Day 42 - Indebted in Northwoods
Yesterday was a lovely ride, if a bit long. I end up riding 59.12 miles to Graylag Cabins in Northwoods, NH from Crotched Mountain in Francestown, NH. But Graylag was the wrong place to be. More about that later.
The first 1/2 of the ride was all downhill. How great is that. Over the first 5 miles I averaged 20 mph. That's huge to get 5 miles out of the way in 15 minutes! And Google cooperated, until it didn't. Once I got to Goffstown, NH, it wanted to me to go on the Rail/Trail again, gravel and unimproved. The problem was that I didn't want to, so picked my own way, and it was the wrong way. So I went a couple of miles around about to get back to where I was supposed to be. I tried the Rail/Trail, said the heck with that and got back on 114 with a lot of traffic and little side to the road. After I got off the Rail/Trail, my rear tire went flat. I'm surprised with all the crap that David and I rode the day before we didn't end up with any flats. Changing the tire was a pain, as I used one of those tubes from the Florida bike shop. The presta valve came out when I took off the valve cover. I tried to use it regardless, but after checking the tire and getting it ready to pump up, it wouldn't have any of it. I pulled out one of the tubes I got from Allentown and it worked like a charm. That is if you can consider pumping the tire 600 times with my little frame pump working like a charm. Fortunately, Jake's Bike Shop was along the way on 114 and got me pumped up and replaced the 2 tubes I threw away. I was happy to find that I had gotten the tire pumped up to 60 psi!
From Manchester the last 30 miles or so were all slowly uphill until I turned off 202 on to 107 to go to Graylag Cabins. Graylag was the place I thought I was staying and getting there is no joke. Up hill on dirt roads, again and again, and then right at the end a steep downhill to the lake on dirt again! When I got there and asked for the pink cabin I was informed there was no such thing! I had no service on my phone, but I did have a text and they had a land line! Gabriel, a member of the family who owns Graylag thankfully offered to throw my stuff in his truck and drive the 7 miles to where I stayed last night, the Cottages on Harvey Lake. I am indebted to Gabe as I wasn't looking forward to riding up that hill. It was 6 PM and it would be close to get to the cabins I was supposed to be at by nightfall. Getting up that hill would have been damned near impossible because after 59 miles I was done for the day. As it turns out, had I stayed on 202, I was only 2 miles from the Cottages. So not only did I do a lot of additional climbing over those last 5 miles, I added miles to my ride to boot. This is all part of the adventure!
I have another long day today to make it to Jeremiah Mason B&B in Limerick. Google is saying 50.9 miles. Let's hope it doesn't get me lost! Steve Champagne is planning on riding with me into Portland tomorrow. That's definitely a short day, only 30 miles
! Looking forward to resting in Portland!
Commentaires