[bike] The Mad Maine Trip

[dmaze]

We did in fact succeed in biking to just across the Maine state line yesterday. We started at Maudslay State Park in western Newburyport, then rode east across Salisbury, up MA-1A and NH-1A along the New Hampshire coast, and then crossed on US-1 into Maine. Coming back was the same route except that we detoured along NH-1B into New Castle. Bike computer said 59.26 miles at the end. Route map

It looks like there's a rail-trail project to connect Kittery to Portland. One amusing aspect of this is "ET bike" signs that appear once you show up in Kittery. Didn't explore much from there. (Web-surfing indicates that the "cabbage" cars on the Downeaster have bike racks that can hold eightish unpacked bikes, though, reservations required, $5-10 extra.)

As far as the route goes...it was totally flat, which was nice, but we faced a pretty harsh headwind coming back, which wasn't nice. Salisbury is a dump, Seabrook is slightly less of a dump with a nuclear power plant, Hampton Beach is overrun with people (and so as a bike you'll be the fastest thing on the road), North Hampton and north is pretty nice. Several steel-grid deck bridges, which people with smaller tires found troublesome. There was often a sea wall between you and the ocean. In all it was probably a nicer ride than most of the other coastal rides I've done, but I'm not sure I'd recommend doing it again.

Comments

[gigglefest.livejournal.com]

that's an awesome picture!

I went for a hilly ride yesterday and started wondering about whether I'd find a flat route of the same distance to be easier or harder. 'Cause there's the climbing, but there's also the coasting...

And speaking of coastal rides, a friend out here just told me about the ride she might do tomorrow -- drive to Half Moon Bay, then bike down to Santa Cruz and back. I am now unspeakably envious of people with cars and/or touring bikes...

[dmaze]

The northbound ride was really easy. We left Newburyport around 10:45 and had made it to Portsmouth, around 25 miles, by 1:00. Southbound our big problem was the wind, and then we started getting really tired from biking very slowly into the wind. But aside from that, this was much easier than an equivalent-length hillier ride.

[narya.livejournal.com]

The car part I can't help you with, but I will note that dzm is goofy enough to do these things on a mountain bike.

[dmaze]

Two comparatively inexpensive things that helped me a lot: (1) a tire pump with a pressure gauge; tires that "feel firm" are likely still below the minimum recommended pressure; and (2) mountain-bike-sized tires that aren't actually knobby the whole way around. cfox recommended Tire and Country tires to me, which aren't knobby at all; I have something named Speedmax, I think, which are knobby on the sides but not down the middle. It was fairly obvious looking at the options in the bike store.

(Even so, if I hadn't bought a house this year, I would have bought a road bike. Next year. The CWR trailers on last year's Climb to the Clouds claimed that doing these rides on a mountain bike added 20% to the effective mileage.)

[gigglefest.livejournal.com]

Fortunately (or unfortunately?) I already have non-knobby tires, and am at least sometimes careful about tire pressure. Thanks, all the same.

if I hadn't bought a house this year, I would have bought a road bike

This makes perfect sense, yet the sentence still amuses me.

It's obligatory at this point...

[iabervon.livejournal.com]

You went by the end of the street that my family's usual beach vacation apartment was on (Boston Ave, Hampton Beach).

Re: It's obligatory at this point...

[dmaze]

...and I was thinking before we left that there was no way we could possibly go anywhere near anyone's house, since I know where most of my coworkers live and all of the Thetans are closer in.