It was a spectacular forecast for today, so that meant 1 thing…BEACH RIDE!

Mia drove out to Wallis Sands after a morning run and I headed out the door just before 8AM for the long, hot ride to the seacoast.

I wanted to do a little different route this time.  Normally I ride my road bike out through Bear Brook State Park to Route 107 to Route 27 all the way to Hampton and Route 1-A.  I wanted a change of pace today though.  So after scouring the Gazetteer and looking at the back roads and class VI roads I found a new one to me.  It leaves from Just behind Bi-Wise Market in Allenstown,  Chester Turnpike.  It starts off paved, turns to a class VI road and back to paved.  I followed this all the way into Candia, cutting through the way back side of Bear Brook State Park, and picked up the rail trail that leaves from Lake Massabesic.

The first part of dirt on Chester Turnpike wasn’t too bad.  Then it started to climb and it got rocky.  I was running about 35 PSI in the tires since most of the ride was pavement or rail trail.  This ended up bouncing me around a bit on the fully rigid Fargo, but the whole section only lasted maybe 30-35 minutes.  It was quite maddening at times though.  I swear I must have had 30 horseflies around me at one point.  Flying into my helmet, mouth, bouncing off my arms and neck, it was enough to drive you nuts.  Once the road turned back to pavement though, I was able to pick up the pace and leave my buddies behind.

I picked up the rail trail right near it’s first crossing/tunnel underneath Route 101 and followed this all the way out to Newmarket/Stratham were the trail officially ends.  Then it was onto route 108 to 33, jumped on some back roads and popped out right near the entrance to Wallis Sands.

I made it in just over 4 hours for 61 miles.  Not bad considering how much of this ride was dirt road/trail.  The big part was being able to haul on the rail trail.  Right now it is pretty packed down and so it was easy to keep the pace relatively high.

I did not take too many pictures today, just concentrated on riding and having a good time.

Spent a good solid 3 hours at the beach with Mia, the ocean temps were awesome given that it was 90 degrees and not a cloud in the sky.

On the way back we hit Johnson’s Dairy Bar for ice cream.  That was a good way to end the day!

Thanks for reading.

-Pete