Day 1: Kennebunk to Bear Brook State Park, NH

The good news: I did not crash my bike or lose any gear today! The really good news: I justified the existence of my new bike.

First I’ll recap the last week of holidays. Karen and I left for PEI last Wednesday. The first day we stopped in Rivière-du-Loup and stayed in a really nice hotel with a balcony overlooking the St Lawrence. The next day we drove to Georgetown where we stayed two nights. It was a socially busy day and a half hanging out with people Karen has known for 30 years and attending the wedding and related festivities. It was all great.

Saturday we drove to Kennebunk (not port) and spent 2 days with friends we know from Costa Rica. They took really good care of us! We hung out at Montress’s house and Paul’s cabin by *the pond*, and ate, chatted and swam. It was so nice! They are amazing hosts.

And, little known fact: magaritaville happens to be wherever Paul is. Good thing I am a permanent designated driver ;).

Oh, and I went 6 freaking days without riding a bike 😱. It’s probably been more than 5 years since that’s happened.

This morning Karen left in the car for home and I tried waiting out the rain before getting on the bike. Over the last week we experienced nearly 10 massive downpours and I don’t think there has been a day without at least some rain. Eventually I decided to just go for it. Light rain is fine.

Had lunch in Dover, NH. Cute little town with American flags and buntings (those red, white and blue pleated things Americans hang from railings and below windows). They are everywhere in these parts. Related observation: handfuls Trump signs on the ride, 0 Harris signs.

For about 3 hours I rode minor highways and side roads. Then I connected to the rockingham recreational trail. It’s about 45 km long, I did around 80% of it. Beautiful and very quiet rail (?) trail.

One of the perhaps 10 people I saw in the 2 hours I was riding the trail was a woman, probably in her 60s, fixing a flat. I stopped to see if she needed anything, and she was distraught. Or maybe just pissed. It was her 6th flat of the day, her final day of a 4000+ mile cross country tour, and she was under 25 miles from the finish line. I found a bike shop 3 miles away and helped her figure out how to get there. Best I could do because I surely did not want any responsibility for continuing problems! She also told me how hard the day’s ride had been, what with this rail trail. I didn’t bother to point out that she had been going slightly downhill for at least 20 km on a nearly pristine hard pack trail free of cars, noise and people. Pretty sure that would not have been well received.

I decided not to complete the trail because it would have taken me out of the way (never mind that I probably rode an extra 40 km to get to it in the first place) and dumped me in a medium sized town at the end of the work day. Though I use cycling mapping apps primarily, I used google for the last 30 km ride to the campground. In its infinite wisdom, it sent me along a logging road which became something that would make Colombian dirt roads blush.

5 km over an hour and a half of loose large format gravel, tangles of discarded trees branches where loggers had clearly stripped the trees and carted the trunks away to the mill, boulders, felled trees, sand, mud, fairly dry river bed like sections, thigh deep marshes. It was nasty. And you know what, I rode almost all of it, pretty comfortably, pushing the bike a few hundred feet at most. And I thoroughly enjoyed it, and am super relieved that I am worthy of this bike and able to ride this kind of terrain.

Now I’m in my tent as it rains outside. I got pretty lucky with only 2 hours of drizzle on my 10 hour ride today. It’s supposed to rain all night and stop just in time for me to start riding tomorrow. Let’s hope that sticks and let’s also not worry too much of the possible rain for many of the next several days.