More Cowbell

 Sept 3, 2024

I had a work from home week after Labor Day Weekend and I was back in New Hampshire staying with Ann and working from her hotel room in Hanover. She went to work, early as usual, so I went out for a ride. It was so cold this morning that I borrowed an old pair of ski gloves she happened to have with her.

RAW: Rail Trail and Dirt Roads

 July 1, 2024

Ann got back after her shift at the hospital and was feeling restless and wanted to go for a ride. 

The farmer said the road is washed out but you are welcome to try it.

I drove up to Durham, NH early for my son's orientation for University of New Hampshire and went out on the Ridley to ride a few dirt roads near the school. The first one was this Class VI road that checked on the NH Dirt Roads Website/Map as a through road but as you can see on the other side of that pipe it's just a choked trail that's washed out in many places.

Joe versus the Volcano Roubaix

After last year's Lake Winnespaukee Gravel Grinder ride I took an interest in this part of New Hampshire to add more dirt roads to my Roubaix to Brew dirt road and breweries map. Being somewhat of a topography/cartography nerd I found that were quite a few circular shaped mountains in this area. After some research I found that this part of the state was home to quite a few ancient volcanoes and Pawtuckaway State Park caught my interest. Also known as the Dragon's Eye, the concentric rings around a center mound mark the center of an ancient volcano where the magma chamber solidified and then collapsed upon itself, called a ring dike.

Northern Rail Trail - fka B&M Northern Line

The Northern Recreational Rail Trail, also known as the Northern Rail Trail, is a 58-mile multi-use rail trail in western New Hampshire, USA, running from Lebanon to Boscawen. It uses the right-of-way of the Boston and Maine Railroad's former Northern Line, which was acquired by the State of New Hampshire in 1996. - Wikipedia

My goal for this ride was to ride the entire length of the trail from Boscawen to Lebanon and back. I decided to go with 5 water bottles for this trip because in my reconnoiter of the route I didn't see many places to stop near the trail and didn't want to be caught short. The weather report wasn't looking good either, there was 60% chance of rain today so I was glad for the fenders and I brought a rain jacket, too.

Lake Winnespaukee Gravel Grinder

After I solidified my plans to drive up to Epsom, NH to buy the MINI Bike Holder (what a dumb name, probably mis translated from the BMW version, Fahrradträger, meaning Bike Carrier), I started looking for 50 to 60 mile gravel routes near Epsom, NH.  Didn't find anything that looked good so I started looking at the maps and marking roads on my Roubaix to Brew Gravel Map. Once I found enough dirt, I developed the following route:  

It will be interesting to see how the Sex Machine works have only the granny and big ring available for the ride.

First Dirt, pictured above, occurred around mile 5.