Northshore Ride & Woodman's on Sunday 9/11

[Fred W]

Oooooohh, hell ya.... Make mine a Smutty! :yahoo:

For those not familiar with Smuttynose Brewing they are quite arguably the best brewers in New England. Their big beer series is consistently most excellent stuff. And their brewery tour is the one of the most interesting ones that I have ever been on (and I have been on a bunch of 'em). Unfortunately, their tours are only on Fridays and Saturdays.

If you ever get a closeup look at their hodge podge of brewing equipment and the old factory setting they are currently in, you will be amazed that they can produce the quality of beers that they do. But you'll have to hurry if you want to see their old facility because they are building a brand new factory just up the road in Newmarket.

 

[FJReady]

Oooh, I love the Smuttynose IPA.. Yum -yum.

Side note: last weekend while on a 3 day sail from S.Freeport, ME to Marblehead, MA, I had the chance to tour Smuttynose island. It is one of the islands that make up the Isle of Shoals, off the Maine-New Hampshire coast. It's a very pretty island with a long and interesting history.

I was very disappointed that there were no beer making facilities on the island however. I always imagined my beer came from there. I think the only thing 'made' there is seagull ****. Lots of it.

OK, back to regulary schedule programming.

 

[Fred W]

We asked at the Smutty brewery, and although technically their Shoals Pale Ale is/was the company's flagship brew, the IPA now sells more than anything else by a good margin. Which makes sense because it is an awesome brew. But even that pales (sorry) in comparison to some of their "big beers", if and when you can find them. They only make each one for a limited time each year. Really Old Brown Dog is truly the nectar of the gods.

As for this weekend, it appears that we will be starting the fall weather. High temp in Gloucester on Sunday is predicted to be 70F, low of 58.

Oh, and all the Octoberfests are out. :drinks: Prost!

God, I love September!!!

 

[FJReady]

Looks like the better half and I will join the parade at along the route at Woodman's. Perfect chance to get our annual fried clam fix. Targeting 12:30. Can't wait!

 

[dcarver]

For my sake, at least have some food **** shots, 'k?

 

[Fred W]

Do you like Fried Clams dCarver? I thought they were more of an east coast, acquired taste.

There will definitely be a bunch of food pr0n posted after Sunday's gustatory expedition.

 

[DailyCommuter]

A couple weeks back I went on a nice day ride with some guys I work with, from cape cod to Devins MA, to meet up with them, then to VT for breakfast, then rode all around VT- (a lot of the areas we rode have since been washed away by Irene) then back to home, no promises- but I may just show up at Eggies tomorrow AM. I haven't done much besides my dailycommute this year so far- god I want to go to EOM....

 

[ionbeam]

Looks like the better half and I will join the parade at along the route at Woodman's. Perfect chance to get our annual fried clam fix. Targeting 12:30. Can't wait!

Russ, you may want to ping cell phone packing, bluetooth connected Fred W and have a phone number exchange so Fred can give you a call from someplace like Rockport and give you a real ETA for Woodman's. My guess of 12:30 is probably less accurate than a weatherman's forecast for 10 days out.

For my sake, at least have some food **** shots, 'k?

There are very few food **** shots from NERDs or the Breakfast Club. When the food arrives we eat; nothing but flying forks and elbows. Reaching across the table for something becomes a life threatening event. By the time someone remembers the camera the plates are clean. :lol:

 

[Papa Georgio]

Looks like a fine day for eating and riding. I think I will head south to hook up with the NERDS today.

See everyone before KSU

 

[ionbeam]

Looks like a fine day for eating and riding. I think I will head south to hook up with the NERDS today.

See everyone before KSU

We will be lookin' for ya!

 

[Dennis in NH]

Looks like a fine day for eating and riding. I think I will head south to hook up with the NERDS today.

See everyone before KSU

We will be lookin' for ya!

Hi all,

I'm late to the game here. I'm at

Middlesex St

Haverhill‎ Massachusetts‎ 01835

United States

Hanging out in a Dunkin Donuts place and trying to figure where u all r. Seems .gdb files don't play well with iPads so that's not much help although it translated to a route I roughly looked at before I left home on a Mac. Seems like I need to set up a VPN to my home Mac but that's another story and it's in sleep mode anyway, but I digress.

Anyway, worst case I'll meet u all at woodmans 12:30pm ish and just enjoy a fabulous September day riding around.

I gotta get me a new gps -- one that can read .gdb files.

I saw a few clues here and went to eggies and then across that 110 intersection and meandered hoping there'd be folks walking I could ask if they've seen a bunch of bikes like mine.

Cheers and hopefully c ya.

Dennis

 

[DailyCommuter]

We're all at Woodmans waiting in line for seafood bliss right this minute. Many good times and miles so far, many pictures and some video to be posted later tonight

 

[DailyCommuter]

Checking in. Home safe. Thanks for a great great day folks. Fjrforum people are the best people on earth!!

 

[ionbeam]

The 'beams rolled in safely with the luxury of starting later and finishing earlier than other ride members.

Sights were seen, cops talked to, detours taken, huge amounts of calorie packing took place along with massive cholesterol absorption all bundled up with superb tastes from the farm and the sea.

Between Helen and I we have ~400 pictures to wade through. This ride through the North Shore was compact and unlike the usual wide roaming rides. Everyone that we rode with today was the bestest! We had a couple of people drop out in flavor favor of their traditional Seafood Festival in Hampton NH but we gained three people at Woodman's to take their place.

Pictures and ride report to follow.

 

[Dennis in NH]

Hey IonBeams -- Thanks for leading a great road trip. I was only able to get the second half and will probably be bugging you for the trip map including the entire trip (once I get a Garmin device that can eat the trip map). Lots of good stuff to see today; I've never been down that way and there was so much cool stuff to look at. I missed out on the Gloucester part but hope to get down there again sometime.

What a great bunch of folks to hang around with on a great September day!

Cheers all and looking forward to more rides.

Dennis

ps.

I'll be checking back here for the pics.

 

[Fred W]

We were negligent not to have checked in last night. After 12 hours of riding, eating Eggies breakfast, riding, eating Woodmans fried clams, riding, eating Annabele's ice cream, and riding, all of this with a freshly raging head cold, I was completely wasted. Dun. Spent. Kaput,

But Damn. What a fantastic way to spend an early autumn day. The weather was beyond perfection, as was the company. Big Kudo's to the 'beams for hosting (and leading) such a great scenic ride. My neck is still sore from all the rubber necking. And Josie was very busy with her new cam, so I'll have some serious work to do (going through them all).

By the way, I've downloaded the GPS track log from yesterday. Truly amazing statistics.

Elapsed time 11:44:01. Total distance: 210 miles. Average speed: 18 mph.

This was a ride in the finest CBA tradition!! :yahoo:

 

[FJReady]

Home safe here too. Didn't even turn on the computer when we got back. Got involved with all the 9/11 stuff on TV and turned in early. It was a fine day for sure- we had alot of fun riding and eating and chatting with everyone. Days like yesterday are the ones than make us realize that New England is the best place to live!

 

[Asphalt Junkie]

Yes, hats off to the ionbeams for planning and leading a very scenic ride, and to all our fellow "pirates" for the great company!

 

[Pepperell]

I don't know why that lady outside the ice cream place thought we were pirates... irate:

 

 

Possible inexpensive location for NERDS '12?

 

 

 

This picnic table is made of concrete. Note the chain underneath to prevent pilferage...

 

 

Thieves gave up trying to carry away this one, and stole the chain instead. :lol:

 

 

Future food ****...

 

 

About $150 worth of food **** here...

 

 

They cook 'em right here on the sidewalk out front.

 

 

Across the street is this wharf/boatyard. In the past I've seen lobster boats pull up here and deliver baskets of lobsters to Woodman's.

 

 

A place to sit up high and catch the breeze.

 

 

Think I'll add one to the FJR... :yahoo:

 

 

Heading out from Woodmans...

 

 

A stop at a WWII beach bunker. I believe these are 16 inch shells.

 

 

We were still full from lunch when we stopped in Portsmouth for ice creme, so we continued on home and got ours at Doc Davis just down the street from our house.

 

 

Bill Graves (who lives in the Colonel William Prescott House of Bunker Hill battle fame "Don't shoot till you see the whites of their eyes!") makes the ice cream on site. He occasionally comes up with new combinations of flavors.

 

 

We rolled into the garage around 8:00 pm. What a great day!!! :clapping:

 

 

 

 

[DailyCommuter]

I have a small taste if photo's from the ride yesterday- I had the helmet cam set to shoot photo's every 3 seconds. I didn't run the cam all day long but I did have it on long enough to shoot well over 2000 (yes thousand) pictures. I also have some short video samples that I have to upload later- I hope photobucket doesn't have a limit to web space per account; here's a few to start. I'll sort through more as I have time:

here's a goo one of me taking my gloves of while riding - BUSTED!

Pulling into Woodman's for lunch