Summer...Is...Here...?

April 15, 2023

A year ago today, we moved to Littleton, New Hampshire! It's been a wild ride, and this weekend might just be the wildest yet. Biking with skis, skiing, biking, mountain biking, and skiing again. It had it all!

Thanks to several days of unexpected 80+ degree heat, mud season has been postponed. The snow is (almost) all gone, the roads are clear, the trails are bone dry, and the skies are vivid blue. This weekend, we celebrated the amazing weather and the anniversary in style.

Saturday

Our weekend started with a crazy idea: what if we biked our skis to Cannon Mountain? It's only 10 miles away, after all. How bad could it be?

Turns out, with enough straps, elbow grease, time, and sweat, not that bad.

Because the day was so hot, we each needed only our boots, a light jacket, a ski helmet, a pair of gloves, and our skis or snowboard. No need for multiple layers, a facemask, or goggles when it's 70 out! The boots and small gear all fit into our panniers nicely. We both opted to wear our ski helmets in lieu of a bike helmet, which turned out fine, if a bit dorky looking and very sweaty.

My skis are very old, very short, and very dented. I put a few voile straps on my rack and top tube, and voila! A fully operational ski transportation machine. Somehow I didn't even hit my knees on the skis.

Meg's snowboard was a bit tougher. Turns out, there wasn't a good way to attach it lengthwise. Instead, we let the bindings stabilize the board on top of Meg's rack and panniers. A little wide, but... New Hampshire state law says you should give bikes "3 feet when the passing vehicle is traveling at 30 miles per hour or less and one extra foot for every 10 MPH over 30 miles per hour" anyway. Makes me wonder if I should strap a snowboard to my bicycle all the time just to reinforce how much distance you should actually provide human beings who choose to get around on a bike.

Sort-of-early at 7AM on Saturday, we got up and hauled the bikes out into the already-intense sunny heat.

We cruised through town and up the first (and steepest) hill on our way to Cannon, up Old Franconia Road. After a long time hauling up the hill in low gear, we enjoyed an amazing downhill ride all the way down into Franconia.

Sadly, our planned breakfast & coffee stop was closed for "spring break." I wonder where they went to enjoy spring that was nicer than here this weekend?

After Franconia, we had another long ascent at 10%+ grades up to Cannon. It was long. It was tough. It was hot. We drank a lot of water. But in the end, we made it.

At Cannon, the end-of-season celebration was very much in session by the time we arrived. The deck was packed, folks were enjoying end-of-season "enhanced" bloody marys, and the snow conditions were actually remarkable. As long as you avoided patches of exposed earth and the occasional river, the rest of the snow was soft and incredibly fun to ski. And of course it's always brilliant to zoom around on skis when it's 80 degrees and sunny.

We zoomed around the top of the mountain for a while, then popped into the 4000' peak lodge for a beer, some fries, and some chicken fingers. Many packets of ketchup later, we emerged to loop the lower Zoomer lift area until our legs felt like they'd fall off. At that point, we pulled the plug on skiing to ensure we could actually make it home on our bikes.

The ride home was much, much easier than the ride to the mountain. The ride from Cannon to Franconia, which was a solid hour uphill, took around five minutes downhill.

A pit stop at Iron Furnace Brewing, fine supplier of pulled pork loaded nachos, gave us the fuel we needed to face the next hill.

The hill between Littleton and Franconia is much more gradual on the way to Littleton, so it was less of a grueling climb and more of a chill (but sweaty) ride. We even stopped at the world-famous Bethlehem Spring to top off our water bottles.

After that, it was a quick zoom downhill into Littleton. We showered off the sweat, road dirt, and snow residue, then walked down the street to Schilling for a couple of well-earned pints and a soft pretzel.

Sunday

Because we don't want to be accused of repeating ourselves, we started Sunday riding our new(ish) Tanglefoot Moonshiners.

The trails are (finally!) snow free and almost completely dry, so it was time to do our favorite loop on the local Parker trail system: a ride directly to the summit at Linda's Lookout, then a long swoopy technical ride downhill back home.

We got up slightly later, maybe 8AM, and cruised our way up the mountain. It was also hot. But the skies were blue, no bugs were out (yet!), and the breeze was good. The views and Linda's Lookout were as phenomenal as always.

And the ride down was as much fun as I've had on a mountain bike trail... well, since we skiied down it a couple of months ago. A beautiful day for a ride.

After biking, we headed over to Reklis Brewing for breakfast and a well-deserved pint. Phenomenal again.

After breakfast, back to the slopes.

The snow was even better than Saturday, the sun was strong, the skies were blue, and we just kept looping our favorite trails over and over again.

We both hit a ton of (small) jumps and sped down the runs in record time. The vibes were great, too -- lots of Hawaiian shirts and a really relaxed energy overall. It felt like we were some of the worst skiiers on the slopes, which is certainly saying something compared to your average ski weekend.

After skiing our hearts out for Cannon's closing day, we relaxed in the yard with some books, some brews, and some steaks on the charcoal grill.

Happy first anniversary to our pad in Littleton. This weekend made us feel truly grateful to live where we do.