by It was a beautiful fall day. So why not ride for 100 miles through three different states? I convinced a Christine to join me.
The Granite State Wheelmen have been organizing the Seacoast Century Ride for four decades. It was a cold September morning for the start of the 43rd edition of the ride.
We headed south from the start at Hampton Beach, past the Seabrook nuclear power plant.
I blame the radiation from the nuclear plant for distorting the picture. Surely it could not be my poor photography.
There was a 20 mile loop south to the Merrimack River in Massachusetts. We had started early so the sun had not been able to provide much warmth.
After 20 miles of pedaling, my body was warming up. The sun was higher and warmer. We pulled back into the start and shed some layers before heading north for the remaining 80 miles.
The ride was beautiful along the New Hampshire seacoast. We linked up with a competent-looking group of riders and formed a paceline, picking up the pace as we rounded beaches and dunes.
The pace proved too much for Christine, so I pulled off the front of the paceline and we continued as a pair for the rest of the ride.
We hugged the coast heading north through Portsmouth into Maine.
The northern turn-around was at Nubble Light in York, Maine.
Then it was back south to Hampton Beach.
The ride has a soft start. You can begin at anytime on either Saturday or Sunday. Or both days. Besides the century, there are routes for 25,50, and 63 miles.
That means there are riders of all different speeds that left at different times than you. You are just as likely to get passed by a faster moving group of riders as you are to pass a slower moving group of riders.
There were no big packs of riders to navigate through. But there were enough riders on the route that you were usually in sight of another rider.
That gave me the feeling of safety if I had a mechanical issue or crash on the road. (I didn’t.)
That many cyclists on the road also keeps motorists aware. When there is a cyclist on the road every few hundred meters, I think drivers pay more attention.
I only saw one incident. There was a sharp turn in Portsmouth to get on the approach to the World War I Memorial Bridge over the Piscataqua River.
We came up to a group of cyclists pulled over. One cyclist had crashed into the side of a car on the turn. According to the motorist, he was stopped at the stop sign and the cyclist went wide around the corner into the side of his car. It sounded like a cyclist error.
If you are thinking about a riding a century. The Seacoast Century is a great option. It’s well organized and well supported.
It’s also very flat. Strava said I had about 2500 feet of climbing elevation. It felt like less. I only remember a handful of spots where I had to downshift for a climb and they only lasted for a very short distance.
I’m circling the date to ride it again next year. 
