So the weather has been rather cooperative lately, especially this week of April break. We got the bike back from Back Bay Bicycle in great shape for lots of fun adventures. On Saturday, 4/14, we completed a 33.82 mile ride from home to South Portland then along the Eastern Trail through Scarborough to where it takes a break in Saco at Thornton Academy. We rode side streets from Saco back up through Scarborough and called on our "knight in black armor (Becca in our diesel pickup truck)" to come pick us up because we were road weary and the road conditions had deteriorated significantly. Thankfully, we got a chance to stop at Smiling Hill Farm to have an ice cream since we would have stopped anyway if we were still biking and we were going right by... Yay!
On Sunday, 4/15, we decided to take the Harley out and follow the turn-by-turn directions we've printed out for the first two days of our trip this summer. We picked up the trail in Kennebunk (since we just road the first portion by bicycle yesterday) and followed the roads Google suggested. The first leg from Kennebunk to Farmington, NH was filled with lots of turns, but included some great back roads, some interesting hills (being on the Harley, it was hard to gauge just how hard those hills will be!), and one stretch of dirt roads that led us under Rt 16. This stretch probably won't be so bad on the tandem, although it was a bit iffy on the Harley!
The campground we hope to spend night one at isn't actually located where Google led us... but it was only about 1.5 miles off. Eventually we found a local person who knew where it was and directed us appropriately. From there we stuck to the major roads following Rt 11 to Rt 140 to Rt 11 (again) to Rt 4 through New Hampshire. We did manage to miss one of our turns (we had intended to take Rt 4a in NH, but a misreading of the map lead us down a different path), but this turned out to be a happy accident in that Rt 4 follows the Northern Rail Trail for over 20 miles from Grafton to Lebanon. Although Google had us going along Rt 4a, we think we'll be taking the Northern Rail Trail and getting off the blacktop for some more flat ground and more gradual hills. And, the campground we hope to stay at on our second night is directly off the Northern Rail Trail! Too cool!
Once we found our second campground, we headed back south to Manchester with Tom & Lynn. By the time we finally landed back at Tom's house, we had ridden over 225 miles on the Harley - talk about a sore butt! Between the 33+ miles bicycling Saturday and the over 225 miles on the Harley Sunday, we were butt sore and very tired.
Monday morning, 4/16, found us back on the Harley headed for home. Rick had to be back for his classes at USM, so we hit the road around 8:30 a.m. and were back in Portland by 11:30 a.m. (boy were our bottoms still sore...). The rest of the day was filled with school work and the like.
Today, 4/17, we decided to strike out for Freeport. We headed down to Baxter Boulevard, then headed up Route 88 through Falmouth & Yarmouth. We took a quick stop at Delorme to check on bike maps (they don't have any) and use the potty, then were on the road again headed up Route 1. We were experiencing some difficulty with our index shifting - it would randomly shift us from gear to gear when we were in the middle gears on the back cog. Turns out the new freewheel has eight cogs where the old one had only seven. The index system wasn't designed for eight cogs. We figured this out in Falmouth, but couldn't figure out how to fix it. Luckily there is a Bike & Ski shop on Rt 1 in South Freeport where we stopped and asked for help. The mechanic fixed it lickety split and showed us some new gloves with great gel pads. We thanked him and purchased one pair of the new gloves for Rick as that was the one pair that fit. We then struck out again with LL Bean in our sights. We stopped at the Bike store portion of LL Bean on Main St in Freeport (not the main store, but just before the main store) and checked out the camel backs, bike shorts, bike gloves, and lights. We had a $10 coupon to spend and decided to get one of the rear lights to put on the trailer for better visibility this summer. We'll be getting new shorts & gloves for Nola, but those can wait for better budget times!
We spotted the hot dog vendor across the street and hopped on over there for two dogs apiece for lunch. Once those settled, we headed south again. We sailed down Rt 1 and stopped into Turning Heads Salon to say hi to our friend Louise. Unfortunately she wasn't there, but her coworkers welcomed us and offered us some nice cold water refills! Then we were off south again, taking US Rt 1 to Middle Road down through Falmouth and into Portland where it becomes Ocean Ave. We wrapped up our cycling trip with one last stop at Pat's Meat Market to get hamburg for our American Chop Suey dinner.
We did 37.66 miles today! When we got home, after taking showers, Rick settled down on the couch for a nap and Nola sat down at the computer to do some more research for the summer trip. Through Adventure Cycling, we've ordered two detailed bicycling maps and learned about the WarmShowers.org group. With any luck, we'll be able to rely on other cycling enthusiasts to put up a tent on their lawn and/or use their shower. We signed up to be hosts as well. Should be a fun way to meet new people and introduce them to our wonderful area.
So far, it has been a vacation filled with cycling fun - be it motorized or tandem riding. Tomorrow holds more good weather... stay tuned! :)
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