Basin Bike Ride

Last weekend we headed to our place in NH. Mike's sister's family had plans to join us so I took a day off work for a long weekend of fun.

We headed up Friday night and the rest of the gang was to come up Saturday afternoon. While we were waiting for our company to arrive on Saturday, we decided to have a family bike ride. There's an 8 mile path that runs through Franconia Notch that we've wanted to try out for a while. So, we loaded up bikes and baby and made the 20 minute drive there.

Unfortunately, this ride was doomed from the get go. Mike tried to fill up his tire with the (unknowingly) wrong pump attachment, ended up letting all the air out of his tires and we didn't have a way to refill it. We weren't too far from town, so he headed back there to find a place to fill it while Dylan and I got in a warm up. Off we went in different directions with an approximate time set to meet back up.

This was my first time with Dylan on my bike. Given that the trail was mostly uphill, it was challenging to figure out the balance while also very slowly moving uphill. No worries, I would just drop down into the spinning gear to get started. When I tried to do so, my bike chain jumped off. Pretty quickly thereafter, a group of bicyclers passed by and helped me get it back on with Dylan still on. Problem number 2 solved so we carried on.

The path leveled off, and I went back up in gears. When the climb started again, I ignorantly believed my chain would behave and tried to go back to spinning gear. Yep, the chain jumped off again. Luckily, it's a well traveled bike path so another nice gentleman stopped to help. Problem number 3 fixed. With the chain back on, I decided this time we would just head back and wait for Mike to get back. Most of what we traversed had been uphill so I stayed in my climbing gear, turned the bike around and mostly coasted back.

Mike and I met up pretty easily (thank goodness since cell phone coverage is spotty at best there). I guess we were feeling a little crazy because we decided to ride anyway. Since my bike was behaving staying in one gear and I knew we would be climbing, I stayed in spinning gear and we were off.

After only a couple of miles, we passed the Basin (a cool rock\water formation in the notch). Soon thereafter my legs, which had been telling me for a while that the previous days weight workout had pooped them out a lot, started screaming at me to stop. Problem number 4. So, it was time to head back. We stopped at the Basin when passing it again for a few pictures.

Watching the Water Flow into the Basin Pool

Group Photo

Smiley, Cute Boy

It's a good thing we headed back. Problem number 5 became evident shortly after getting back on our bikes. My back tire was loosing air....and fast. With some wobbly, downhill curves on the path back, I was a little unsteady but still able to make it back to the car without damaging my rim. Whew!

When you list all the trouble, it sounds like a pretty disastrous trip, doesn't it. Oddly enough, we left having felt like we had a fun time. It's difficult to feel unhappy when you've got a smiling, cute kid around!