Day 51: Brattleboro Vermont to Manchester New Hampshire

Today’s Highlights:
It’s hard to believe that I have been on this trip for fifty one days so far and everyday I have said that it was another great ride. Today was also very nice. It was supposed to be full of challenging climbs and a possibility of rain. It did not rain on me – it hasn’t the entire trip, and the mountain climbs were quite manageable today. I actually remember more fun downhills than the climbs. Although it did not rain, we did climb high enough to be in the clouds for a while. It was a bit foggy and cool at the higher elevations. The sky was overcast until around 12:56 PM when the sun peeked through for just moments at a time. I captured only one sunlit picture all day.

We started out at 6:30 this morning. Only one mile down the road we crossed over the Connecticut River and crossed into New Hampshire. Several of us stopped for a photo at the welcome sign. From there we started climbing and gained about 1000 feet in the first thirty three miles, topping out at about 3430 feet. Although there were some climbs after that, it was mostly downhill and very enjoyable. We traveled on some wide four lane roads for part of the route, but mostly on smaller local roads. In either case, the roads ran through a thick forest of tall trees, sometime forming a canopy across the road. The local road were especially quite and peaceful. We passed through a few tiny towns, so tiny that we were in and out of their centers in thirty seconds. Keene was the only exception. It looked like a very nice town to explore, but we just cruised through it. I was looking for some sites there to take a picture of, but none jumped out at me. Perhaps the gloomy overcast weather played a part.

I rode the entire route with Emma today, not seeing anyone else once we started the first climb. We both like the big hills and pushed right up them. It was nice to have a climbing partner and nice to share the next-to-last ride with a fellow adventurer. We finished at 1:15 PM, behind Ken and Bud as usual.

Pictures Of The Day:

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Statistics:
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