Covered Bridges of Southern NH - 2010

[FJReady]

Well, that sure was fun. I thouroughly enjoyed all that I was able to participate in. Had a nice easy ride back through Hillsborough.

It was nice to meet yet some more FJR (and Hyuabusa)faces. Hope the rest of the ride was as fun and scenic as the morning part.

Fred, you're a ride master extaordinaire. Thanks so much for your skillful lead.

I snapped acouple photos at bridge #4 (or was it #5?)

I know the 'Beams will be along soon with some professional grade stuff so I'll keep it to a minimum.

Russ

 

[Fred W]

:rofl: That last picture is a classic, Russ. Anyone want to hazard a guess which rider was the friend riding the 'Busa?

Technically, that is usually bridge #6 (of 12), but we missed #3 (the bridge that was under repair) and #5 (to avoid the wet/muddy dirt roads) so yesterday that was indeed #4.

Very glad that you enjoyed yourself. It did turn out to be a spectacular day, weather wise, eh? The rest of the ride was just as good, I think, but I'll let others be the judge of that.

No time to post pictures right now. I'm off to meet up with Geezer and Pawl again to go climb some mountains!! Hoorah!

 

[road runner]

You all had decent weather for this ride. Wish we could have come, but darn work gettin in the way. Felicia would like this ride. Anyway maybe next time.

 

[Mr Bill]

Fred,

 

Thanks for organizing and leading us on this ride! I'm glad I had a chance to ride with everyone.

 

[Fred W]

I'm glad that you enjoyed it Bill. Will look forward to riding with you again sometime.

 

 

So although the weather was looking ominous as late as Friday night, we lucked into some beautiful weather for our ride on Saturday, and Sunday was pretty darned great too. As Joann was busily snapping away from the passenger seat most of the day,. I do have a few pictures to share.

 

 

 

The meeting and the greeting (oh yeah... and the eating!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the road, Jack...

 

 

 

 

 

Mini Stonehenge?

 

 

 

 

 

Primary objectives

 

 

 

 

Lance Armstrong came down to lead us through this one (still wearing that yellow jersey. Who's gonna break it to him?).

Livestrong, Lance...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rest stop at the 4th bridge of the day, This one of the more photographed and picturesque of the NH bridges. It is the Aschuelot bridge over the Aschuelot river in Aschuelot, NH of course. That's a lot of Aschuelot.

 

 

 

 

 

Pawl walking around the bridge, stretching his legs

 

 

 

 

Riders and passengers all doing their best "Tron" impressions

 

 

 

 

Russ is showing ionbeam and Geezer how to do "The Robot", but Greg's not having any of that nonsense...

 

 

 

And we're off, riding away through it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the arrival at Diamond Pizza for a light lunch. (some folks were still pretty full from the big breakfast )

 

 

 

 

 

After lunch the backseat photographer got sleepy -_- and we have somewhat less photo coverage from lunch on. Hopefully someone else will fill in some of the interesting sights along the 2nd half of the ride. Eventually we made our way to the afternoon rest stop at Lake Sunapee beach

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alan and Pawl contemplate taking a dip

 

 

 

We then took a loop around the lake on some fun (and smooth) roads, then knocked out the last few bridges, and wound things up just past the Hopkinton Dam. Someone remarked, "That was anti-climactic". I'd have to agree. While the foliage wasn't peak (next weekend would have been better) it was quite nice:

 

 

 

Our group was fairly small this year, but it was a real fun group. We had some great laughs (group picture anyone?) and generally had a fine time, as is usually the case on any of our New England group rides. Joann and I feel terribly blessed to have such a great group of friends to ride with. And yes, as long as I am able to, this tradition shall continue!

 

 

(to be continued, - Sunday ride up Mt Kearsarge with Greg and Paul)

 

[Intech]

Awesome ride reports! Looks like you had a great day for it. Thanks for sharing. Will see if we can make it next year.

 

[Fred W]

Geezer (Greg) and his Jersey friend Pawl (Forum name Thingfish (thanks Bob)) were camping in Hancock for the weekend. Well, camping in a Hilton version of a motorhome... Anyway, they had already planned to stay through Monday AM, and the weather was NOT going to conducive to riding up Mt Washington :cold: , so I volunteered to come back over in the AM lead them over to Rollins State Park on Sunday morning to make the assault on Mt Kearsarge. Sunday started even chillier than Saturday, with a little frost in the low lying areas. I even opted to to break out my heated gloves for the ride over to Hancock.

 

Not having a passenger (Josie opted out) I don't have any pictures of the ride we took over there, but I did manage to get the boys some real New England flavor by running a few sections of dirt back roads. Once we arrived at Rollins, it is a really pleasant ride up the mountain on the twisty single lane auto road. We didn't pass a single car on the way up, but there were several cars in the parking lot at the top of the road.

 

 

 

 

Greg and Pawl strategizing the ascent

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although not technical, it's steep enough to get your blood moving.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Up on top. Fire tower over on the right.

 

 

 

Bigger comm tower behind the fire tower house.

 

 

 

 

 

Pleasant view (of Pleasant lake) from the top

 

 

 

 

 

 

What makes Kearsarge so dramatic is that it is a Monadnock, so you get a full 360 degree view from the bald top, a far reaching view in all directions. The mountain is a bit under 3000 feet, but the surrounding area is only ~800 feet, so the mountain has a very healthy prominence. Even on Mt Washington at twice the height above sea level, when you look around the other mountains in the presidential range make it seem like you are not all that high.

 

As we scrambled back down the trail (geezer noted that the oxygen level had increased since our ascent ) we met a lot of groups with kids and dogs on their way up. In other words, our timing was very good. :thumbsup:

 

 

From there we rode around to the Flying Goose Brewpub for a nice lunch, while admiring the view of Kearsarge from the north side. Then I treated the two visitors to some "real New England roads", ie. more dirt and lots of frost heaves heading down Rt 31 through Washington and Rt 149 through Deering. These are the roads that really make you wish the FJR was a BMW GS. Riding these roads you sometimes get into a slalom skiing mentality where you are bouncing off the moguls finding the smoothest line. It can be fun, but it is involving.

 

 

I had a great day riding with you 2 guys on Sunday, and hope we can do it again sometime.

Next time I'm in the Cats I'll be sure to look you up Greg, so you can show me all the secret goat trails you have in your back yard!!

 

 

[Intech]

More great reporting! Pawl is Thingfish on the forum.

 

[Geezer]

Well, to my surprise, when I mentioned going up there on Sunday Julie got pretty excited about it. So, perhaps we may head up there in the morning.

Greg, what time were you thinking of heading out and about Sunday morning?

I believe I have your cell phone # Greg unless it's changed over the last year.

Sorry I missed this until now. I was already on the road when you posted.

On Sunday Paul and I met with Fred at 10:00 and followed him down a dirt road or two to some local mountain which we rode up and hiked the last half mile to the top. We chickened out on Mt. Washington.

 

[Geezer]

I had a gret time riding on both days. It was nice chatting and riding with some good friends again and I want to add my thanks to Fred and Joanne for showing us around. Even the dirt roads were fun. I'll put this on my calendar for next year.

We left the campground around 9:00 AM. It had rained earlier, but things were drying out as we packed up. I saw some nice color on the mountains as I approached Bennington, VT on the way home, and I had planty of time to look at it because I was following a Sheriff for about 20 miles. It started to rain lightly just as I pulled in my garage and it rained heavily after that, so out timing was perfect.

I didn't take many pictures but I'll post a couple when I get a chance to see what's on my camera.

 

[Nice Rumble]

Looks like you guys had a great ride. Is that a helmetless rider in your group? :asshat2:

 

[ionbeam]

Looks like you guys had a great ride. Is that a helmetless rider in your group? :asshat2:

That is 'Busa Boy Brandon. He had an on and off affair with his helmet that day. Truth in advertising, the middle person in this lineup is 'Busa Brandon (a nice guy, hope he manages to stay that way with his lapses in wearing his helmet).

L to R Geezer; Fred W & wife Joann; Ionbeam; 'Busa Boy; midlifer; thingfish; Mr Bill

 

[Mr Bill]

He had an on and off affair with his helmet that day.

 

He actually rode better without the helmet. He stopped wiggling his bike and doing wheelies after he took the helmet off. He missed the post where Fred stated the ride would be flower sniffing and squids should ride elsewhere. I didn't mind his antics after I let him past me and I took up the rear.

 

This is more fun than Harley bashing!

 

[Geezer]

He had an on and off affair with his helmet that day.

 

He actually rode better without the helmet. He stopped wiggling his bike and doing wheelies after he took the helmet off. He missed the post where Fred stated the ride would be flower sniffing and squids should ride elsewhere. I didn't mind his antics after I let him past me and I took up the rear.

 

This is more fun than Harley bashing!

I didn't see any of that..... I was thinking about how cold his ears must have been. :lol:

 

[ionbeam]

He had an on and off affair with his helmet that day.

 

...He stopped wiggling his bike and doing wheelies after he took the helmet off...This is more fun than Harley bashing!

On more than one wiggling session I was afraid he was going to fall victim to a self induced high-side. I did notice a strong correlation between the little play episodes and the duration of time where he rode with a turn signal on. I'm guilty of most of these behaviors, except I wear a helmet and do it in private and not in group rides. Also, there are good ride manors where the rider staggers the ride, in 3 or 5 second following intervals and they don't go vacant and suddenly drop 20-30 mph with no warning, for no obvious reason.

Again, Brandon is a nice guy, and would be welcome as a friend. He just needs to tune in a bit to being in a group ride and not a solo act in the midst of a large number of bikes. And, stop scaring us all and wear a helmet.

 

[Mr Bill]

I didn't see any of that..... I was thinking about how cold his ears must have been. :lol:

He was a nice guy and a good rider, I'm just a little jealous that my bike won't wheelie like that. Wait my 690R wheelies easier than that. Ok I'm not jealous no more.

When he was wiggling his bike to the point of almost touching down I was wondering if he caught a tar snake and crashed would I help him pick his bike up or pull out my camera and laugh at him.

 

[FJReady]

And I thought he was having surging troubles from a bad ECU and couldn't control his speed to the extent us smooth FJR pilots can. The side to side lane filling action I attributed to badly worn tires or maybe an ear infection that affected his balance.

 

[Fred W]

I must tell you that I didn't know that any of this was going on back there. I mean I obviously knew that Brandon chose not to wear his helmet some of the ride, but I didn't know bout the other antics. The helmet thing didn't bother me at all. It would be his head bouncing off the street if he wiped out on wet pine needles, etc. and I have no real emotional investment in his acquaintance.

 

For the other stuff, I would certainly have taken him aside and spoken to him and asked him to knock it off or leave had I known they were going on. I didn't learn until Sunday that he had executed a right pass on Paul as we went around that pokey pickup truck on Rte 123. It is not just a matter of group riding manners, it's a group safety problem and something that I will not knowingly tolerate. I sort of wish that someone had spoken up and clued me in.

 

Brandon is a nice enough young(er) guy. He just seems to want to be noticed by other people (for all the wrong reasons). George, you may want to relay to your friend that we would welcome him back for future rides, only if he would be willing to go along with the relaxed tenor of the ride. But I'm fairly sure that, now that he has tasted how our New England FJR group rides are, we probably won't be seeing him again anyway.

 

Maybe I'm wrong. You just never know.

 

[thingfish]

I must tell you that I didn't know that any of this was going on back there. I mean I obviously knew that Brandon chose not to wear his helmet some of the ride, but I didn't know bout the other antics. The helmet thing didn't bother me at all. It would be his head bouncing off the street if he wiped out on wet pine needles, etc. and I have no real emotional investment in his acquaintance.

 

For the other stuff, I would certainly have taken him aside and spoken to him and asked him to knock it off or leave had I known they were going on. I didn't learn until Sunday that he had executed a right pass on Paul as we went around that pokey pickup truck on Rte 123. It is not just a matter of group riding manners, it's a group safety problem and something that I will not knowingly tolerate. I sort of wish that someone had spoken up and clued me in.

 

Brandon is a nice enough young(er) guy. He just seems to want to be noticed by other people (for all the wrong reasons). George, you may want to relay to your friend that we would welcome him back for future rides, only if he would be willing to go along with the relaxed tenor of the ride. But I'm fairly sure that, now that he has tasted how our New England FJR group rides are, we probably won't be seeing him again anyway.

 

Maybe I'm wrong. You just never know.

 

[thingfish]

Thanks for coming back on Sun Fred to lead me & the Geez around. The mountain was awesome...nothing like that in NJ...plus if I had to follow Greg on Sun with his faulty GPS, I might be in Kanas right now!!!!