Independence Day

Main Street was blocked off. Spectators already lined the road to watch the parade. I rode up to the police officers at the Central Avenue intersection. It's a grand name for less than a hundred yards of street.

"Can I get through to Nordic Skier" I asked, gesturing toward Main Street.

"On that?" one said, indicating my bike.  "Sure!"

I thanked them and excused my way through a thin spot in the spectator crowd. I hate being the entertainment, but I had no choice. Hundreds of people waited on either side of the car-free street. I threaded carefully through the random wanderers popping out to take pictures of their friends or searching for a place to squeeze in.

At Mill Street I negotiated passage back through the spectator wall to ride around into the back parking lot of the shop.

Once upstairs in the workshop I had time to look out from the elevated vantage of the backshop windows at the automobiles stuffed into every possible spot, and the bands of parade watchers still streaming in. I spared only occasional glances at the parade once it started. Most of the time, I worked on repairs and contemplated the absolute saturation of the parking facilities. You could not have stuffed another car anywhere, in any direction I could see.

Even on the ride in I had enjoyed the cyclist advantage. Motor vehicle traffic stopped on Center Street at least a quarter of a mile from Main Street. I don't know where people hoped they could go, or how many -- if any -- were just passing through and had lousy timing. Traffic wasn't stopped completely. I had to ride carefully, threading the Death Slot to the right of them at times, and flowing with them in the short breaks where they could move forward.

Usually at the end of the parade, traffic both wheeled and on foot streams the other way, a tide going back out with Fundian energy. The high water mark of humanity and their vehicles surges strongly on the ebb. Within an hour, parking areas in town can be nearly deserted as everyone disperses to whatever other fun they have planned. They'll be back for fireworks at dusk, but I'm long gone by then. This year, however, the parking eased up considerably, but a lot of foot traffic remained. We sold three bikes, did multiple quick repairs for riders only here for the day or the weekend, and had to stop repeatedly to host browsers among the clothing racks, or ring up sales.

This stands in contrast to the previous month or two in which we sold no bicycles at all, and had many ominously uninterrupted days. I don't know why this particular Fourth and its attendant weekend was so busy, but the fact that it lined up so neatly, with the Fourth on Friday, might explain a lot. We're not used to seeing heavy traffic anymore, so a day that would not have impressed us in the 1990s now seems like a big deal.

Summer brings more vehicles, many piloted by people who live where they have to drive more aggressively just to survive. This leads to some increase in close, fast passing, but also a more subtly dangerous tendency for drivers to stop suddenly to wave their fellow motorists out of side streets and driveways. Those drivers nurture the fantasy that we're all nice to each other in this theme park rendition of a country town. A rider needs to be ready to stop short as well as sprint, and read the body language of the larger vehicles. It's our little urban experience embedded in the months of small-town riding.

At the end of the day, I pedaled serenely out my usual route. Evening hazards dwindle rapidly as I pass the driveways of a couple of eating and drinking establishments on the way to the back route out to Route 28. On the Fourth, the evening commute fit into the lull before fireworks traffic.

The cyclist advantage, sort of

The Elm Street bridge project has developed complications.

The Little Dig is going to last longer than expected. No word yet on whether it will also go way over budget. As a taxpayer in a poor rural town I certainly hope we're getting the bulk of the money from a federal program that spreads the load over millions of people across the country, any one of whom would be grateful to find a passable bridge should they ever drive through here.

The bridge remains usable for a cyclist, as long as you can get yourself over the gap.

Try that with your 70-pound ebike.

I was in a bit of a panic because the news of the delay came a day or two after I informed the Board of Selectmen and the state department of environmental services that the work crew appeared to be doing little to control debris. The shore beneath the bridge was covered with concrete dust and chunks of broken concrete, some of them fairly large. As I said in my notes to the town government and the state agency, I don't know whether this is considered an official problem. I just wanted to know, as a resident and a member of the town's conservation commission, whether the job was meeting applicable regulations to protect the river. The work site is also immediately above where I test the river every two weeks for a local environmental organization. If I had done anything to delay the reopening of the bridge, I could be sure that my house would be set on fire within a day or two. Imagine my relief when I found out that the problem was in the bridge, not from some frog-kissing do-gooder making a fuss about some artificial rocks landing among the wildflowers.

I did not have that assurance when I set out on Friday morning and discovered that the work crew had started much earlier than they've been showing up. On Thursday I had driven the dirt route through the Pine River State Forest to Granite, just to check it out. It's 17.7 miles as opposed to the usual 14 and change. It also includes a couple of stiff climbs on soft dirt and gravel, well rumpled by speeding motorists who have been using it during the bridge closure. It was still a shorter and better option than the Big Zig. Metaphorically I turned up my collar and slunk past Elm Street, hoping that no one noticed me.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there's another option in the PRSF as well: a snow machine trail. Because the junction is probably less than a mile into the dirt section, I figured it would save me some time even if I had to walk for half of it. Because there was still a gate and a trail sign, I figured it was okay that I hadn't brought my machete.

The road to Granite

The trail to adventure

  

The trail started out promisingly enough. The Cross Check isn't a great technical trail bike, being a tad steep and short for the real rough stuff, but that's not its main mission. It's a bike that will get you through a short stretch of the rough to connect to faster traveling surfaces.

Because I would only have to do this route on the morning half of a commute, most of it is downhill anyway. The surface is packed sand, held in place by some hardy grass -- except where it isn't. The ruts on the flatter bits and mild slopes were soft enough to make the bike wallow a little. On steeper slopes, the glacial till emerged: various-sized rocks, mostly rounded. Some larger embedded boulders or bits of ledge would have been no challenge for a mountain bike, even one from ancient times, with a rigid frame and fork and 26X2-ish tires. And, with gravity on my side, I just had to find the sweet speed to flow through it with only a few sudden swerves and dabs when the front tire dropped into a soft spot.

The river looked cool and peaceful.

On the other side of the river, the trail split. I remembered the old route that climbed up onto the esker behind the gravel pit there. I could hear the machinery of the pit. The trail had been rerouted along the base of the esker. Bearing in mind that I was already running behind schedule, I debated whether to take the easier new route. Snow machine riders are just out to have fun. They aren't on a schedule to get to a specific destination. This new section could meander all over the place, and maybe never emerge where the old route did. I needed to come out where the trail used to come out, so I could get onto Duncan Lake Road and out to Route 16 near Route 28. As bad as the old trail looked -- and it looked really bad -- I had to go that way.

The grade was a lot steeper and longer than I remembered. But then I remembered that I had almost always ridden the trail the other way, so I was descending this hell run. I do not know anyone who could have -- or would have -- ridden this climb. I dismounted and trudged over the washed out mess of rocks, overhung with tree branches. Even the fairly level top of the esker was hard to ride because of fallen trees and limbs, and slick rocks from the previous day's rain showers and the unending humidity of this summer.

The new route rejoined at the descent. The trail wasn't much better than the abandoned route, because the till underlies everything and emerges wherever the surface is disturbed.

At the bottom of this descent the trail joins a dirt road. On a mountain bike, take a left to stay on the technical trail. On the adventure commute, take a right to get to Duncan Lake Road.

 Back on the regular route it was the usual hammer to get to work. The total was just over 16 miles, and did cut out the unnecessary elevation gain going up to Granite and coming back down again, so it saved more than a mile and a half, and probably at least 15 minutes.

Elapsed time depends on how the motor is feeling that day. You don't use a bike for transportation in a rural area unless you really like riding. I love not having a car in Wolfeboro, but I work harder than the average person to get there. It certainly won't work for everyone. But as long as it works for me I'm saving a parking space for someone who needs it.

The Big Zig and the Cyclist Advantage

With the Elm Street bridge closed, I would have to begin my trip to work by going three miles in the opposite direction, then go laterally to the west for another three miles, then cut south. Route 16 isn't a great bike road, but I could veer left onto Pine River Road for another threeish miles away from my destination, to pick up Elm Street very close to the bridge. It's a big zig just to cover about a quarter of a mile toward Wolfeboro.

Look at the line of Route 28 on the map. Then check out how every other road combination diverges from it. This map doesn't show some trail and dirt road connections, but they don't help much.

With this in mind, I followed the silence toward the bridge this morning, in case the workers hadn't started for the day. And they hadn't.

Look at that perfect bike-sized gap. Maybe the crew will start late every morning out of deference to the residents near the bridge. I had already planned to check on the way home. At the end of the day I don't come through before about 6:30 in the evening. As long as the bridge remains passable, I can probably sneak through, unless a resentful motorist drops a dime on me. I try not to attract attention.

I don't even feel guilty.