Ben's USA Cycle Blog: Day 43: Fairlee to North Conway

I might have been a bit premature in declaring our fortune with the weather in yesterday's post, today was pretty cold and wet at times. The penultimate day of the trip saw us tackle three climbs as we rode through the White Mountain National Forest area. After a mile of riding we left Vermont and crossed into state number 16, New Hampshire - state slogan "Live Free or Die" a phrase they stole from Buckinghamshire. The first two climbs contained some pretty testing gradients, whereas the third was less steep but was 14 miles in length. In between climbs one and two we saw a hawk go for a group of pigeons, after a failed attempt it flew into a tree next to us while the pigeons flew in circles. We waited a few minutes to see if it made a second attempt, sure enough it had another go, it came close but no catch so we pedalled off. In between climbs two and three we went through the busy town of Lincoln and crossed over some train tracks, now over the last 43 days we have crossed dozens of these, but the angle of them, the width of the gap between rail and road and the wet conditions conspired to make them very treacherous. As I rode over the tracks my back wheel caught in the gap but I managed to stay upright and I thought to myself I wouldn't be surprised if this catches people out. It turned out that 5 people in the group took a spill on them, nearly quadrupling the number of accidents on the trip! Fortunately no one was badly hurt. The fall foliage (I am only using this word for alliteration, not turning american) reached new levels of beauty today, on the descent into North Conway from the final climb the colours (see, spelt with a u) really were stunning. There were lots of folk out on a Sunday afternoon drive taking in the views too. Last day tomorrow, tradition dictates that there are no attacks so should be an easy day.

Ride Details