We were up in the Mt. Washington, NH area from Friday late PM until this morning. My husband's company has their annual outing there. They rent the whole Mt. Washington Hotel, many condos at Bretton Woods and several other hotels in the area. This is only the second time we'v gone to this; there's no business involved, basically it's a free 2 nights up there, with 2 breakfasts, one dinner, and a lunch provided. We stayed right at the hotel, arriving around 5:30 Friday. I had done a brisk 30 mile club ride Friday AM, so i was tired. We drove over to Gorham for dinner, through Jefferson Notch Rd., which is a dirt road, only open in summer. I was thinking about my mountain bike, but the great italian food we had kept those thoughts out of my mind. On Sat., we set out for N. Conway, ariving there around noon to start a ride I had got out of a book in the library. I chose one that was described as a ramble and not the climb of 3 notches.... It really was a beautiful ride. The first 7-8 miles were completely flat. We stopped at the town beach (a lake) in Eaton to eat and my average was just under 17. I was tired and it was really quite a bit hotter than I thought it would be. The lake was beautiful. So we start out of there, on a road decribed as a "gradual" climb. It was up and down, but I would say it was a bit more than gradual in spots. Finally, at the top, we crossed into Maine. Lots of dairy farms and beautiful scenery here. As we turned onto the road that would lead us back to N. Conway, we had quite a surprise; this was a real long climb! Not super steep, I'd say about 4-6%, but long. I found out that while I am used to short and steep climbs, i haven't really done a lot of long and steady ones. After my husband told me repeatedly to slow it down, I settled into a rhythm at about 6-8 mph and was rewarded with some nice downhills. We got back to Rt. 302 and about 2 miles from where our car was, Steve ran over something and blew his tire. We stopped and he booted it with a dollar bill, changed the tube and as we took off, we passed the Louis Garneau store Mr. S. had discussed last week. So after reviving with some soft serve ice cream, we headed to the LG store. Not a lot of good cycling stuff for me there; there were hardly any x small jerseys and the ones they had were down to my mid thighs! But they did have some really nice casual clothes all for 30% off. I got a pair of board type shorts in a wild pink and orange print, a technical T, and a skort that fit perfectly.
When we got back, I discovered my average was 16 for 34.5 miles and about 2,000 feet of climbing, a personal record for me.