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[bike] New Hampshire ho!
Aug. 6th, 2007 09:02 amYesterday's trip was advertised as "70-75 miles, probably touching New Hampshire". Some pre-planning wound up cutting out some of the New Hampshire bit, but came up with something that came in at 69.9 miles. In the end we made it up to Pelham, NH, with my bike registering just under 71 miles (though not as far as some people). Route map
We largely did okay on the execution part. We practically flew from Davis Square to North Andover (about 20 miles in I came up with a 14 mph moving average and 12 mph overall, where we're usually more like 12.5/10). After that things were somewhat more sedate, as people wore out as the day went on, but we did good at only taking a couple of stops (at 25, 45, and 60 miles) and generally moving (rather than stopping entirely just because the group is spread out). ( Except... )
Routing-wise, the big problem is getting across the Merrimack. Your choices in the area we were were a couple of bridges in Lowell, a couple of bridges in Lawrence, a couple of bridges in Haverhill, 93, or 495. We weren't going to Haverhill or on the freeway, so we wound up doing Lawrence again. Bleah. The route we took into Lowell (from NH-128 to Mammoth Road, then east into downtown) took us through the projects. Bleah. But Haverhill Road in Reading and Tyler Road in Methuen were both quite nice, and the general New Hampshire bit was pretty pleasant.
Planning-wise...I really need some software. There were a couple of revisions in the route (going west to NH-3A was Just Too Far), and some reformatting (but I can get 2 columns in a quarter sheet). The result of this was at least two math errors in the total mileage and one missing direction, plus a lot of hand work with Google Maps.
We largely did okay on the execution part. We practically flew from Davis Square to North Andover (about 20 miles in I came up with a 14 mph moving average and 12 mph overall, where we're usually more like 12.5/10). After that things were somewhat more sedate, as people wore out as the day went on, but we did good at only taking a couple of stops (at 25, 45, and 60 miles) and generally moving (rather than stopping entirely just because the group is spread out). ( Except... )
Routing-wise, the big problem is getting across the Merrimack. Your choices in the area we were were a couple of bridges in Lowell, a couple of bridges in Lawrence, a couple of bridges in Haverhill, 93, or 495. We weren't going to Haverhill or on the freeway, so we wound up doing Lawrence again. Bleah. The route we took into Lowell (from NH-128 to Mammoth Road, then east into downtown) took us through the projects. Bleah. But Haverhill Road in Reading and Tyler Road in Methuen were both quite nice, and the general New Hampshire bit was pretty pleasant.
Planning-wise...I really need some software. There were a couple of revisions in the route (going west to NH-3A was Just Too Far), and some reformatting (but I can get 2 columns in a quarter sheet). The result of this was at least two math errors in the total mileage and one missing direction, plus a lot of hand work with Google Maps.
