrived. Shortly we were all chowing down while enjoying the view of Mill Creek, which feeds into the Patuxent River then the Chesapeake Bay.
Sunset over Mill Creek