Days 78 & 79: Covered Bridge Campground, NH

Friday (10 June 2016) officially kicked off the summer leg of our trip.  I rode from Brunswick, ME to Shaker Heights, ME (a distance of a little over 27 miles).  From there we drove off route to Range Pond Family Campground, where we were quite shocked when the clerk announced that there was a special discount for cyclists: we paid $10.90 for a site with power and water, and the showers are free!  Needless to say, that made our day (as if just getting back on the road again wasn't enough to lift our spirits).

So the modifications that Bath Cycle Works performed on Alea's bike gives her an additional two gears lower than her current gear range.  They managed that by replacing the 11-28 tooth 10-speed cassette on the rear wheel with an 11-36 tooth cassette.  So rather than a 28 tooth low gear, she now also has a 32 tooth and 36 tooth gear.  What that translates to in the real world is that with her former low gear one revolution of the pedals would result in 32 inches of forward motion.  The new 32 tooth gear would result in 28 inches of forward motion, and the 36 tooth would result in about 25 inches of forward motion.  That basically means less forward progress, but also much easier pedaling.  So hopefully that will help her on the steeper hills that we encounter.

Bath Cycle Works.

Two more lower gears.

The cost of the modifications amounted to a bit less than $200.  It required a new chain (the cheap chain that we got in Bradenton, FL wasn't too many weeks from being worn out), a new rear cassette, and a new long-cage derailleur, plus the labor to swap everything out and get it re-adjusted.  The alternative would have been a new bike in the $1,500 - $2,000 range, with no good way to sell her old bike.  So (if it works), it was a bargain, especially since we'd be paying for the new chain soon enough.

We had thought of staying another night at Range Pond, but after checking the forecast and the private campgrounds along our route, we decided to press on.  Sunday (day 79) was forecast to have high winds, so we figured it was better to do more miles on Saturday and take Sunday as a rest day.

The covered bridge for which our campground is named...

And another...

And another.

So Alea took the first leg, pedaling 41 miles to Sweden, ME.  I took over from there, riding the remaining 30 miles to Covered Bridge Campground ($22, primitive).  After getting set up, we drove six miles farther up the road to Jigger Johnson Campground, where we got showers for $2.50 each (6.5 minutes).

The White Mountains.

There has been off and on rain, so we dined out on Saturday night, then drove down the hill to do laundry, get caught up on groceries on Sunday morning and to find cell coverage for our MiFi.

My turn to ride...

The high winds (gusts up to 40 mph) on Saturday kept us hunkered down by the fire for more than six hours, at which point we had burned through all the wood that we had collected.  So we called it a night.