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Total distance: 1344 km (840 mi); total altitude gain: 11 km (36000ft). Tour date: second half of August 2001.

New England loop by bicycle

Thomas Driemeyer
2005-10-15 21:14:33

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BOSTON TO MAINE

Day 1. Since my flight arrived in Boston in the evening, I had pre-booked the night at the Anchor Inn in Boston's nothern Revere suburb. It turned out to be a cheerless and loud motel. I left Boston on route 1A, which is busy and ugly in Boston but gets much quieter. The shoulder is often very wide, but the road must constantly be watched for potholes, gaps, debris, sand drifts, and vicious sewer grates. (This was true for all of New England.) Drivers leave plenty of space when passing, and one stopped to let me cross A1. This happened twice more on the same day, and several times people stopped and asked whether I needed directions when I was checking my map. Either New Englanders are space aliens impersonating humans but haven't figured out the Jekyll/Hyde transformation we undergo when driving a car, or I am in bicycle heaven.

I passed through and visited both Salem and IP Switch, shown on the right. Oops, make that Ipswich - computer people like me are just bound to misread a town sign reading "IPSWICH". I then left Massachusetts, passed right through the rather predictably tourist-infested New Hampshire coast section, and rode some distance into Maine. New England states are really tiny compared to California, which takes weeks to cross. I stayed at the Cape Neddick campground, which is loud, filthy, expensive ($30), and had no hiker/biker tent sites.

Day 2. Cancel the bicycle heaven, I had continuous rain or drizzle all day. This doesn't happen in any heaven I have read about. I followed route 1 to Kennebunk and decided to get away from all the tourist villages at the coast. I skipped Kennebunkport too, which is a favorite vacation spot for president Bush, but according to a local who advised me not to go there, Bush's judgment is usually flawed. So, I rode route 35 to Hollis Center, 117 to Cornish, 115 to Fryeburg, and 302 to Conway, where I stayed in New ...