Far North Ride July 4th

[RandyO]

Anybody up for a Northern NH/Western ME ride on the 4th,
plan is to be in Gorham, NH by about 9:30am stop there for quick breakfast, That means I'll be leaving Rochester area by 7:30am. If any of you peeps are up for this let me know and I'll throw out a meet spot, if not I may be leaving even earlier. This ride will be 400-500 miles + what ever it takes to get to Rochester.

Last year I did this, I made it as far north as St. Georges, Que., nice riding, non existent traffic, prolly won't cross the frontier this year though, unless somebody can tell me it will only take a few minutes, I don't want to get hung up answering 20 questions or getting strip searched , the roads aren't anything special up there, just a link in between better roads to make a loop rather than back tracking

Pace will be moderate but steady

[RandyO]

What's the deal here, everybody doing a family BBQ on the 4th to is the length of the ride a bit much.....

I do realize that lots of ya would have to leave home at first light just to get here. But if you want to ride on roads with non existent traffic, thats what you gotta do.

http://www.ldcomfort.com/

[benVFR]

I may be interested.. but it does sound like it will be difficult to get up to Rochester that early.

I went to Canada in May and I got asked like 3 questions to get into Canada and about the same to get back into the US. (With my Passport)

They did open up my car and glance around on the way back in, but they didn't open any of my bags.

Ben

[RandyO]

No one got in touch so I did a solo ride, finally got out of the house a little after 8, later than I wanted, it was 830 by the time I gassed up and heading north, starting at the southern end of 153, except 4-5 miles on Rt 16, bypassing Sanbornville, I stuck with 153 to Eaton where I took the Brownfield Road (a snobby lookin bitch in a superglue forester almost took me out pulling out of a side road, she didn't see me cause she didn't even look) , from there, I tried a new road for me, Haleyville Road, it comes out on 302 just into ME by the tourist info center, from there its only about a mile on 302 , then north on 113 just as you get to Fryburg village limits. Instead of taking 113 directly to Stow, I detoured on Green Hill Road, although the pavement has taken a beating, its a little twistier and more shaded from the HOT FUCKING SUN than 113. Once 113 gets into Evans Notch, the road becomes narrow and completly shaded (read 20 degrees cooler) all the way to Rt 2 in Gilead Next Route 2 west to Gorham, still very minimal traffic

I made it into gorham at about 10:05, stopped at McD's for breakfast, I love there collesterol burgers, talked with a couple who (I had passed on Rt 2) pulled in right after me on their harleys, I don't know the models to good but the woman was riding the bigger one, bigger tank, hard luggage, they are from North Carolina, 3 weeks into a 2 month trip, they asked me where to beat the heat, thats what they were trying to get away from, I told them about my cool ride thru Evans notch and also suggesten the Rock Pile, they were actually planing on doing that anyway till I told them some of the sections were gravel, and the woman freeked out.

From there, I gassed up and decided I would try a shortcut I knew from Berlin to Upton ME, Success Pond Road, I beleive is a paper company (private) road, there are some camps on Success POnd on leased land so the road is really only a logging truck road/snowmobile trail/ atv trail, I saw more traffic on this 25 miles stretch than anywhere so far, it took me about an hour an a half to get thru, a good shere of it was standing on the pegs riding dirtbike style, All I can say is I know how to get to hundreds of miles of dual sport roads, maybe a mile or 2 was decent road that I could get up to 50-60, and about 10 miles that I could travel at 35-40 but the other half was just boney gravel & rock, there were lots of holes that could swallow a tire or bike and even a couple that could swallow a cage.

Once out to Rt 26, I headed north to Errol then RT 16 to Rangley. Traffic has picked up a little but still not bad. From Rangely, I headed south on Rt 17 to Mexico, nice road, lots of senic views overlooking Rangley Lakes, all the pull offs near swimmin holes in the Swift River were packed , some peeps doing white water raftin & kayakin. In Mexico, I headed west to Dixfield then north on 142 & 4 back to Rangley, again, going thru Madrid, lots of peeps in the Sandy River. By the time I got back to Rangley the second time, it had become cloudy and much cooler, looked like I might get caught in a thunder boomer too. Rt 16 back to Errol, about a half mile south of Errol, it started to sprinkle so I pulled over and put some raingear on my radar detector than continued, in about 2 miles it started to come down pretty good, I saw a group of about 5 hardleys pulled over at a little getting shelter under a small roadside information area around the next corner a 1/4 mile down the road, the rain stopped hehehehehehehe, It was only raining at the spot they stopped at. I continued south on 16 to North Conway then before I got into heavy traffic, I took Hurricane Mtn Road back to 113 then retraced my steps back home at 6:00pm, 480 miles

[Jank]

Nice job Randy!! Sounds like you had a great ride! I wasn't even outa work by 8:30am.