Friday night Kreb race - Win & Out

A bit of racing again. Friday after work Py went out to the Friday Night Kreb Race at Riverhead Community Collage, a short but nice and clean 2.75km loop.

A few racers with family showed up around 5..5:30pm, some dark clouds passed by, it stayed but nice, warm and dry -- just the usual high humidity, and may be a few drops. Py talked a bit to an unknown (let call him X) younger rider parking just to his left. Every one get set up and ready, by the time Chris arrived with the registration paperwork, all set. Just a few known faces.

A few warmup laps...

Start was a bit after 6:15pm, as there were just a very few A's, they decided to go together with the B's, but with an 3minute delay so they had some extra work to catch up. After that the C's with some kids and other slower riders got stared.

Py started with the B's, they rolled out very conservatively and this more or less stayed the whole time like this -- little bored, but OK moving -- even he tried to avoid being in the front, he ended up there quite often, howere, best spot to stay safe. I turned out that also X was always around there and they did a major part of they move. A least a good workout, even other sprinters took advantage of that as usual -- so what, lasy dudes, do not care.

Just for fun he took off and dropped the group at lap 4 and 5 -- may had been able to hold teh gap for longer if not the few A riders just caught the B field about that time and pulled them back on, but also at this time the B field got split apart, it got a bit more fun as the A's took moves. Also about that time the few drops of rain intensified and the road got soaked and it got wet. Not as wet as at the TTT, but wet enought to be toatally soaked, but it was still comfortable and warm. Only annoying for Py was some (why so ever) slighly burning feel in the eyes making it not easier to see through these wet glasses. Approaching the last 4 laps out of 16 there was a sprint and at this point the win&out took place. Still wet and now pretty good steady raining every one was a bit more careful... Py went for the first sprint, not 100% certain, but be leaved to get over the line just 2nd... worked together with X again, but passed X this time. However, that took some effords and thus the sprints to go were not as good, but still always in the first 3 or 4... The last lap he pulled X out, and X managed to go ahead. Fun ride -- even wet.

Day 5 - Evening Bear Notch out and back ride

Friday, partly heavy rain allmost all day. A morning visit at the Mt. Washington Cog Railway.

In the later afternoon the rain stopped and Py & J. went out for a quick Bear Notch sight seeing ride.

Stop at Rocky Gorge:

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Day 6, Saturday - depature - rained out early morning ride.

Click here for a
Summay of all rides

Day 4 - Kancamagus Pass and more

Thursday should be a big day and loop of 83 miles including:

Bear Notch - Kancamagus Pass - Franconia Notch - Crawford Notch.

Kancamagus Pass at about 860m

2nd breakfast after an awesome long 15 mi and 2000 ft decent into Lincoln:

From there towards Franconia Notch, the climb was all the way in an nice good paved hike&bike trail into the woods - it felt like a Mountain Bike Trail ride uphill in the woods, but on a road bike as the trail was winding it way up and varied it's grade all the time from 2..12% - it passed by quickly and they reached the top.

[this will be matched to a panoramic view soon]

A fast pull all the way down to "Crossroads"

And a painfull return via Crawford Notch into some strong head /cross winds.

Day 3 - Lakes Loop

Wednesday, remote start at White Lake State Park north of Wolfeboro on Rt 16. Planning on riding through Wolfeboro, along the north side of Lake Winnepesauki on rt 109 and making a large loop around to the northwest and back to the start with about 70mi to go.

Start at White Lake SP:

This must ahve been Wolfeboro:

Checking for directions, getting hungry, nothing, really nothing to stop for a coffee around...

The road sign "East Sandwich" sounded good, but still nothing, getting more hungry... some where at mile 53 on a gentle uphill a few things add up and ended in a little crash for Py.

From Py's view things happened about like this in a few seconds - as explained to a buddy previeously:

Yeah, some stupid crash.... just a bunch of events came together. In short, me dropping back from a pull on right on a gentle uphill, almost at end of the lead group almost behind B. on right I started to move left... as a big Propane Truck was approaching from behind and as it about passed us, B. moved slightly to the right -- the same time I moved to the left, also he must decreased speed much more than me that moment on this uphill... and I touched his wheel from right, stayed on it far too long was able to balance it out for seams like several seconds as he did NOT got off and ahead quickly nor did I grabbed the brake (what may could have saved me) :-( And as I finally came off I had so much pressure on it to the left that I over steered and my front wheel tumbled at some odd angle and about skidded sideways unable to recover from that after a bunch of skidds... I tipped over to the left -- almost at zero speed that moment. Not a scratch on the frame, just the rear skewer had a few minor scrapes and the right brake lever -- all working fine, I finished ride and also next days with no problem :-) "Only" my left under arm has a pretty big scrape and a little deep wound which just sucks... + my right hand has some road rash on top where it actually cut the glove in half -- should use MTB gloves...... :-(

However, the truck driver must have gotten scared by the odd sounds of crashing and actually returned to the scene, happy to see all were fine and helped out with an sterile pad to cover the bigger road rash - big thanks to the driver! Two vecro strips from K&R did a good job to held it in place.

Finally, after a few more miles at mile 62 in Tamworth a little village with an nice General Store and Coffee place was very welcome:

From there after a good recovery lunch just a few miles were left to finish the ride.

Day 2 - Bear Notch Loop

Tuesday, the (later??) afternoon calling for rain, they descided on a shorter 41 mile loop, climbing Bear Notch and almost wit hsome extra effords fastly decending all the return at 0...-2% with only a few steeper up and downs in between.

Top of Bear Notch:

As the day was just started and they returned around eleven with the first drops of rain, some went for an little afternoon excursion to the "Grand Hotel" at the foot of Mt. Washington for sight seeing.

Day 1 - Around Mt. Washington

Monday, looking for a good nice day and ride. A 80mi loop around Mt. Washington was mapped out including Crawford Notch and Wildcat Mtn.

Approaching and top of Crawford Notch at the Crawford train station (we will come back to this historic train line later):

Inbetween, some short dirt road -- the only one we will encounter.

On top of Wildcat Mtn.:

and finishing with quite exact 80mi this day a little refreshment before heading for dinner.