Presidential Mountain madness

Just wanted to tell about our (Emily and I) bike ride around the Presidential mountains this last Tuesday. It was a plan conceived of after we read about it last year; a 100+ miler that rides over some of the big notches in Maine and NH. We decided last week to head to Portland to see some friends, then to proceed on to Fryeburg, Maine to start out. Well, the weather report made it look in our advantage to wait Monday out....hot and humid... but with a cold front coming to bring this wonderful fall like air we have today.
On Monday night we didn't bother to check the weather report because all indications throughout the week had shown that Tuesday would be very sunny, plus we had already postponed a day. Tuesday....we wake at 6 am.....dark and cloudy...hum... well lets go... the weather will clear...
After driving towards what looked like doomsday to the N west...the rain started...hum?
We kept eating our snacks, drinking fluids, and preparing mentally for what was looking like a wet start. Arriving in Fryeburg at 9 am, the rain and clouds were very present. We drove to our starting point just across the Saco River and parked. The clouds and rain were socked in good. I said to Emily that we should just commit and get wet for a bit...it would clear soon and we would dry out. Well, Emily was not so sure....so we pumped up the tires and filled our jersey pockets with goo, and snack...and headed off into the rain. Emily luckily had brought a long sleeve jersey and I had packed a wind breaker....which seemed unnecessary when we departed Camden just a few days before.
We rode in the rain North towards Evans notch.... it was cold and windy, too. I kept thinking how it seemed kind of fun in a masochistic sort of way....knowing we would dry out quickly when the sun showed. Well, an hour into it Emily gave me the look from beneath her soggy helmet "this sucks". I said, "oh, its just blowing over the last of it...sun's coming". Well, no sooner had I said this than torrential down pouring rain, squalling winds. We kept a riding....
30 min. more and I pull over for a natural break...Emily rides up , she looks cold, slightly blue-lipped, and miserable...complaining that she can't eat her snacks because her hands are too cold to open them. I think, "oh great, this ride is already going hypothermic." I get frustrated and shoot back "you have to try harder to get the food into you or you'll never make it." Emily's look was of an angry, cornered Fischer cat. I then gave her the two choices...1. we could ride back which would mean a hour and a half of more rain going back in the direction that the storm was heading ...or 2. keep heading North...knowing clear skies are ahead, Canadian high filling in, envisioning a sunny afternoon riding about Mount Washington. She looked like she wanted to bite my head off...and rode off ahead towards Evans notch.
There is a kind of beauty to the rain-soaked world when you are suffering in it. The clouds look so low and spooky. The rain squalls so sheet like on the river like pavement. The river beside us showed how wet it has been this summer: over-flowing the banks like in the spring...everything too green for August. At a point on the ride I recognized a spot where last year we had seen deer in the woods. Emily ahead pointed to the woods... I looked in and spotted a soggy deer looking like how I felt. What ever dry clothes I had were no longer. The cycling shorts felt like wet diapers, and everyone knows how wet shoes feel. We passed a soggy hiking group of youngsters...I asked them as we whistled by, "who's more miserable?" one boy looked up with a smile, the rest looked beat, and the guide laughed.
We rode on and the day ahead began to look very long indeed... I was even feeling a bit chilled....I ate a cliff bar choosing the food as diversion strategy. We rode by a farmer's garage, all farm tractors in a muddy yard out front...rotting potato crops in the foreground... the farmer and helper look out of the garage in dismay and see us riding by soaked to the bone....I think somehow it made them feel just a little bit more fortunate to at least not be us.
The last stretch before Evans notch has some down hills before the big climb. They were not the fun down hills today as a rooster tail of spray off my rear wheel gave me a very cold enema. But, hey, the clouds did seem to be breaking up with a patch of blue sky intermingling with swirling dark clouds, and blowing rain. The fields and woods had a rainy greenness to them. We head up the notch...heart rate rising and sweat of the brow...climbing felt good as warmth came back. At the outlook at the top I pulled over...time to get out of these wet socks and wring out. Emily pulled up, looking a bit better..." will that help?" she asked. "Well not for awhile, the wind and descent should dry them out eventually" I said and then made up some bullshit story about having had to dry socks on the handlebars on some other past misery ride...hoping to ease the tension. So, Emily wrung out her socks ...ate a cliff bar and we rode off, down the notch...the wind blew into us we gripped our bars with slimy cold hands in slimy cold gloves, and descended, down, down, down, no real sun, just clouds and wind.
We popped out on rt 2, crossed the Androscoggin river, and had a drying windy ride toward Gorham. The North road is really very nice cycling, slightly rolling, no real traffic, farms, camps, and views of the Presidentials to the south west, of course through the clouds. As we rode on, I felt the socks on the handlebars...still wet.
The stretch coming into Gorham the wind blew hard into us, the logging trucks whistled by and we both looked forward to getting off the bikes for a needed break. Cumby's- what a wonderful place, out of the wind and in the patches of sun that fell, the air pump and payphone against the building, a few dumpsters around....a place to take off soggy shoes, shoe liners, and the pavement felt warm on the bare feet. Emily went in to do a diaper change....she was day two of "that time of the month" to add to the already many difficulties of the day. We fueled up, got some gatorade, and put on the almost dry socks and shoes....
"So what do you want to do, Emily? Stay with the plan and head north for the Jefferson Notch road into the wind and a dreaded huge hill right out of Gorham. Or should we run with a tail wind and blow back over Pinkham notch...and fail our Century ride plan?" Just after I said that the flag before us snapped even harder in the wind. Emily said lets keep going as planed. Are you sure....? Yes.....Now there is a girl who likes a punishment.
Heading out of Gorham the traffic was thick, tourists and hikers drying out from the night and early morning soaking were everywhere. It felt cold, fall was already in the air, the break was good, yet, I needed to warm up, the legs felt the cold and the 45 miles behind us. Well, we got what we wanted: a warm up...that hill out of Gorham on rt 2 goes on and on....with a head wind...the next 10 miles into a wind, and the clouds didn't seem to want to go away. I could see Jefferson notch ahead, the clouds whisking over. I slowed to let Emily get a draft in. We got to the frontage road that the dirt Jefferson notch road starts from. It was nice to be on a country road again. Mile 52
The Jefferson notch road is a piece of work. It climbs for 7 miles all dirt, up and up. Well constructed with a beautiful crown to it, the road was in great shape, not too lose, thanks to the recent rains. I stopped to see how Emily was faring...she seemed more up now ...her "stump leg" was gone, or the wooden feeling of cold feet in a cold shoe. I said "We are doing it ...we are getting there." Emily looked almost happy....all was good...until I banked the next corner...yikes...the dirt road went straight up for as far as you could see, some early red leaves falling in between, and around the next corner more of the same, and the next. I was doing well, my heart rate was getting gradually higher every turn, my bike had just enough of a low 1st gear that I could make the grades without falling over. The road had just the right grade to allow the "roadie" passage. I stopped at the base of one steep grade to let Emily catch up...or truth be told, to avoid a heart attack. Emily rode up to me. "Have you had to get off yet?" I asked. "No," she said ...her bike has a third chain ring or "granny gear"...lucky her. My bike had a chain that is a bit stretched, so if I let the rear wheel spin out just a bit, the gearing skipped. So, I had to keep in the "sweet spot" over the handlebars to be able to pull with the arms....but not too far forward...hard on the back. The last few switch backs are text book, I thanked my history of mountain biking. And finally ahead I could see sky, the summit, and the sun threw a few rays through the hardwood reddened leaves...Ahh
Emily came into view, she actually smiled....Yeay! and we did the cliche Borat "high five". We were now on the way to heading home, the worst behind...or so we thought. Once over the notch heading south down into the Washington mountain bowl, where the cog railway starts, the weather got cold and wintry....the clouds allowed no sunlight through. Ahead as the road dropped steeply off and I could see the other side of the valley or Crawford notch in the distance through the swirling clouds. I began racing down the mountain dirt road. Instantly the brake levers were cold and almost sticking to the fingertips... I got down on the drops to get better leverage on the brakes. I pulled over....I wanted to give Emily this advice. When Emily came around the corner she had a disgruntled look and pulled up along side and said ..."I have stump foot again." I got a bit pissy again and retorted in a smeerish sneerish snide way "I have been waiting 5 minutes....what's taking you so long? Do you want to hang around here and freeze....Let's get on with it. Hanging around isn't going to make it any better." She gave me that look like "what a dink". I felt bad. I rode off. I said to myself as descending...she is doing really well, be easier on her, she is on her way to completing her first 100 mile ride. Keep things "up," Greeno. And then I started seeing how incredible this Notch is, the road runs parallel to a river for a long time, waterfalls, and pools, it would be so nice on a hot day.
So, the notch road pops out and crosses the cog railway access road and becomes the Clinton road, a tarmac road, bumpy, but consistent, which works its way to Crawford notch. As a matter of fact, it ends at the top of Crawford notch....no further climbing needed to begin the long decent back down towards Attitash, Jackson, and eventually N. Conway. We could see the valley ahead in complete sun...as we zoomed down the Crawford notch I hit sick speeds, and locked out the arms for the cross winds ...I had fear that Emily might forget this technique ...like a worried boyfriend....I looked back and she was whipping right along behind me. I hit the big chain ring and the wind now blowing down the notch at 25 to 35 mph gave a massive boost to the tiring legs. I was thankful to be descending with this tail wind rather than ascending into it as I had done on a ride in the past with a Jeffery Boulet character, where it took us 2 hours to ride 25 miles up this windy notch.
The oak trees caressed by afternoon light, blowing about in the wind as a foreground to the valley was so beautiful, I was so happy. As we approached the turn for Bear notch ...our original plan, I almost entertained the thought of climbing this notch. Then, I quickly remembered that my chain skip would make it suck, and also reminded myself that once I turned out of this tail wind, up the grade, I would have some suffering legs. Best to take mother nature's gift of this awesome tailwind and blow back home to the car and get off this aching ass. I pulled over at the turn off, and Emily agreed quickly. She had a natural break behind a semi rig that advertised a west coast chopper or something mundane....I broke out a goo and prepped myself for the long haul back...must have still had over 20 miles to go.
Well, the rest of the ride was a lot of traffic, luckily a good shoulder, and running out of liquids. Stopped at the scenic vista coming into N. Conway...took a natural break, got some water...I remembered it feeling like a long way from here back to Fryeburg....and it didn't feel any shorter this day. The drivers were lunatics, always being selfish, and with no courtesy of understanding of the bicyclists' dilemmas: pot holes, broken glass, getting cut off, etc...
Once on the east road back to Fryeburg, that feeling of being about done... the euphoria, the certain feeling of victory started to set in giving the legs that boost. Rounding the last corner on the home stretch, the corn in the western sunlight was very romantic... Emily and I pulled up to the car, dismounted and hugged and kissed... took an after-ride picture and reminisced about our ride......103 miles- not all fun, but certainly the adventure we had needed for a while. At this point, the goals and objectives were: buckets of spaghetti and meatballs, beer, and a bed at Bondo's in Portland.