…:: Alex Smirnov ::…

We had about 10 days before flying to Slovakia for an early vacation (and preemptive honeymoon) and needed to take care of a few things in Massachusetts before the wedding. There was some dead time on Sunday morning so I decided to bring my bike along and do a long(er) ride. Long Island is a miserable place for bike riding (especially longer rides), barring those few roads on East End. Add to that drivers who feel invincible and you have an extremely unpleasant combination. Anyway. The plan was to head out around 6:30AM and be done before noon, completing about 50 miles. I spent the evening before doing some planning on mapmyride.com and decided on a 46-some mile ride on predominantly local roads to Milford, NH and back to Lunenburg, MA. So I uploaded the track into my Garmin GPS unit and headed to bead around midnight.
View Larger MapThe plans were laid out nicely, however, having only slept about 45 minutes the night before I splurged and crawled out of bed at 7am, packed up and headed out around 7:30. It was pretty chilly in the morning and I felt a bit tired ans sleepy – but the first few hills quickly took care of both of these problems. I was feeling pretty good and quickly crossed the state line into New Hampshire. I was hoping to snap a picture of one of those signs announcing New Hampshire for this blog but being on local roads I only saw signs for wearing seat belts for kids.Shortly after the state line, I turned onto Mason Road which eventually intersects with the Mason Rail Trail. Shortly after I turned onto it I ran into my first and really the only obstacle during this ride – a downed pine tree laying across the trail. It must have been pretty recent, as it still looked very much alive and was just dripping with sap. I started pushing the bike through and then decided to snap a picture – hence the awkwardly positioned bike on the tree.I managed to get through un-sapped (this was my only cycling jersey) and carried on. I was looking forward to riding on the trail but after a few minutes my enthusiasm disappeared. This multi-use trail seems to be predominantly used by horse riders which combined with sandy substrate produced a pretty bumpy ride. I think on a full-suspension bike this would not be a problem but for me and my low-end hard tail bike this was quite unpleasant. The biggest advantage, naturally, was the gentle slope as this is a former railroad grade. The trail was deserted this morning and my only companions were chipmunks scurrying away from the trail at the sound of my bicycle. Eventually I took a short break at this nice wooded bridge in between two ponds.
Unfortunately, the GoPro HD Camera I have bought not a month ago decided to stop working, I had to switch to my iPhone. Since this is the second time I have had this type of problem with this camera, I am going to have to have a stern word with the folks at GoPro.com and demand a fix.I only stayed on the rail trail for a few miles and turned away from me when I reached Pratt Pond and turned right on Pratt Pond Road. The pond looked beautiful, extremely blue and inviting. Not sure you get such a blue color with all that organic matter floating around and decomposing away. If it were hotter, i would definitely go for a dip.After some decent hill climbs followed a fast ride (averaging 25-30 mph) to Milford, NH which I suspected I will pay for after lunch. I hit the center of Milford looking for a cafe to grab a sandwich but those few that were open were insanely crowded. So I cycled around until I found a Rite-Aid store and got some pitted prunes, a Cliff bar and some cold delicious beverages. I biked back to the center and seated myself on the bench by the war memorial in the center of the roundaboutAfter about 30 minutes I moved on following Route 101A before turning away from busy traffic onto Ponemah Hill Road. My fears about paying for the descent seemed well-founded as I got into the toughest climb of this ride. My quads were about to explode but I survived, partially preoccupied by plentiful horses enjoying the surrounding pastures and one really cool antique tractorI could have followed Route 13 all the way back to Massachusetts but that would mean quite a bit of traffic and I was unsure of the shoulder situation on this road. It also would have been much easier, since the local roads seemed to have been endowed with plenty of ascents and descents, which while an important of my training, eventually became quite exhausting. For the first time, I met some cyclists on road bikes, ironically on one of those local roads that wasn’t paved. Seemingly, even my GPS was getting tired and stopped displaying my projected route. The mile markers were still showing but it took a bit more work as I had to constantly zoom in and out. I attributed this to low batteries but since I didn’t have any spares, I had to make contact with local population. I got directions for the nearest convenience store on Route 13, just north of the NH/MA line. The new batteries didn’t solve the problem but I did talk to a nice gentleman who told me about his son, who just recently started bicycling from his home in NH or MA to Alaska. After this pleasant chat was interrupted by the sound of a jackhammer, I moved on looking to get back to Lunenburg before Andi left for her bridal shower. I eventually did get on Route 13 and it was as unpleasant as I thought it would be … plenty of traffic and beat-up or non-existent shoulder. Combine that with some hill climbs and I was just about ready to be done. Eventually I did finish the 46 mile loop in about 5 hours. It was only about 12:30 or so and I still had half the day ahead of me.

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