Connecticut to New Hampshire…

With good weather forecast for the next few days, I left Niantic and began the long ride north to New Hampshire, which would take me through Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Vermont, before I reached North Conway before nightfall.

Rhode Island would be a “ride through” state only. We had a long day ahead of us and three more states to cover…

Making up time on the I-95.

I did not plan to stop and see too many of the sights in this area, because I wanted to make sure I reached my destination to take advantage of the sunny day that had been forecast around Mount Washington for the following day.

There was no point in riding to the top of the mountain to take a close look at mist, fog, or clouds, and be blasted by high winds, or pelted with rain !!

I chose to stay on the I-95, which ran past the motel I had stayed at in Niantic, and within a few minutes of leaving, I was barreling down the highway, headed towards the capital, Providence.

Rhode Island is the smallest of the New England states, but the second most populous state in the USA, behind New Jersey. It was the first of the American colonies to declare independence from Britain, back in 1776, a few months before any other colony.

The state is wedged between Connecticut to the west and Massachusetts to the east and north; and the Rhode Island Sound and Atlantic Ocean to the south.

Making a beeline for Boston, to try and hook up with Patricia, meant staying on the Interstate and seeing very little of Rhode Island !! In fact, barely an hour after setting out from Niantic, I had ridden clear across this small state and into Massachusetts…

Second state of the day, after racing through Rhode Island

I was trying to get to Boston to hook up with Patricia before she changed buses to Maine.

I rode past Mansfield and Foxboro, and stopped just before the junction of I-93, exchanging a few text messages with Patricia, and discovering that she would have barely 20 minutes to spare between buses…

Although I was disappointed to hear this, in hindsight, I needed a ride into a big city on a long riding day, as much as I needed a hole in the head !!

I am not sure what possessed me to make the attempt to hook up with her in a busy city like Boston in the first place, but I guess we’ll just have to put it down to “love”…!! Makes one do, and attempt to do, the strangest things !!

Skirting Boston, I headed west toward the little town of Gardner, where I cam perilously close to running out of fuel, and had to cruise down the final hill into town in neutral, to avoid the possibility of having to push the bike to a service station…

But as usual, I had timed it to perfection, and arrived with fumes to spare…

While I munched on a sandwich, I studied the route I had planned and made a few minor adjustments which I thought would save some time…

Riding through heavily forested country roads north of Gardner, heading for the New Hampshire state line.

The folks of New Hampshire have a similar outlook to those of the deep south. Fiercely protective of their rights to freedom in all things…

“Thought” had also once planted a feather and thought a duck would grow…

I had chosen a little used, country road, that crossed into the south western tip of New Hampshire, and wound it’s way into Vermont.

It wound through a heavily forested area and I did not see a single vehicle on this road until I crossed the state line into New Hampshire, and arrived in the small town of Fitzwilliam…

I rode on through Richmond and Winchester, and into Hinsdale, tiny towns that were supported by the local farming communities and not much else… They were the kind of places where people stopped what they were doing to watch passing traffic…

The road from Hinsdale to the town of Brattleboro in Vermont, had been torn up and was in the process of being repaved, so I had a little “offroad” experience thrown in for good measure.

Close to the Vermont border, the roads had been ripped up for resurfacing, and w endured long delays and off road riding for a few miles…

Vermont was the 24th state on our “to do” list…

I elected to stay close to the border between Vermont and New Hampshire, and rode through the countryside hugging the Connecticut River, and from time to time, crossed the busier I-91 on my way north.

I wanted to see if the falls were worthy of the huge sign on the side of this barn, but more roadworks meant long delays, so I gave up on the idea and continued north…

This little house was still under construction, and got me thinking about the kind of house I would like to live in… This just about fit the bill…

For most of the next hour, I would have Route 112 to myself, and was able to enjoy the tight twisting bits without traffic to bother with…

For the next three hours I rode at a steady pace until I reached the turnoff to Wells River, a small town on the state border with New Hampshire. I had been told that this was the best place to cross into the state, so that I could begin some of the rides that made this area a huge attraction for bikers…

I recrossed the Connecticut River, wondering why it was still called this when it was still about 200 km shy of the Connecticut state line…

I rode to the town of Woodsville, and then out along the Ammonoosuc River until I reached the turnoff to Route 112, where the fun was due to begin…

According to recent medical studies, meeting a moose at high speed can be detrimental to your health…

I sat the bike for a few minutes, just taking in the scenery, and thinking about the roads that lay ahead, and on which I was planning to spend the est of the afternoon. Bikers from far and wide, even from Canada, came to this region to ride the winding roads that led through the dense forests and climbed up and down steep mountain ranges.

There are also many snakes to keep an eye out for on Route 112…

We had four hours of daylight left, and I meant to use as many minutes of those four hours, to enjoy the challenging rides ahead.

Not that these routes present any difficulty at the recommended speeds, but who in their right mind would want to ride a twisting mountain road at speeds an old man could do in a wheelchair ??

Especially if you’re sitting on a high performance motorcycle that has been bored stiff by it’s recent weeks on interstates and highways…

With cries of, “Let the clutch out, let the clutch out…!!” coming from the Big Fella, I pushed the “Record” button on the on-board video camera, and we took off down the 112 to use some of the rubber on the edge of our tyres…

It had been quite a while since last we had made a “technical” ride, where all your senses need to be in sharp focus, if you intend seeing out the ride on your machine, rather than on a gurney in the back of an ambulance…

At high speed on Route 112, with very little traffic to slow down for, we zoomed though the mountains, trusting that all the moose in the area had had the good sense to stay off the road and in their leafy thickets…

Barreling through New Hampshire’s forested mountains…

It took only a few sharp corners for me to realize that my front shock absorber was not performing as well as it should be… The accident in Oklahoma where I had been airborne at one point and come down rather heavily on the shocks, had caused damage to the seal, and small amount of oil had begun making their appearance on the shaft of the shock…

My back shock had long ago stopped acting as it should, and I had got quite used to riding on the stiffened spring only… I would now have to get used to the front one doing the same thing…

I pushed the problem to the back of my mind and focused rather on what the front end could handle, and thereafter, made a great run into the town of Lincoln, which in the winter months, was a popular ski resort.

After the exhiliration of Route 112, we reached the town of Lincoln, where we discovered that “Life is Good”….and it was !!

I stopped for a bite to eat, and met up with a number of Canadian motorcyclists, mostly French speaking, who were in the mountains to enjoy the rides and scenery this part of the USA provided. While we chatted, a young guy who lived in the town, roared up on a bike that neither myself or any of the other riders recognized…

He dismounted nonchalantly, nodded to us in greeting, then went into the store close by… When he returned, he saw the frowns on our faces and with a smile, told us that he had built the bike himself, from the wrecks of four other bikes… There were still a few parts he needed to make it street legal, but apparently the local traffic officers paid scant attention to the fact that he had no indicators at all, and used his hands to signal changes of direction…

New Hampshire was fast becoming one of my favourite states !!

A young guy on this home-made Yamaha, cruised into the rest stop and parked close by. The bike was made up from four different motorcycles !!

After the Canadians had left, he asked if I was going up and over the mountains towards Conway. I told him that I was, and he looked at my riding jacket, whose sleeves I had long since removed in the heat of the southern states, and said,

“Well… I’ve just come back from off the ridge up there, and it’s a darn sight colder than down here…!!”

My sleeves were too deep in my pannier to dig them out, but I thanked him for the info anyway, and headed out onto the Kancamagus Highway to tackle the next section of “twisties”…

After a quick bite to eat, we set off to test our skills in the mountains through which the Kancamagus Highway winds…

The solution is simple… Less Moose, less collisions… Hunting Licence please !!

There are a number of these to deal with on the Kancamagus…

There was indeed a cold wind blowing through the mountains, but not so cold as to deter me from riding… Many of the guys on Harley’s that I passed, were in short sleeves anyway…

The road was bumpy in places, and pitted with cracks that were as a direct result of the ice and snow that covered them in the winter months. The cracks formed when the surface thawed out in summer.

In many places, repairs were being made to the road, which slowed traffic… Some traffic anyway, but not the flag-bedecked, silver Beemer that tore down the Kancamagus on the 25th of July…

Many of my friends and fellow bikers back in New Jersey, as well as other which I had met over the past few days, had all encouraged me to ride the Bear Notch road that starts just outside Conway, and wriggles through the mountains to Bartlett…

A 14 km stretch of “a thrill a minute” riding. I rode this section 4 times in two days..

By the time I arrived at the turnoff, I had already had a whale of a time on the roads of New Hampshire, so the fact that I got stuck behind a line of campers at the start of the 14 km ride through Bear Notch, did not trouble me too much…

The cozy White Trellis Motel just outside North Conway.

Once I shouldered my way past them on some of the very short straights, I slowed down and let the Big Fella find his own way through the looping corners and series of gentle bends…

That might sound strange to someone who does not ride often, but on many occasions, I have got through a winding bit of road and felt that I had not done anything to make the bike perform any better…

I am able to take in the scenery and snap a few photos, despite the road twisting and turning under me… It is at time like these that I know the Big Fella has a mind all of his own, and I am merely a passenger, while the bike goes about it’s business…

I am sure there are riders out there that know what I mean…

I arrived in North Conway in the late afternoon, or so it felt, but with the sun only setting after 8.00 pm, it was actually early evening…

Nestled in a grove of huge shady pines, peace and tranquility was provided after an exciting afternoon in the mountains…

Many of the resorts in this area, that in winter cater to skiers, were either fully-booked, or charging prices way beyond what I was prepared to pay for a dry bed, shower and internet…

After several futile attempts to negotiate with snooty hotel managers on the outskirts of town, I rode closer to North Conway itself, and stopped at the White Trellis Motel. I met the Japanese owner, Mary, who was prepared to accept the price I offered for a room, even though it was below her usual rate.

She gave me the room closest to the office, where she assured me I would have a strong internet signal, and gave me plenty of advice about what to see in the area, and which roads I should ride..

“Many bikers stay here…!!”, she said beaming sweetly up at me…

As if to confirm her statement, a big yellow BMW toured pulled up a short distance from us, and a Canadian couple got off and checked into the motel. We spent a few minutes getting to know each other and then went our separate ways to find dinner… I needed to spend some time editing photos, and was rather tired after my 10 hours on the road, anyway…

Mary, the Japanese owner of the White Trellis, questioned me at length about my travels and insisted on having her photo taken with the Big Fella.

Willi sent me this photo of the latest in camping for bikers like me, who hate pitching a tent… This I can handle !!

I rode into town to find something to eat, ans settled for a large cup of coffee to wash a few sandwiches down with.

Outside the service station where I purchased this fine food, I met a French-Canadian biker, Steve Filion, with whom I would spend the next entire day with, riding through the mountains…

After agreeing to meet early the following morning, (as we had planned similar routes, and he was riding into Maine as well), he followed me to the White Trellis to make sure he would find the place the next day, and then rode back to where he was camping…

Ah yes… “Camping”…

Brings a shiver to my spine, that has nothing to do with the weather… Steve carried all the gear for camping and cooking with him on his Honda Valadero, but even if I had the space for such things, I would rather stick a sharp object in my left eye, than spend an evening trying to cook by torchlight, while fending off a million mosquitoes, hell bent on sucking every last drop of blood from my body…

No, no… Mrs B’s little boy is done with camping… And has been for many years… The tent is on my bike for balancing purposes only, and will remain in that capacity, until I find something better to balance the bike with…

©GBWT 2013