Rejuvenated

After a little over 4K miles and nearly 360K ft. of climbing on the year, I was getting mentally and physically burnt. I more or less took the month of July off- well, I was doing maybe 100 miles a week- mostly of the mtb variety. Of course, the shit weather and my road steed blowing off the top of my car on the highway (more on that later) had a little to do with my mid-season break. I guess everything does happen for a reason.

But I'm feeling better now and that's all that matters. As you can see from the photo, I crossed another one off the Bucket List. Em was staying with her parents in Waterville Valley so I drove up to surprise her and took her to Kingdom Trails. All that I can say is that I really don't want to mountain bike around here anymore. The place is basically singletrack Nirvana. I'm sure that there are places out West that are better, but I believe when people say that Kingdom Trails is the best mountain biking on the East Coast. I did actually meet a guy from Durango, CO that said KT was the real deal.

I particularly enjoyed Tap and Die and the pictured Sidewinder. Sidewinder was everything it was billed to be- the first run was like Whoa! Of course I had to do it again and my 2nd run was like Yeah! Sidewinder is basically a half pipe down the side of the mountain. You just let go of the brakes and let the physics of the "pipe" bleed your speed before your next drop down the ridge. Of course, I'm a mountain bike wussy so I may have hit the brakes just a little. Ok, maybe more than a little. Em was behind me and I could have sworn I brought her to an amusement park the way she was hootin' and hollerin' all the way down. Good fun. This was basically her expression the entire 4 hours we were there:


I can honestly say I don't blame her. It was one of my most enjoyable days ever on a bike- even when Em got tired after 3 hours in the saddle and we may have bickered just a tad. Well, at least Mike from Maryland (pictured behind Em who rode with us for 2 hours) enjoyed our exchange of "pleasantries". Ah, I love ya, Em. All I can say about Kingdom Trails is that if you've never been, go, and if you're going back, give me a call; I'd love to join you.





This sucks, right?








So yeah, back to Black Betty taking a flyer off my car on Rte. 8 North. I remember it was a particularly hard group ride and I just wanted to get home. In my haste, yep, you guessed it, I forgot to STRAP DOWN THE REAR WHEEL. It was like a nightmare, really. I was on the phone with Em driving down the highway for maybe all of 2 minutes when I hear a clunk. I look in my rearview and Betty is spinning in the middle of the highway putting on a spark display that would captivate any five year old at 4th of July. I just kept saying, "Oh my God, Oh my God" over and over again until I finally yanked the car over, ran up the highway and snatched her up before she got run over to boot. It was almost like cutting yourself on your hand; You know it's bleeding and you know it's bad but you don't want to look. So Betty sat in the back of my garage for a day or so before I got up the nerve to assess the damage. Like with anything, it could have been worse, alot worse. I escaped with "only" a damaged fork, stem, handlebars, and saddle. Luckily, the frame was intact. This is unusual as heavy impacts to the fork usually result in a head tube fracture. There's only some chipping of the clear coat where the chain was driven into the BB area so it only ended up setting me back about $900. It's a good thing I'm independently wealthy. Not! Big thanks go out to Josh for the help in getting Betty back to working order.

The day after Kingdom Trails, I figured I'd take advantage of being so far North and hit the Kangamangus Highway. I originally was hoping Em would join me, but she made (what would be) a very wise decision to hang around the pool while I rode. I wasn't sure of the details of my route, but I figured on riding the Kank East to Bear Notch over to 302 West and then down Rte. 3 back to the car. I parked at the Visitor Center just off the exit and away I went. I was really surprised how cool it was up there. I'll bet it was all of 65 at the start. Once you leave Lincoln proper, the Kank gets really nice. It starts to kick up ever so slightly as you make your way up the pass. This went on for miles. The grade got progressively steeper the higher you got. The last 3.5 miles. at least according to the sign when I turned around at the summit, were 9%. My legs were feeling good despite 4 hours at KT the day before and I was hitting the climb at a good pace. There's something about these long mountain climbs that I just love. I really had no idea of the length of the climb so when I saw the sign pop up I was pleasantly surprised:




Ubiquitous summit pic. I believe from the car I gained roughly 2100' over 13 miles.

Once the climbing's done, you know what's next. I think I averaged nearly 45 mph on the descent to the flats before Bear Notch Road. Because I'm not used to descending for such long periods of time, my freakin' neck, back, and arms were starting to fatigue about 2.5 miles into it. I guess I've gotta climb more big mountains so I can work on my descending muscles. I'm OK with that.

Bear Notch is where the fun started, that is, fun in the form of wind and driving rain. It was probably about 75 degrees when I made the turn off the Kank onto Bear Notch. As I began to climb, the temperature plummeted and in came the black clouds. Wonderful. By the time I reached the crest, I was thinking a little about a thing called hypothermia as I was soaked and it was probably low 50's at this point. Talk about a great ride turning sour in a hurry. My hopes were that it would at least be warmer at the bottom where I made the turn for 302. My legs and arms were absolutely frozen and it was at this time that I was at least thankful that Em wasn't with me. That would have been really swell. The rain let up as I descended and by the time I made the turn onto 302, the sun was back out. Weird. I guess that's the mountains for ya.

Heading West on 302 proved to be no picnic. It was long exposed roadway with 20+ mph winds right in my grill for oh, about 27 miles. I had all I could do to hold 18 mph on the flats. It kinda sucked. At least the wind dried me out. The only good thing was the climb up Crawford Notch past the two cascades and the double chocolate muffin I inhaled at a store in Bretton Woods.

Looking back down Crawford Notch. Pretty.






Rte. 3 was pretty much the same story with long exposed road and driving wind in my face. Things got interesting when Rte. 3 ran right into 93 at Franconia Notch thus relegating me to a bike path for about 10-15 miles. (No bikes allowed on 93) The bike path was a pleasant change though as it got me out of the damn wind. The path meandered back and forth under 93 through Franconia Notch and the scenery was quite extraordinary. I was getting tired at this point and not really knowing how much farther I had back to my car was starting to wear on me mentally. I finally ended up picking up Rte. 3 again at the Flume State Park and flew back to the Visitor's center in Lincoln. It felt like I rode 115 but I ended up with 80 miles, 6300', 4:25 ride time. Not bad considering Mother Nature wasn't of much help.

Looking forward to D2R2 again this coming Saturday. I'm feeling very fit. I've been doing some VO max intervals over the last 4 weeks and a couple sub-5 hr centuries without burying myself so I'm way more confident going into D2R2 this year than last. I've also (finally) dropped 7 pounds so I'm hoping that'll help get my ass up Patten Hill. We shall see. It should be a blast.