Sunday, July 8: 88 miles on a bike!

Click the image to enlarge, and yes, that's us, about to enter the covered bridge between Greenfield and Hancock, N.H.

Well, that was something! Something like 88.6 miles of something, at least according to Google Maps. That's the most I've done on a bike in a long time, and maybe the most ever. I'll have to ransack my addled brain on that, and see if anything else measures up.

But the nice thing about this long haul, which took 10 hours altogether, was that it not the result of any big crusade or detailed planning. It started because I wanted to do some lake swimming in advance of my first-ever triathalon on Saturday, July 14.

And the best place to do lake swimming I knew was Harrisville Pond, on the shores of which my family spent our summers when I was a boy, not the big kid I am now. The town beach is a fine spot to wade in an actual lake and thrash about, which is about as technical as I can get with swimming.

Toward the end of last week, Sunday was looking to be one of those great summer days we sometimes get in New England — sunny and warm but not HOT, and dry rather than humid. Maybe a breeze! They don't happen too often, but they're ideal for doing anything outside. (Except yardwork and household chores, that is.)

So instead of just driving out to Harrisville (about 40 miles one way) for a swim, why not take the bike? After hours of pedaling, nothing beats jumping in a lake. And my wife could pick me up for the drive home. Sure!

But as the weather forecast morphed into certainty, I couldn't see riding to Harrisville one-way. No! The weather would be too good. Conditions would be too perfect. The Granite State landscape was in full summertime glory along my chosen route: rolling hills, verdant bogs, quaint village centers with white steeples, local stores amply stocked with Gatorade.

I had to do the whole round-trip. Plus, coming back from Harrisville would be mostly downhill, and afternoon winds would likely be coming in from the west, promising a fun return leg.

On Friday, I outlined my plan to two friends, Dan Szczesny (pronounced "sez-knee") & Meena Gyawali. (Pronounced, er, just the way it looks...) They surprised me by saying they might want to join in! No problem — an ambitious ride such as this should not be savored alone, I thought. Plus, if I disappeared, they might have at least an idea of where I went missing. Another bonus turned out to be that Dan brought his camera, and I didn't, so we at least got a few pictures. I've included them as part of this post with his kind permission.

So on Sunday at 7:15 a.m., I bade my wife goodbye and pedaled down my driveway, bound for Harrisville Pond, some seven towns and 40 miles distant, and probably 1,000 feet higher in elevation. (Actually, I just checked, and Harrisville's official elevation is 1,335 feet. Bedford, N.H., where I live, is 309 feet. So the gain is more than a thousand feet!)

The first leg: North on Route 114, from Bedford into Goffstown, where I met Meena at the junction of Mast Road. (Dan was driving out to Francestown, the half-way point, and would meet us there.) Meena and I set off first across Goffstown, then peeled off on Route 13 to follow the Piscataquog River to New Boston. With the roads mostly flat, these first 12 miles are a piece of cake.

It's after New Boston (elevation 469 feet) that the hills begin in earnest. Following Route 136 out of the village, the road immediately begins climbing through a classic up-country New England landscape: meadows and marginal farms (some actually still in business!), horse properties, weed-choked bogs, and stone walls just all over the place. Through it all the road climbed and fell, gradually rising until just before Francestown's town center (elevation 831 feet), which it attains via a final murderously steep climb.

Meena and I savor some time off the bicycle seats in Francestown.

Dan was waiting here, as planned, and he joined us on a mild stretch of 136 to Greenfield (elevation 840 feet), where we had a unicycle sighting, then along back roads and mild downgrades to a covered bridge that spans the Contoocook River. This stretch brought the trip's one mechanical mishap: I overenthusiastically shifted into high gear, causing my chain to come off. A few moments of fiddling fixed it, leaving my fingers (and, soon, my bike shorts, and later, my face) smudged with black gear grease.

Over the river and through the bridge...yes, I know that's not how it goes.

After taking photos at the bridge, we began a steady climb to Hancock's village center, at 876 feet the highest point so far. We stopped there in front of the John Hancock Inn (serving guests continuously since 1790 — presumably not the same ones) to reconnoiter prior to the final push to Harrisville, whose town center is located a whopping 500 feet higher than where we were pausing.

Unfortunately, the assault on Harrisville (via Route 137 south, initially), begins with a ridiculously steep downgrade, a dangerous curving slope seemingly straight down that loses perhaps 100 feet before finally bottoming out as it crosses a small bog. Great!

And only then commences the great uphill battle, which is fought not at a steady pace, but in short intense bursts due to the way Route 137 was engineered. The plan seems to have been to follow the path of least resistance, with no effort being made to smooth out any grades. So, on a bike, you'll go for a short level stretch, then encounter a terrificly steep pitch, often on a curve, with the road working its way up and out of the valley one jump at a time. This happens again and again, and never lets up until you cross the border into Harrisville and Route 137 finally passes through a level boggy area. Finally, there's one more rise before we turn onto "Hancock Road."

Meena schleps along a rare level stretch of road somewhere between Hancock and Harrisville.

As I neared this rural junction, I was alarmed to see ROAD CLOSED signs set up at the intersection. After all this way? A closer look brought relief: road WOULD BE closed for bridge replacement starting Monday, July 9. Tomorrow! What luck — we'd chosen to take out journey on the last day possible before a crucial bridge would be removed.

Down we went, the rough and narrow surface (just about one car wide) leading us into a network of back roads that would take us to Harrisville's town center. I never remembered it being very steep, but the upgrades kept coming, though at a milder rate. (Funny how important these things become when you've been on a bike for nearly four hours.) But shade was plentiful, the air was cool, cars hadn't been invented yet, and the pace was slow enough so that all the forest sounds came through as if I was walking quietly without any kind of bike at all.

While stopped at a junction to wait for Meena and Dan to catch up, I checked the time. 11:20 a.m. So we just might get to Harrisville Pond at the time I expected: between 11:30 a.m. and noon. Nice! Soon the grades stopped, and we were riding along the rambling road that follows the north shore of Lake Skatutakee (fire up the spell-checker!), which is lined with ramshackle cottages and get-away cabins from another era that have somehow endured into the 21st century, many unchanged since I was a boy.

Meena rounds a bend on the shores of Lake Skatutakee, among humble cabins unfit for the glitterati.

No one-percenters buying up lakefront properties here! And that's a good thing, I think, for what amount to entirely personal and quite selfish reasons. For I take solace in passing through this landscape, which I knew as a boy and which hasn't changed much since. I'm glad it still looks (and smells and sounds) the same, even as the whole world around it has changed, including me. Everyone should have a Harrisville to go to once in awhile, I think.

Meena tackles the last of many, many hills leading to Harrisville. That grade is a lot steeper than it looks, folks!

And then the final this-is-really-the-last-one hill, and there we were: The Harrisville General Store, where we stopped to catch our breath before a short ride over to the town beach. I forget what Meena's mileage counter said at that point, but Google maps had my mileage then as 42.5. Not bad in four hours, considering the rise in elevation, and all our stops for water, photos, and chain rehanging.

Meena and I (far right) on the Harrisville General Store porch.

After noshing on fare that included a blintz for Dan (at the Harrisville General Store? Where they once had a grimy pot-bellied stove and rat cheese? I guess some things have changed...) we checked out the picturesque red brick town center, inadvertently riding through what turned out to be a memorial ceremony (oops!) being held on the small bridge near the library (I thought it was a wedding reception, with future brides straining to catch the bouquet, but it was a family placing flowers into the water.)

An image of the ceremony on the bridge in Harrisville's center, taken at a respectful distance.

We then made our way to the town's public beach, where we parked our bikes — no locks, of course. I then waded in and discovered that yes, I remembered how to swim, and also that there's nothing as pleasurable as wading into a lake on a summer day.

Harrisville Pond as seen from the town beach, with yours truly in the water not drowning, but attempting to wave.

We stayed just long enough to realize that if we stayed any longer, we'd never leave. So, hopping on the bikes, we made a quick exit from Harrisville, but then commenced climbing (more!) on the worst road of the day (lots of pavement cuts filled with gravel) to the next town to our south: Dublin, elevation 1,453 feet.

Believe it or not, Dublin supposedly has the highest town center in New England. I'm not quite sure I do believe that, but still it was good to know it would be all (well, mostly) downhill from here. And it was! Taking Route 101 to Peterborough, with a westerly wind behind us, was a Mr. Toad's Wild Ride of steep downgrades and flying through dangerous intersections and columns of passing trucks and all manner of obstacles, including a bridge under construction and a rotary that's located very inconveniently at the bottom of a long steep downgrade into Peterborough, elevation 718 feet and Mile 52.7 of the day for me.

Meena and I posing for pictures in Peterborough. I'm the one who's not the small dark-skinned woman.

We stopped at the Peterborough Diner for a snack (a club sandwich for Dan & Meena, a piece of blueberry pie for me), and then steered north on Route 202 to find Route 136, which would take us back to Greenfield. I didn't know this road, but we were all pleasantly surprised to find it devoid of any intense hills. And before we knew it, we were back in Greenfield and headed toward Francestown. (Mile 65.2.)

Once there, Dan decided he and his rebuilt Schwinn would continue, and so would Meena, and they'd pick up the car later. So back we went to New Boston, propelled by a brisk west wind and zipping down slope after slope. It almost seemed effortless, which either meant I had gotten strong enough to handle a ride of this length or that I had lost all feeling in my body.

Before I had time to ponder that, I was in a controlled descent on the long grade down into New Boston, where Dan and Meena and I bade goodbye. On my own, I then cruised back though Goffstown and Bedford, arriving home at 5:15 p.m. Total mileage: 88.6. And other than a little saddle soreness, I felt pretty good! (And a day later, I still do.)

Dan and Meena continued into Manchesterat their own pace, with Meena adding extra detours along the way so the miles would pile up. Finally, by going up and down their street on Manchester's West Side, her odometer flipped over to triple digits. In one day, 100 miles for Meena! Very impressive.

And the best part of it all: the lack of careful planning, which added a nice sense of serendipity to the day's activities. Did we really do that? Yes, we did!

As Mr. Kurt Vonnegut wrote in his novel Cat's Cradle: "Peculiar traveling suggestions are dancing lessons from God." Today's version of that would be: "Peculiar biking suggestions are dancing lessons from God."

So far in July: little running, lotsa biking

Keeping things organized here to keep the progress going. Let's see...

• This morning was a road race in the tiny town of Langdon, which I missed! They'll do it again next year, I believe, so I'll catch it then. The reason I missed it was because I've been having foot problems: the tissue that makes up the upper part of each foot seems swollen and painful following exercise, and stiff when I get up in the morning or even after being sedentary — say, driving for an hour or more. My wife says I need to stretch it more, and she's right, I think. But in the meantime, I've been avoiding any running, including jaunts with the dogs around town, which are now just walks. They don't seem to mind.

• To compensate, I've been adding a lot of time on the bike. This past Wednesday, I took a moderately long round-trip to Nashua, to visit my mother's property and then my mother (in a skilled nursing facility), and then took the long way back, along rural Route 3A up the opposite side of the Merrimack River. It's a good ride for a warm evening, light traffic and mostly flat — enough for me to stay in the highest gear I have for the entire time I was in Litchfield!

• There was also a shorter ride from Henry's Auto Body in Manchester to my house in Bedford, but challenging because of the need to negotiate the eastern end of the new bridge over the Merrimack River that's part of the $180 million airport access highway. Turns out there's no way to get on the dedicated bicyle path from Brown Avenue other than lifting your bike up and over a four-inch granite curb. Some planning!

• After a spell of sticky stuff, the next few days will bring fine summer weather to New England. So tomorrow I'm going to attempt an 80-mile out-and-back ride to Harrisville, N.H., and then another good ride on Tuesday or Wednesday. Plus I'll start aggressively stretching and getting the new running shoes broken in in advance of the big triathalon on Saturday, July 14.

No White Mountains running just yet; we'll see how the feet feel after a week of stretching and shoe breaking-in.

Saturday, June 30: A very long bike ride

To further prepare for this summer's attempt to bike New Hampshire's Kangamaugus Highway, I took advantage of a drive out to Portsmouth this morning to spent most of the afternoon biking all the way back home.

Portsmouth is on the coast, and Bedford (where I roister) is in the Merrimack Valley, about 50 miles inland via minor highways and lightly traveled back roads. So, after visiting a friend for breakfast and seeing my wife drive off in my car, I started the long pedal home. (Sorry, no pictures, other than those I could find online.)

In my favor: high clouds moving in (cutting the sun's intensity) and a summer day that turned out to be a lot drier than expected. Humidity, which was supposed to be awful, was only in the 30 to 40 percent range. Nice!

Not in my favor: a persistent westerly headwind for nearly the entire ride, temps that still climbed into the 90s, and a shade pattern that forced me to ride on the wrong side of roads (heading into traffic) for much of the journey.

Blast-off time in Portsmouth was 12:10 p.m., with the route taking me out of town on Islington Street, then Route 33 over Interstate 95 and through heavy traffic for an air show at the Pease Tradeport. (Sign at florist: WELCOME BLUE ANGLES!)

Portsmouth, the first of 10 communities on today's excursion, quickly gave way to Greenland and then Stratham as Route 33 wound through rolling country, blessed with generous breakdown lanes but cursed with that westerly headwind, which kicked up pretty good during this stretch.

I like to travel light, so my means of staying hydrated is to stop at convenience stores and guzzle water and the occasional Gatorade. I know these roads pretty well, and planned my first stop to be a store on Route 33 in Stratham that I've patronized since my days of teaching at the local tech college not far away. Good thing, too, as I was already feeling depleted, and on a day like this, the time to drink is before you're thirsty.

But as I neared the store on Route 33, I realized that I'd actually be turning onto Squamscott Road and heading for the town of Newfields before I hit my chosen store. Ooops! So when would the next store be? I didn't think Newfields had one, meaning I wouldn't get anything until Epping, probably 10 miles away. Could I make it?

I didn't have to find out because, as things turned out, the Newfields Village Store was not far away, and so it became my first pit stop.

The Newfields Village Store at a different time of year.

I then headed out on quiet Route 87 towards Epping, looking for Mast Road, which would bring me over to Route 27. New road signs made it easy to locate; I recall not long ago missing it entirely on a scouting drive.

At this point the towns are spread pretty evenly apart: about eight miles each, meaning Gained Route 27 and found Epping came surprisingly fast. Stopped at Shell station to finish rest of water from Newfields. Good ride through to Raymond, which I reached by 2 p.m. and where the temperature was just 80 degrees, according the sign outside Walgreen's. Stopped again, this time for lemonade and water.

The next segment was the toughest part of the ride: extended climbs on Route 27 into Candia, mostly without shade, as the road here was for years the main highway to the seacoast, and so it's wide. Took a lot out of me, and the only part of the ride where I felt I might not make it.

The final stop.

But I did, making a last water stop at Candia House of Pizza before tackling final big hills on Route 27 into Hooksett to reach the high point of the ride, which marks the entry into the Merrimack River valley. (At least I think it does. Somebody get me a topo map!) Conditions were so dry you could see a large mountain on the horizon, maybe 60 miles away. I thought it was Mount Monadnock but a later map glance showed it couldn't be, as I was looking northwest and Monadnock would be clear to the west. Maybe Pat's Peak in Henniker?

Route 27 at this point is a truly quiet back road, but had recently been repaved from Candia almost all the way through Hooksett. Plus: a wonderfully smooth and problem-free riding surface. Minus: a stingy shoulder that dropped off as much as two inches at some points. (If that doesn't sound like much, try riding a bike.)

I was still riding on the wrong side of the road for the shade, and sure enough, it finally happened: in the middle of a string of oncoming vehicles passing me by, some joker in a truck swerved right at me, as if I wasn't there at all. I saw it coming, yelled, but had no choice to bail off the road surface and onto a patch of gravel. Luckily, I had enough speed for the bike to get over this rough area without spilling, and a flat shoulder just ahead quickly allowed me to regain the road.

After checking to make sure the wheels were still in true, I began to enjoy my reward: a long series of downhills in Hooksett that take you to the floor of the Merrimack River valley. By the time I crossed Route 3 and got onto River Road through Southern New Hampshire University, I was feeling spent.

But I was now in Manchester and on familiar turf, crossing the river on the Bridge Street Bridge downtown. How amazing to have cycled through so much rural countryside only to stumble onto this city! (Maybe it was the exhaustion, but I somehow felt a sense of wonder at it all.)

The final leg into Bedford, the same route I take to and from work all the time, was a lark. After being on the road since 12:10 p.m., I zipped up my own driveway at 4:17 p.m., meaning it took 4 hours and 7 minutes to cover about 50 miles. (50.2 according to Google Maps.)

At that rate, I should be able to do the Kanc both ways in about six or seven hours, give or take.

Personal inventory: sore butt (to be expected), some sunburn (despite sunscreen), but otherwise okay. Not bad for the longest ride I've done in a long time, and a good prelude to tackling the Kanc later this season.

Update: Northfield, state runs, tri-athalons, oh my!

Okay, let me try to organize my head about what's coming up. There's a lot!

But it's a good thing, I think, because I'm currently deep in the midst of helping an aging parent in post-fall recovery as well as placement in assisted living. I gladly do this, but it can be a bit wearing. So being sure to make time to be active is especially important if I'm going to keep my sanity and not fall into bad habits such as stress eating or lack of sleep.

So what's coming up? Well, I have a town run scheduled for this Saturday (June 23) in Northfield, which will bring me to #136. And I'd like to do one more longish run in the "50 states" campaign, just to make up for not getting one on the books in May. Perhaps Rhode Island next week?

And then there's my first-ever triathalon, set for Saturday, July 14 in Surry, N.H. It's a .25-mile swim, an 8-mile bike ride, then a 5K run. think I have the bike/run part nailed, but swimming? Swimming? Er, let's see.

I suppose I could just show up and flail my way through the quarter-mile without drowning. Even so, better judgment says I should make time to swim somewhere a few times prior to engaging in this.

So one plan is to take the bike on a long ride out to Harrisville, N.H., a community to the west of here that has a nice public beach. A 40-mile bike ride is probably not the best way to precede a swim, but at least I'll get in some good exercise that day.

Not sure when that'll happen but perhaps the 4th of July, which is a Wednesday this year and our business is closed. I don't have any silent film screenings on the weekends before or after the holiday, so there should be time. We'll see.

And then there's my goal of biking the entire 34-mile length of New Hampshire's Kancamaugus Highway, both ways, sometime this summer. I've been riding more and more, to the point where the tires on my Giant Defy road bike are getting worn down pretty good, so there's hope on that one. Sometime in late July/early August, on a day when the weather's not too dodgy up in the White Mountains. We'll see.

And wait! Speaking of the Whites, I'd like to make progress on getting to the summit of all 48 peaks that are 4,000 feet or higher. This was originally an attempt to get one of our dogs, Zahnna, to all 48 summits, but in the past year she's slowed down considerably and shows signs of hip trouble. So, alas, she may have to call it quits at #30, with 18 still to go.

Well, maybe. In the past week, she's been getting some new food supplement that seems to have perked her up for action, so perhaps it's time to hit the trail for some trial hikes. Not today, though, as it's nearly 6 p.m. and still well above 90 degrees. Maybe this weekend. (If I can suddenly find a spare 12 hours somewhere.)

So there's no shortage of options to stay active this season. It's a matter of staying organized, prioritizing, and also not getting injured. :)

The Great Memorial Day Bike Ride

The New Boston (N.H.) Town Gazebo.

As this whole blog might indicate, I'm big on ritual. And just this past weekend (a long one, by virtue of the U.S. holiday of Memorial Day, which is celebrated on the last Monday of each May), I realized that I have another one going.

Let's call it "The Great Memorial Day Bike Ride." What happened was two years ago, the Friday of Memorial Day weekend was one of those spectacular spring days we get all too few of in our part of the world — warm, sunny, dry, and just full of promise.

So that afternoon, home early from work, I hopped on my bike, setting off on the first long ride of the season. It took me from my home in Bedford, N.H. on hilly back roads to the town center of New Boston, a small unsuburbanized community to the west. I then took Route 13, following the Piscataquog River downstream to Goffstown, a larger and busier town. From there, I took Wallace Road, which means a long climb up one side of the Uncanoonuc Mountains and then back down into Bedford.

It was long enough to be a memorable adventure, and at the time I thought it was the start to a season full of long bike rides. That was not to be, alas, as a biking accident that July sidelined me for the remainder of 2010. But it was memorable enough to spur me to get on my "new" bike (now more than a year old) this Memorial Day weekend for a repeat.

I hadn't planned on this, as our Memorial Day weekend had been otherwise claimed by houseguests from New York up for a family trip to the Granite State. But this past Monday, after making the rounds of the local cemeteries and putting petunias on the graves of relatives, I found myself back home on a day that was supposed to be the loser of the weekend, weatherwise, but was actually quite nice.

So I got out the bike and off I went, thinking that I had better get in some time if I'm ever going to be able to tackle the Kancamaugus Highway later this summer. (We'll see.) Yes, we had all climbed Mount Monadnock on Saturday, and my knees were still feeling it. So, even though the prior Memorial Day ride was in the back of my mind, my tired self (as well as predicted thundershowers) didn't plan on a repeat.

But who knows? Sometimes, once you're out on the bike, you find energy you didn't know you had. Grinding up a minor slope on Liberty Hill Road (the next street from my home), I felt terrible, like I should just turn back. But I kept going, and soon found I didn't want to stop. (Maybe it was the adrenaline rush from trying to cross Route 101 in Bedford, a busy highway that divides the town.)

And yes, before I knew it, I found myself downshifting to tackle the long steady grades on New Boston Road, then passing the New Boston town line, then making a right at a junction known locally as "Klondike Korner," all the while thinking I might need to turn back if a thunderstorm seemed likely.

But the sun stayed out and the sky stayed blue, spurring me deeper into New Boston, riding past homes sporting patriotic bunting and through the scent of evening cookouts wafting out onto the road. Up and down, and then finally DOWN, a steep grade and a sharp curve, putting me at the New Boston town gazebo.

Route 13 into Goffstown is pretty level, and I felt strong as I settled into this section. I was later surprised to find that I wasn't in the highest gear, but that had actually helped encourage me. After negotiating heavy traffic in Goffstown on Route 114, I peeled off onto Wallace Road and into the teeth of the long steady climb up the side of the mountain.

Home in two hours. Route of 28.1 miles, according to Google Maps. Not bad for a first big ride of 2012, and I hope the first of many. I do hope to do the Kanc later this season, and would also like to try for the seacoast -- perhaps even a round-trip! However, the idea of biking from York, Maine to my home is off for this season because they're replacing the one bridge in Portsmouth, N.H. that makes this ride possible. So maybe in 2013.

However, I find I do like the idea of a long solitary bike ride on Memorial Day weekend. It gives me time to think, and you can't help but think of Memorial Day as you pass all the decorated homes and, yes, smell the cookouts. It's a nice way to start the summer, and I think I'll try to do it again next year, weather willing.

In terms of running, a couple of new towns coming up: Effingham on Sunday, June 3, and Northfield on Saturday, June 23. However, at this rate, I'm not going to reach my goal of completing this quest by May 14, 2016, so I better start arranging for some back-to-back town runs.

Also, in terms of the "Running in All 50 States" quest, it looks like this will be the first month since I started in which I don't add a state to the roster. (Unless I sneak in a nearby one on Wednesday, May 30.) Well, we shall see. I have Maryland scheduled for June, Arkansas and Oklahoma for September, and several east/Midwest possibilities as part of a road trip in October, but it would be nice to keep the "every month" momentum going...