Well, not to be a complete glutton or anything, but...
Late on Sunday, Captain Jack of the
2011 Aprez CFR Dual Sport FJR Team, (aka forum member bbdig) contacted me about slipping out on Monday and having a repeat attack on the White Mountains. The weather forecast was decent, and the calendar was clear. I seem to be easily convinced that riding iwould be more fun than working. Besides, I wanted to make a run over to
White Horse Gear to see if I could score myself some heated gear (jacket liner and gloves) for extending the season as long as electrically possible.
Jack left home in Taxachusetts before dawn, and we met up at a local diner here, near the I-93 exit 5 (Poor Boy's) at 7:30AM for a quick and hearty breakfast. Slabbed it on up I-93 most of the way up to Lincoln, jumping off and riding on the Route 3 sweepers for the last ~ 20 miles or so. After a quick coffee stop at Mickey D's in Lincoln (in with the good, put with the bad) we shot straight across the Kank to White Horse in Conway with no stops. Jack had forgotten his camera at home and I had just bored everyone with too many mountain pictures here in this very thread last week, so no need to stop at all of the scenic view waysides.
As Jack told one of the staffers at White Horse, the traffic was just
unbearable. We came upon exactly one car in the 35 miles of twisties and sweepers across the Kank, and he was kind enough to pull over and let us by right away... :yahoo: The difference between riding the Kancamagus Highway in the summer tourist season and weekdays now in the fall is like night and day. You locals really need to force yourselves to get up there midweek and partake of the goodness before the white stuff comes.
The stop at White Horse was a complete success (well, except to my credit card) as they had everything that I was looking for in stock. Pretty amazing since this is well into the heated gear time in the Northeast. But the day was warm and no electrics would be needed yesterday.
With my expensive electric booty stashed safely, we bucked our way on up Rte 113 through Evans Notch. That road is a perfect candidate for repaving. It is so pretty and scenic, but brutally rough. :glare: Then across Rte 2 to Gorham and down rte 16 through Pinkham Notch and past Mt Washington. Looking to mix it up a little from last week, we rode down West Side Road (the secret way to bypass all of the North Conway village nonsense) and rode on up to the top of Cathedral Ledge. Jack said that he hadn't been up there for many years. There weren't too many other people up there, and nobody was climbing the cliffs that day. But it was starting to cloud up some, and without any foliage the eastward mountain views were pretty bleak. Not picture worthy.
Continuing down West Side road we took Rte 153 south through Eaton and Freedom to Center Ossipee. Then down the same roads as last week through Tuftonboro and Wolfboro, to share them with Jack. We did get into some light showers from Rochester down Rte 202 to Northwood, but there were more cars on the road down south there, so the rain didn't really slow us up much.
We split up at exit 5 I-93, right where we had started 8 hours earlier. I had another wonderful fall day ride. I hope that Captain Jack enjoyed the day as much as I did. To those that would have liked to have joined us, sorry (again) it was all very short notice. This time of year you have to just spontaneously grab those good days when you can. I encourage you all to do likewise. :thumbsup:
PS - There are no pictures of this ride. None. Nada. Zilch.
Therefore, it never happened. And, I'm sticking with that story.
