2012 Northeast Adventure Bike weekend 8-3 to 8-5 NEW HAMPSHIRE

[nhbubba]

Sandwich Notch Road (most difficult/technical part of ride)

I rode Sandwich Notch yesterday. As some may know, I am an 'adventure' bike poser. Mostly I signed up for an upright SV with a fairing. Yesterdays ride was by far the most difficult terrain I have ever ridden. But that is a testament to my inexperience, not the bodaciousness of the road.

The road is steep and narrow and well worn in most places. But easily rideable by any reasonably experienced rider on anything this side of a cruiser or heavy tourer. A stock DL would have zero issues. My tires are about done, I'm just pushing them another week or two before I swap a new set on, and I was slip sliding a bit. But, truth told, I kind of enjoyed it.

There is pavement in some places; presumably to slow down erosion. But the pavement is BAD. I spent a lot of the ride in 1st and 2nd gear. Average speed was probably around 20 or so. I rode North to South, starting off of 49 in Thorton. Which is the opposite way I believe ya'll will be traveling. The North side is hairier, in my opinion. This was the slowest for me. On the southern end I started to open it up and saw 30-35 in places.

I saw a handful of other vehicles out there. Mostly pickups and SUVs, but there were several passenger cars including a Toyota Celica and a (2WD) Matrix. The only other bike I saw was a doode on an early 80's UJM. Looked like a Honda CB, possibly an 900 or 1000.

I hooked back west on 113 through Holderness, which is a delightful road on its own.

Moral here is that if anyone is hesitant about the off-roading aspect of this ride, don't be. If Sandwich Notch is the most 'technical' of the ride, no one will have issues.

That said, I'm not leading my cruiser riding buddies up there!

I was out getting away from it all and playing with my dSLR, so I took my sweet assed time. I turned around 3-4 times, stopped a bunch and also explored Upper Hall Pond road. I have some photos and video, but didn't get a chance to debrief the cameras last night.

Hope you guys have a helluva ride. Wish I were able to get in on this.

[Stromper]

1 month to go

sign up slackers

[SVRACER01]

Wirelessly posted (HTC EVO "DROID" )

Sandwitch Notch and Tripoli are a riot! Done those a few times on the GS

Did both of these today. Tripoli is a cinch. Nice hard pack fairly wide road. I ran SNR south to north and it was in decent shape. Couple of rough spots here and there but it was fun. I have just above 0 experience on dirt and I was on a spent battleaxe front and spend distanzia rear and I no issues. If SNR is really the toughest road on this trip then no newbie should be worried.

[SVRACER01]

did old cherry (S to N)and jefferson (N to S) today. both were great. jefferson was better than OC. was doing 35-40 on the way up and 25-30 on the way down

[nhbubba]

I am reposting this from the stromtrooper forum, where a user BigMan-somethingsomething has taken Randy's route and converted it to a GPX:

You guys are gonna have soooome fun!

My company has a use-it-or-loose-it vacation policy. I did the math the other day and realized I wasn't quite going to make it to our wedding without loosing some time.. so I found myself with the day off today.

Last night I loaded up Randy/BigMan's route on my GPS and this morning I set off to sample a few parts of it.

I did not make it to the full route, but I did Hurricane Mountain, Evan's Notch, Jefferson Notch, Mt Clinton, and 118/Sawyer Highway.

Jefferson Notch is awesome! I wanted to do Old Cherry Mountain Road too, but was out of time and had to head for home. Also I had a problem with my GPS; I managed to crack and effectively destroy the screen. So I was unable to follow it for most of the day. At 12:30 or so I stopped at a convenience store in Jefferson for a sandwich and bought a new copy of the DeLorme NH Gazetteer. My old copy is about 10-15 years old, has fallen in the snow 5-6 times, and is pretty beat from being shoved under the seat in my pickup. So it was due for retirement anyway. But I finished the day using it.

Imagine my surprise when I sat down with my sandwich and new set of maps and found I had ridden past Jefferson Notch Road already! Also I forgot the route from 302 past 93, so I wound up taking 3 south from 302 (which wasn't bad) and I-93 through Franconia Notch (which ain't adventure riding, but ain't bad to look at either).

I managed a relatively light trafic day. I hope you get the same.

Either way, you're in for some mighty nice roads.

Pee and water break, Evans Notch:


Photo op, Mt Washington Hotel, off 302:

~325-ish miles in ~9 hours today.

Just an FYI: Rt 4 from Canaan through Concord is monotonous as fuck after you've spent the day on HMR, Jefferson, Evan's Notch, etc.

Also, if Jefferson Notch Road is 'adventure' motorcycling, then I am REEEEEALLY starting to like adventure motorcycling!

[RandyO]

Also, if Jefferson Notch Road is 'adventure' motorcycling, then I am REEEEEALLY starting to like adventure motorcycling!

I'm glad you like the roads that I chose for the ride

another nice adventure road is Bog Dam Road in Berlin, ya gotta go on Rt 110 into Milan and take York Pond Road to get to it, nice loop, but there was no way I could fit it into the V-strom Adventure Ride

[nhbubba]

There are days I wish I lived in Gorham.

[Stromper]

Well we are off tomorrow

We may have like 25 from up to 500 miles away