Tandem Togetherness

I've been away from the blog for the past week, on a business trip to the lovely city of Houston, TX. Actually, there really isn't anything too lovely about the place, unless you count the sunshine and temps in the 80s while I was there. The highlight of the week though was riding in the fire chief's truck back to the hotel (he is a colleague of mine), and having him blast the sirens - I'm a kid at heart ;-).

Once back home, Mike and I headed north early Saturday morning so that we could take advantage of the snow. We loaded our two-up (a two person snowmobile) and drove over to Gorham, NH to start our ride. Mike needed to pick up some shocks at our dealer in Twin Mountain, and from there we were going to head to Franconia Notch. The trails were in great shape as we set out in the morning, and we really enjoyed the ride, and riding some new trails.

We didn't realize the amount of traffic in the Notch. We encountered several large groups (including groups from rental companies), and the trails quickly began to show the signs of lots of sleds. I took advantage of the lower speed limit and twisty trails to do some photography from the back of the sled - it's tough to capture images even moving along at only 25 mph!



We continued on from Franconia to Bethlehem on stellar trails (flat, but twisty), and from there to Littleton and on to Whitefield before heading back to Gorham. From Littleton on, the trails were in tough shape - lots of bumps and the main corridor was along a set of rails. By the time we got back to Gorham, 125 miles later, we were both pretty beat due to the deteriorating conditions. It was nice, however, to ride some new trails.

On our way back home, we passed a load of emergency vehicles just before our house, at a river crossing the club had done a lot of work on a couple of years ago. Someone crossing hit their ski on one of the metal uprights, launching him over his windshield (breaking the windshield off as well as the mirror) and down the bank. Mike helped the rescue teams lift him up and over the bank - it appeared he had broken his leg. Guess we will need to put some planking in that section next year.
We came home on Sunday and did a pretty long tandem bike ride. Temps in MA were in the low 40s and the sun was out. The roads were a little bit wet, but there was no snow or ice. It was great to be out on the bike after a week away. We ended up riding 45 miles, and then came home to watch bike racing on TV. It was a nice weekend together after a long week away.