Wednesday 17 May 2017, Aggie's Ice Cream Ride & ME Coastal Ride
Ride Leaders: Karen Saltus & Ken Hablow
38 or 52 miles, 10:00 am start from Kittery Lions Club parking lot, Kittery, ME
Riders - 38 mi (14): Karen, Bob Anderson, Carol Anderson, Dale Ferguson, David Fay, Elsa Lawrence, Jimmy White, Paula Bossone, Tom Lawrence, and first-timers Cheryl Houston, Dick McNamara, Gina Harrison, Julia Zhogina, and Phil Hertz.
Riders - 52 mi (12): Ken, Bernie Flynn, Bob Wadsworth, Curt Dudley-Marling, Dom Jorge, Gardner Gray, Greg Stathis, Ray Komow, Rich Taylor, Rick Lawrence, Russ Keene, and Selig Saltzman.
It was a gorgeous spring day with temps forecast into the 80s. Soon after departing, the leader went on autopilot and led the group down the wrong road. We quickly got back on track and enjoyed beautiful back roads through Kittery, Eliot, and South Berwick, with a few hills to get our heart rates going.
We got to Aggie’s and were shocked to find it closed! We stood there uncomprehending for several minutes. Fortunately, the leader avoided mutiny when the Aggie's owner came from his house next door and said that there was an employee inside and that he would have her open the ordering windows. Catastrophe averted.
The ride back was mostly along the Eastern Trail (if anyone doesn’t know what this is and would like to know, please email kitterykaren@yahoo.com and I’ll send you a link) with views of the Piscataqua River accompanying us from time to time. Many riders commented that this route was a new favorite.
Report by Karen Saltus.
With all the confusion about routes, I got a confidential email from the NSA that they had picked up some online chatter about people in this area wanting to do a coastal ride on Wednesday. Thus, the seeds were sown. At the start I assembled all those wanting to do the long ride and made the proposal to do a coastal ride, instead of the original inland route. All twelve of us agreed that, given the warm weather, conditions were ideal for a coastal ride.
It had to have been dead low tide, which makes the coast more interesting, especially going by York Beach with no umbrellas sticking out of the great expanse of sandy beach. We made the obligatory swing into Nubble Light (see photo). From York we took Shore Road through Cape Neddick to Ogunquit, with a short side trip into Perkins Cove. We stopped for lunch at the Village Market in Ogunquit.
The route back was inland with a loop through Eliot. This portion of the ride had a few hills that we had not anticipated, but nothing very steep or long. The return route goes along the Piscataqua River for a while. We never got out of sight of one other the entire ride, although Rich Taylor did stop to arrow on a couple of occasions, just to be sure we had not lost anyone.
Thanks to Russ Keene for sweeping and for taking on-road photos. Upon our return to Kittery, including the loop into Perkins Cove, our odometers registered 52 miles. I heard eleven WWs comment that this was their favorite ride in that area.
Report by Ken Hablow.
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