Owings Mills area??

[ny biker]

The Oxon Hill Bike Club is in Maryland, although it 's closer to DC. I love the Patuxent River Rural Legacy ride that they sponsor every June. www.ohbike.org.

There's also the Baltimore Bike club. http://baltobikeclub.org/

Some drivers are courteous, some are not.

Bike Arlington has some good advice on safe riding. http://www.bikearlington.com/safetips.cfm

[Cataboo]

I don't specifically know anything about Owings Mill... but I feel fairly safe in the DC area just taking common sense precautions... And have lived in areas that I've been strongly warned aren't safe to live in without ever having anything bad happen. But I do tend to have pepper spray on my keychain and in my driver's side of my car (never had to use either).. Be careful driving at night, etc. Lock the doors, and don't leave stuff out visible in your car.

It looks like LIberty reservoir is west of you and I know there's mountain biking trails around there with a lot of fire roads.

I don't know if you mountain or road bike. Patapsco is not far if you want to mountain bike.

Gwynn Falls trail heads through Baltimore and is quite nice, but the surface changes quite a bit, so you might want fatter tires for that.

Tourduport is a bike ride that Onelesscar (?) sponsors in Baltimore every year, a few of us on here do that.

To the west of you, there's a ton of pretty countryside to road bike through.

For the most part, I think drivers are fairly good to cyclists around here - but there is always some idiot that honks or swerves at you.