Day #4: Brattleboro to Manchester (49 miles)

I was a little apprehensive about today's ride, since Google maps said I had to climb 4,331 feet and descend 4,104 feet... the pointy bits worried me:

I woke at 5am and planned to get on the road by 7am... this was dawn through the glass bricks in the Econolodge:

There was food again... some of it healthy...

And Vermont beauty:

And some action shots...

And two or three more great conversations... one guy on a beautiful BMW motorcycle remarked that he wasn't losing any weight on his long drive... I suggested he probably wasn't peddling hard enough... And I met a couple who had hiked all over the world and were plotting their next adventure. The husband was an intense biker and skier and had run a restaurant in Switzerland and spoke Schweizerdeutsch. He gave me a bunch of good advice on adjusting my bike. In the end, the uphills were hard, but the ride culminated in a glorious 7 mile descent from Bromley down into Manchester Center... I hit 36 mph while riding my brakes the whole way :-)

And the day ended with dinner at Cristina and Ed's house, and Ed showing me how to make his wonderful spaghetti carbonara. Wednesday will be a rest day, puttering around Manchester Center, so I won't post another update until Thursday.

The snapshot: 49 miles in around 6 hours of riding, starting at 7:15am and ending at 5pm: