We left John Sprague’s at 8:20 AM, hoping to make good time to get in our cycling mileage goals, but progress was slow as usual. Our route to Kingfield was all country roads except for 7 miles on the interstate, so progress was very slow, but really tranquil and beautiful. It was going to be a long drive to the B&B where we booked a room for tonight, so we knew that we could not make our mileage goals today. I finally got on my bike in Hanover, NH, the home of Dartmouth College, at about 12:40 in the afternoon. The day was sunny. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, but it was pretty hot – 86 degrees – with low humidity. We arrived in Hanover at the tail in of a half marathon/5K/1 mile fun run. The race started at 10 AM, which is pretty late for a race start, and the remaining runners on the course were running is unsuitably hot conditions.
Philip and I chatted with a woman in the parking lot of the town’s food co-op, where I prepared to start my ride. She described the route that I was going to ride as having one big hill and then mostly downhill for the rest of the route that I was planning to ride. Sure enough, there was one big hill, and then mostly downhill from there with moderate downhill slopes and lots of smaller hills mixed in. And there was a constant head wind. The first 5.5 miles were really tough for me…still a wanna-be climber, but the road was really smooth with a huge shoulder for the first 10 miles or so. I met up with Philip again in Lyme, NH, after about 10 miles, and then carried on for another 6 miles, most of which was on the absolute worse road surface on which I’ve ever cycled, and probably the worse on which I’d ever driven….and, there was no shoulder, but thankfully there was very little traffic. 
When I got off the bike in Orford, NH, Philip was ready to begin his ride. His ride was really hilly, once again, and into the wind, but early in his ride he met up with a cyclist named Tom, who had just started is 39 mile Sunday afternoon ride. Philip rode with Tom for about 9 miles on a stretch of road with no shoulder. Philip complained later that few to none of the vehicles that passed them moved over to accommodate them. Tom told Philip that there are no safety laws in NH that benefit cyclists, so you really have to ride with your wits about you. Philip has cycled these roads in NH on his early Robert’s Ride trips up to Nova Scotia, so he knows this to be true.
Philip finished his ride with 30.73 miles. It was blazing hot. He was very happy to get off the bike and into the car.
The scenery in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, through which we drove today, is beautiful – green mountains cut by rivers and creeks, covered bridges, and very old towns, many established before 1800. It’s hard to stop on country roads to take photos; there’s not always a place to pull over, and we don’t have much leisure time while trying to complete cycling mileage and drive from one night’s resting place to another.
We reached the Mountain Valley B&B in Kingfield, ME well after dark, at about 8:30 PM. We had picked up a big chicken cobb salad to-go a couple of hours back, anticipating that by the time we reached the B&B in little Kingfield there wouldn’t be any restaurants still open, and we were right.
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