Touring Here and There: Day 38/39 - Manchester, NH to Hebron, NH (August 28/29)

Ride Forrest Ride! - as heard by a group of teens on the ride to Hebron, New Hampshire.

Yawn. The night before I had met up with my first coach with Team in Training. We caught up and had a beer. Beer. I’ve drank more this trip than in the past 10 years. So it only takes one or two to put me to sleep. Anyway, coach Tim and I caught up on the goings on in New Hamster. It’s not the San Francisco Bay Area, but at least housing is affordable, for now.

The bike touring mantra is this: getting out of your starting town can take forever. Day 38 was no exception I had such a large to do list: buy some bowling shoes for dancing, buy some clothes for dancing, stop by the local bike shoppe (of course the conversation turned to politics...), get hardware to fix the new bike rack that I purchased, and mail extra stuff back home.

I finally began riding at 4 p.m. I had only ridden 10 miles at this point. So I finished in the dark - 2 hours of riding in pitch black. There was a full moon, but it didn’t do much shining through the dense woods. I had all the appropriate safety gear: highway construction-safety vest, reflective triangles on the back panniers, rear red strobe light, and front light. I put all of this on at once except for the front light.

I stopped to put on the front light, but I was not having any success. I had stopped at an intersection. It was getting dark and I just couldn’t get the light attached to my handlebars. A guy driving a Chevy drove right at me and then stopped. In the calm, I wondered what was going to come next? Was he going to shoot me? Maybe offer me a suggestion, like “next time ride on the sidewalk” (of course there are no sidewalks on a country road). Instead he just waited while I finally got the light attached. When he saw that I was done, he drives up to me and asks, “you doing alright here.” I said that I was fine and I thanked him for his help.

I continued into the dark. I would pull off into a driveway or onto the side of a road whenever a car would pass. Even though I had made my self as visible as possible, I didn’t assume that the drivers would see me. They barely see me during the daylight, why would their vision or awareness improve during the night?

I was always able to find a driveway to turn into when traffic passed. The east is different than the west. In the east, a “town” extends over a wide area. Inside each county is a number of smaller boundaries - townships. The township boundaries were shown on the roads that I was riding through - Bristol, Hebron, Rumney, Franklin. I would see the township boundary 3 to 5 miles before I entered the actual town square. In a township the houses, and thus the driveways are spread out. Spread out in such a way that it is convenient for a touring cyclist who is riding in the dark to safely pull out on when a car passes.

In the west, towns are separated by miles of empty open space. So the driveways come much less frequently. Most of the driveways I came across in the west lead to pasture land and would often be closed by a fence.

Stopping at the mini-mart where I almost gave up riding last year, I called my destination-"Lazy Acres Campground.” The campground wasn’t very helpful. I was only 10 miles away on a country highway, but the person on the other side of the phone didn’t seem to know where I was. When I finally got to my destination town - Franklin. I headed north towards the town center even though the campground address was 1000 something South Main Street. I did this because the campground manager told me that the campground was near downtown Franklin.

I rode through Franklin and kept going. I was now traveling north of Franklin which made it unlikely that I was on “South Main” anymore. After 15 minutes of riding, I turned around when I came into the next township, “Tilton.” I headed back to downtown Franklin to call the campground. The manager said that the campground was only 2 minutes south of the National Guard facility. I was a little hesitant to return to the National Guard because when I had passed the facility a few minutes ago, I heard a flurry of bullets. Apparently it was target practice time, I’m just glad they weren’t shooting at me.

Finally I arrived at the campground. It was dark, they had an entrance gate, they wanted too much money, they had no laundry, and a shower cost 25 cents for 3 minutes of shower. At the least I was off of the road and could sleep.

The next day was a short ride into Camp Wicosuta. Camp Wicosuta, a girls camp, is converted in to Swingout New Hampshire, at the end of the season after the girls have left.

Another difference between the west and the east - the hills. I ran into a former cycle racer from Belgium near the Grand Teton National Park. He complained about the hills in the east. Of course he was talking about the Appalachians, but this applies to the east in general. In the east, the hill slopes are 10 to 20 percent. “Just like the Alps”, said the former bike racer. The difference is that the Alps have grades that last for miles at a time. In the east, the climbs are very short. In the west, the climbs last for a long time and the grade is typically no more than 7 percent. So every climb is followed by a descent. Sometime a steep descent and then it is time to climb again. Up and down and up and down all day long. This up and down makes it hard to get into a good cycling rhythm - just when I have sat down and start to turn the pedals in a routine way, I have to stand on my pedals.

Along my way to camp, I passed different landmarks where Daniel Webster spent time. Mr. Dictionary used to live in the Franklin Area.

This is Daniel Webster. He looks a little angry.

This is the church at which Daniel Webster worshipped.

Before swinging into Camp Wicosuta and beginning my Swingout New Hampshire experience, I stopped at Wellington State Park on Newfound Lake. I watched the families enjoy the last days of summer as they swam in one of the clearest lakes in the region. The lake was clear as Lake Tahoe. It is spring-fed and this helps to ensure that is clear year round.