4 days, 3 states and two countries
Well, although I wish I had had more time, four days is what I could string together. So a friend and I set off on a 4 day self contained ride. While it's starting to be very beautiful here in New England, I'm also reminded how quickly the weather can change! We left New Hampshire on Friday rode into Island Pond Vermont, camped there for the night and then in Coaticook Canada.( a province of Quebec) The weather was absolutely beautiful that second day, sun was out a slight tailwind and people and motorists were welcoming us to their home. I think we surprised the campers at the campground as many would drive by us all night simply to see the "two women who were on their bikes.":) Later SAturday night it started to rain, so we awoke Sunday morning hoping that we would be riding in clearer weather.... but that didn't work all that well. At any rate, we rode through rain several times, lots of wind and we climbed, and climbed some more. The blessing in this weather was that we had a tailwind, so we were definitely happy about that! But with all of the climbing, as you can imagine we were starting to slow down. Afterall, with cooler temps that 's also means that you are carrying more on the bike.... but we were out there. The end of Sunday saw us climbing Dixfield Notch heading to Errol NH. Now if you've never been in this area, let's just say that technically you climb for several miles at a slight grade, then you climb steeply for 1 1/2 miles with the top of the climb being at a 12% grade. I stood up at one point and was hit with the wind at the side and almost hit the guard rail, so that definitely jolted me into what was in front of me... the steepest part of the climb to come.
Once on top, we added another layer as what we just climbed, we would now be going down and the temps were dropping. The weather forecast had been for cold temps Sunday night, so we opted to rent a cabin, dry out ourselves and everything on the bikes... and the best part... have HEAT! Needless to say, it was a great investment and we started off our final day with dry clothes and dry tents etc.. The last leg of the journey had a couple of climbs as well, actually 2-3 of them with over a mile of climbing each. But the reward was the final ten miles back to the shop are all downhill, and "yes" you are reading that correctly :)
So not a lot of mileage for four days, but definitely lots of fun, climbed quite a bit, and was reminded how beautiful New England and Canada are. OH! and the cabin cost was worthwhile as it hit 28 degrees that night and they has a hard frost:)
