Day 42 - Stockbridge VT to N. Woodstock NH

Greetings from New Hampshire - the last state before Maine.  I still have a hard time with being in one state and four hours later being in another state - these states are pretty small :)
Today's ride was an interesting ride - and drive.  This day reminded me how great it is to have a support vehicle on a ride.  I have said many times - I am really enjoying this trip because I really do like to just drive - get in the car and drive.  But, on this day, driving along with the guys really turned out to be a good thing.
Patty driving along

Notes from Tom:  We enjoyed our detour to Killington.  Patty and I were there in the summer some 18 years ago, and I skied there the year before that when I was working in Montreal.  The hotel had just reopened for their fall season, but there was a great Italian restaurant next door. For a cyclist, Italian = pasta = carbs for the ride ahead.

Since we were rained/lighninged out the day before, we returned to the scene of that event to start our ride for the day.  The ride in the early morning fog was fun, and much cooler than it would be later in the day. We made up the 13 miles we missed yesterday, and headed for NH--our 10th state, with only ONE more to go. 

Leaving the VT roads did not break our hearts--in general they were some of the worst we've seen.  I'm sure most VT people would cringe, but they could learn something about road specs and road building from NY.  Before we left VT, I got a photog of Jerry coming out of a covered bridge.

In more than 3000 miles of riding, we've seen a lot of street signs.  In the last couple of days I've seen a couple of Lover's Lane signs, but when I stopped to capture this one, I realized it was the turn off for the local cemetary.  Who know's what that's about.

We knew we had some climbing to do and we wanted to cover the 89 miles it would take to get to our reserved motel in North Woodstock, NH before it rained again.  We had a tail wind as we headed north along the Connecticut river.  Along the way we had two cooler snacks/lunches to keep us fueled up.  At the beginning of the last couple of climbs we hit a major snag, but I'll let Jerry explain the details.  I will say that Patty has "rescued" us in the past, but today the rescue was a huge deal.

My bike has developed some unusual sounds over the 3,333 miles I've ridden it on this trip. One is the sloshing of the water in my water bottles when they get partially empty.  At first I thought the noise was coming from my knees--not impossible for an old guy like me.  Another noise I get sounds like crickets chirping (or whatever they do is called).  That one is the little wheels on my rear derailluer (sp?) but a little squirt of chain oil usually solves that for a while.  The one I haven't been able to eliminate is the creaking/squeaking noise coming from the area near the handle bars.  It only happens when I stand up, but that's been fairly often--to give my butt a rest from the seat, and to help me climb some of the many hills.  I've decided the creak will be will me when I dip my front wheel in the Atlantic at Portland, and it will get fixed when I get home.

Notes from Jerry:  Today started off great and as Tom said, the tailwind was awesome so it was looking like a smooth day.  Not so.  What started things off was the wind blowing my bike over at lunch and  I noticed that my certain of my gears were not tracking properly.  I thought no sweat, I just won't use those gears for the next 2 days.  WRONG!

As we were starting the last 2 climbs of the day and I shifted down, all hell broke loose, as I think the chain jumped somewhere it was not supposed to go and basically the deraileur got dragged into the spokes.  The end result was the deraileur was ripped off the bike and the chain twisted into the back wheel.

Tom continued his climb and since we had no cell service Patty and I supported Tom, until he said he was good to go all the way to the hotel and we could check into getting the bike fixed or find a rental.  As is turned out the closest real bike store was in our next destination, Conway an hour away from todays destination and by a real fluke the owner was in the store doing paper work - he was not officially open, but said he could help us out one way or another.

Poor Patty - we drove to our destinatiion for tonight where we checked in and dropped off Tom's bags and beer and then headed off over the biggest pass we have seen since the Cascades.  The end result was my renting a bike for tomorrow which would give the great bike store guy time to fabricate/ modify a new hanger to fit my bike for a new (used) deraileur and chain which I would pick up at the end of the day.  It looks like the Cannondale bike will fit - let's hope so, as Patty and I drove the route and it is 20 miles of up with the last 4 miles at 9% ugh.  Of course I will wake up and do the part I missed today, as well as this pass as Tom and Patty will drop me off where I broke down - no cheating here!