May 23 - Through Vermont and on to New Hampshire

We were all concerned about today’s ride. It was 125 miles long and had some big hills. I tried to get an early start and for about 15 miles was the first rider on the road, something that I never had been before. There were some very nice rolling hills in New York State. We crossed the Hudson River 20 miles north of Albany. It is a smallish river at that point and it brought back a stream of memories. When I was 11, my Boy Scout troop did a canoe trip from the Southern end of Lake Champlain down a barge canal to the Hudson and then on the West Point. In ten days we covered 180 miles. There were 8 canoes with 4 scouts in each and only one adult leader on the water. Most of the canoes had a leader who was going to be a junior or senior in high school. They seemed like very old and responsible people to an 11 year old. I know times were different and that my parents must have really trusted the scoutmaster, Mr. Donnelly. Fortunately we had no problems, but I have often thought about what could have happened. I was reminded of this when we crossed over the Hudson at a place I must have canoed under 46 years ago.

My parents first lived together in Troy NY, where my father went to school. As we went through towns north of Troy I recalled hearing how my parents had been in these towns 60 years ago. I brought me another connection to my past. I wondered if they had seen the same vistas that I was seeing, or had it all changed so much in the last 60 years as to be unrecognizable today to a visitor form the past. I hope not.

As I approached the Vermont state line I started to hear a click in the bike with each petal stroke. I flagged down the mechanics van and Mike inspected my bike. He found several problems including a loose bottom bracket, but not the source of the clicks. Convinced that the bike was not going to fall apart and kill me I continued on. I never found the problem that caused the clicks but the day before Dave Thompson had a problems with a clicking noise. He spent 20 minutes trying to find the cause until he realized that it was due to a bottle of pills in his jersey pocket. I never found the cause of my clicks, but I made sure that they were not due to anything in my pockets.

After going through Bennington VT we had a long hard climb that eventually lead to a roaring downhill. I limited my speed to 40 mph, but several riders got up to 55 mph. One rider became so fearful of the downhill that he had to be sagged to the motel. It is really a shame because while with a little bit of practice a bicycle can be held at almost any speed on a downhill, it is much more difficult to convince the brain that it is safe to go down a hill. For me the downhills are the just reward I get for all the work I expended getting to the summit. There were several additional climbs and some other glorious downhills before we got to Brattlebourgh.

Once in Brattlebourgh the ride to our motel in Keene NH went became far worse. The roads were OK for cycling, but the constant presence and noise from an endless stream of cars and trucks made for a very unpleasant finish to the day’s ride. It was almost 5 PM before I got in, by far my latest finish. During the last 15 miles little clouds of doubt about completing tomorrow’s equally hard ride started to fill my head. I fear they will only be exiled from my conscious brain by tonight’s sleep, what they will due to my unconscious brain tonight I know not. The surprising thing about this is that I rode from Bennington to Keene 20 years ago as a latter part of a double century. I honestly don’t recall it being too hard but I am sure that there was less traffic that day than there was today. I don’t know if it was the increase in traffic or my increased age or 30 days on the road or a fading memory that has led me to feel so differently about this section of road.