I found GPX track over on advrider (here) that was virtually tailor made for my visits to family in upstate NH from my home in North Central MA.
My variant clocked in at 260 miles and took me 7 hours 45 minutes, including one 5 minute fuel up (the only time off the bike) along with several pull overs to peek at the route (see below).
Route Review/Highlights:
The southern portion is a mix of secondary highways and graded dirt roads, save for the moderately technical trek through Annett State Forest in Rindge NH.
The northern portion featured the most note worthy sections:
Klim Badlands Pro:
This was my first extended ride with my new Badlands Pro suit. Yeah, I feel a bit like some adventure poser want-to-be when wearing it, but overall it was the best four seasonable waterproof suit that fit me well. Off the bike it feels bulking and heavy, especially the pants, but on the bike it more less disappears. Fortunately I only encountered about 20 minutes of heavy rain and the suit kept me dry (for the price $$$ one would hope so). Overall I'm please with the suit with the only real let down being the jacket collar. The collar is just not comfortable when cinched down snugly. Plus the velcro likes to snag on chin curtain of my Shoe Neotec helmet.
Forma Adventure Boots:
The boots arrived on Friday so this was the first ride in them. Overall I'm going to have to give them a thumbs down. The boots come out of the box with slight scuffs all over .The buckles are finicky to adjust and then they don't stay adjusted. Plus the buckles just look cheap. The shin guard is pretty flimsy as is the ankle protection. Speaking of ankle protection. I put my left foot down hard with the inside of my heel hitting first and the boot proceeded to crease right above the inside ankle guard and right into my upper ankle resulting in a bruise. The boot continued to crease in at that same spot and putting pressure on the bruise. Not $300 level of quality or construction in my book but I'm stuck with them now :'(
GPS:
I followed the track and recorded mine own using the Locus Pro app on my Google Nexus 5. Locus integrates with DropBox so downloading the original GPX file and later exporting my own was a cinch. Not wanting to deal with potentially spotty cell coverage I loaded the offline vector maps for NH. I set Locus to keep the screen on while the phone was on a charger, stuck the phone in a clear map pocket with a USB cable snaked in and I was good to go. The charger easily kept the phone fully charged with GPS and Screen on. Plus the phone ran cool, never feeling warm to the touch like it can with some compute intensive games for example.
Below is screenshot of my track as exported from Locus and rendered by gpsvisualizer.com using the Google Maps with Google Terrain setting.
Next up, 2 to 3 days in the Berkshires and VT the first week in July.
My variant clocked in at 260 miles and took me 7 hours 45 minutes, including one 5 minute fuel up (the only time off the bike) along with several pull overs to peek at the route (see below).
Route Review/Highlights:
The southern portion is a mix of secondary highways and graded dirt roads, save for the moderately technical trek through Annett State Forest in Rindge NH.
The northern portion featured the most note worthy sections:
- A nice ride along Squam Lake
- An "up on the pegs", grin inducing, blast up rustic Sandwich Notch Rd, even got some air
- The Kangamangus Highway
- Bear Notch Rd
- Scenic RT 302
- A couple of slower paced roads through White Mountain National Forest
Klim Badlands Pro:
This was my first extended ride with my new Badlands Pro suit. Yeah, I feel a bit like some adventure poser want-to-be when wearing it, but overall it was the best four seasonable waterproof suit that fit me well. Off the bike it feels bulking and heavy, especially the pants, but on the bike it more less disappears. Fortunately I only encountered about 20 minutes of heavy rain and the suit kept me dry (for the price $$$ one would hope so). Overall I'm please with the suit with the only real let down being the jacket collar. The collar is just not comfortable when cinched down snugly. Plus the velcro likes to snag on chin curtain of my Shoe Neotec helmet.
Forma Adventure Boots:
The boots arrived on Friday so this was the first ride in them. Overall I'm going to have to give them a thumbs down. The boots come out of the box with slight scuffs all over .The buckles are finicky to adjust and then they don't stay adjusted. Plus the buckles just look cheap. The shin guard is pretty flimsy as is the ankle protection. Speaking of ankle protection. I put my left foot down hard with the inside of my heel hitting first and the boot proceeded to crease right above the inside ankle guard and right into my upper ankle resulting in a bruise. The boot continued to crease in at that same spot and putting pressure on the bruise. Not $300 level of quality or construction in my book but I'm stuck with them now :'(
GPS:
I followed the track and recorded mine own using the Locus Pro app on my Google Nexus 5. Locus integrates with DropBox so downloading the original GPX file and later exporting my own was a cinch. Not wanting to deal with potentially spotty cell coverage I loaded the offline vector maps for NH. I set Locus to keep the screen on while the phone was on a charger, stuck the phone in a clear map pocket with a USB cable snaked in and I was good to go. The charger easily kept the phone fully charged with GPS and Screen on. Plus the phone ran cool, never feeling warm to the touch like it can with some compute intensive games for example.
Below is screenshot of my track as exported from Locus and rendered by gpsvisualizer.com using the Google Maps with Google Terrain setting.
Next up, 2 to 3 days in the Berkshires and VT the first week in July.
