I might as well confess. The minute the brochure hit my desk this time last year, I had no hope of remaining objective.
There it was, in full, glorious color, bicycling in New England to see the fall foliage.
Even people who don't cycle pursed their lips and raised their eyebrows when I told them my plans. They inquired because, in my impatience to get cycling, I was saying such uncharacteristic things as "Isn't this summer ever going to end?"
Burnt orange. Sunshine yellow. Crowned-tooth gold. Racing downhill on my bike blurred the colors of the quilted countryside. Stopped, the colors appeared with the crystal clarity that comes with crisp weather.
When I look at my color slides now, I think, e-yup, New England in fall lived up to my expectations.
Perhaps because we're forever told how homogenous we've become, I enjoy going to a new section of the United States and picking out the differences.
The differences were enhanced on my fall trip because it was with a commercial cycling company that carefully protected us from anything that smacked of the modern world. No chain restaurants. No malls.
Thus it was, after a day's cycling past rolling farmlands, dairies and covered bridges, we would roll past a Civil War monument and white-steepled church to rest at an 18th century inn at the foot of a village green.
Our luggage would be waiting in our rooms, a hot shower beckoning, and from the big cozy kitchens wafted such smells as slow-cooked fall squash, lobster and fresh bread.
A married couple in our bicycling group from Florida were there for the seventh time, although not all of their trips had been in fall.
Like a number of others in the group, they were closer to age 60 than to 40 (which was about the youngest). Like many others, they did little cycling at home, which made this particular genre of commercial tour attractive.
VCC Four Seasons Cycling, the tour company I went with, leads a good portion of the 30 tours that take place each week in Vermont and New Hampshire during the prime fall foliage -- from mid-September to about the third week in October. (Foliage peaks at different times at different places in the state.)
The firm offered two levels of trips. The Breakaway Tours are for high-mileage types, with daily mileage options of 45 to 70 miles. The trip I took was the less intense Explorers Tour, which makes cycling almost incidental to the views.
Our longest day was the last, with riding options up to 45 miles. It was my favorite, partly because we'd shed the rain of midweek and sunshine made the farmland look splendid.
I love devoting a whole week to exercise, so that by Day 4 or 5 you remember that it's your desk, and not your years, that has been holding you back. But not everybody thrives on sweaty brows; this kind of trip seemed perfect for couples with %o disparate views of exercise.
We stayed at each inn or lodge for two nights. The area we covered was limited; we zigzagged along rural roads, sometimes crossing the same path but from a different direction. We didn't stray far from our inns, but the routes were so cleverly conceived it felt as if we were miles from home.
One woman whose husband was among the most eager used the optional layover days to stay behind and poke around in the woods or the village hardware stores. Another couple raced ahead to get good photos, for which the opportunities seemed endless.
The "sag" wagon (a company van) swept the route from behind to pick up those who decided to take the afternoon off. There was no shame in dropping out early, a benefit of going with a group old enough to shun competition.
Each day we were given an itinerary that would best introduce us to New England, which one leader described as the "Disneyland of Cycling."
We stopped one day at a Shaker village to see the handicrafts and furniture of the religious sect; another day near the Appalachian Trail, the hiking route that flanked one of our lodges.
We rode along the Connecticut River valley, crossing back and forth between New Hampshire and Vermont, basically around the area of Hanover, N.H., which is home to Dartmouth College.
By the time I booked my trip in midsummer, the predicted very best week for viewing fall colors -- the first week in October for this particular part of the state -- already was full. I took the second week in October. The first days were awash in vivid colors, but by late in the week -- aided by a little wind and rain -- the leaves were falling fast.
It's difficult to predict just when the viewing will be best. It has to do with when the temperatures drop to 40 degrees at night, which starts a six- to eight-week internal process that ends the production of chlorophyll, the chemical that keeps the leaves green.
But even if you don't hit it exactly, the colors and scenery are something to behold.
Sometimes we'd come around a corner and there'd be a farmhouse and barn so perfectly set I'd think, "Did they know what they were doing or did the buildings just age to be such beauties?"
I'd look down from a hillside into a village where rows of pumpkins and squashes lined wooden porches and hues matched nature, and I'd think, "Why did we ever invent plastic?"
New England's long tradition of preservation is one reason whole villages remain unadulterated snapshots of earlier eras. Another reason, unfortunately, is New England's poor economy, which keeps modern conveniences such as satellite dishes or prefabricated barns from spoiling the view.
I was glad we weren't trying to make a lot of miles in a day because it gave time to stop and stop and stop. And it took stopping to soak it all in.
Other times of the year, New England probably is pretty enough, but the fall leaves made it almost surrealistic: Huge maple trees awash in gold despite a blanket of fallen leaves softening the base. Reddish sumac. Yellow birch. Red oak leaves that looked like they belonged in the intense browns of a den.
The weather varied from sunny to rainy. But we were lucky to have clear weather the night we climbed a long hill to Moose Mountain Lodge, which overlooks a Whitman Sampler of beautiful leaves.
I sat in an old wooden chair by a pond to do some writing while others in my group had beer or snacks on the back porch, which overlooks the Green Mountains. The innkeepers, Kay and Peter Shumway, started cooking in the early afternoon and by evening the food just kept coming.
Lawrence Carnahan, one of our guides, had warned us that Moose Mountain was a magical place. He was right. Not only were there the 20 of us, but there were other stray guests, and yet sitting on the old overstuffed couch in front of the big open fire, I felt very much at home.
It's always a gamble when you go on a commercial tour that you'll have nothing in common with tour mates except picking the same dates.
The members of my group were not hurting for money. They'd come from all over the country, and a big percentage owned more than one house. Sometimes sitting at dinner, the head of the table looked for all the world like he or she was about to chair a board meeting.
One woman had done psychological studies of how groups find common ground. With that in mind, I watched how our group came together.
I was wearing a Montana T-shirt when I arrived and two couples from Montana approached me to discuss our shared roots.
Pat Lopach told stories about how she and her husband, Mike, would crawl into bed on winter nights in Helena and get out their brochures to dream about the trip.
By the second day, Elaine Honzell was lamenting to her husband, Bill, that they'd looked forward to it for so long and now it was going by too quickly.
We started and ended our tour at the White Goose Inn in Orford, N.H., which probably was the most upscale of the inns we visited despite a construction date of 1766. Our hosts were German; the gourmet food had a European flair.
Maybe I've eaten over too many camp stoves to have an educated opinion, but I thought the food everywhere was great. One man in our group was not as impressed, describing it as mediocre "inn food" -- food made bland so as not to offend any tastes.
The third place we stayed, the Lyme (N.H.) Inn, probably was the most classic. It sat at the end of a long village green and across from a church built in 1810 that proudly chimed -- at all hours -- a bell cast by Paul Revere.
So far from the neon of fast-food life, the comforts of home seemed particularly important.
Staying at the inns offered a nice alternative to motels. More private than staying in someone's home, but still familiar enough to make you feel comfortable padding down to the sitting room in your socks.
Toward the end of the mid-October tour it was getting dark fairly early. A couple from California, Eric and Renee Marcus, came in late and appeared a bit tired as they climbed stairs to the big screened porch of the Lyme Inn.
It was their habit to stop frequently at bogs and ponds and come back with tales of frogs and cattails.
"How was your day?" someone asked in a voice designed to say "I see you're tired and hope you're feeling all right."
"It was fine, if you like that sort of thing," Eric said. "And it happens that we do."
So do I.
If you go . . .
If you're considering a New England bike trip, book now for the best dates.
By midsummer many tours will be full. Even with a choice of dates you can't guarantee seeing foliage at its peak, but touring companies know when the odds are best.
If you prefer sunshine to fall colors, go in the spring or summer; the scenery still is beautiful and several inns offer swimming pools or ponds.
In the fall, prepare for varied weather. Take rain gear, preferably a waterproof -- but breathable -- top and bottom. If it isn't designed for cycling, take leg bands to keep the flapping pants legs out of the chain.
In the second week in October, I wore shorts and a short-sleeved T-shirt several days; on cool days, bicycling tights worked well.
There's no substitute for polypropylene or one of the other new materials that "wick" away water from the skin and dry out quickly.
Cost of a five-day trip was $800, which included bike rental, two meals a day and lodging for six nights.
Here is a sampling of companies that offer cycling in New England and elsewhere in the United States:
VCC Four Seasons Cycling: P.O. Box 145, Waterbury Center, Vt. 05677-0145; telephone (802) 244-5135. Tours of New England, the East Coast of the United States and internationally through a company called Travant. New England tours May through late October.
Backroads Bicycle Touring: 1516 Fifth St., Suite Q333, Berkeley, Calif. 94710-1713; telephone (800) 245-3874. Tours of Vermont, Maine, Oregon, Washington and other states, as well as exotic locales such as Bali, Australia and Thailand. Walking trips, too.
Bicycle Holidays: R.D. 3, Box 2394 TG, Middlebury, Vt. 05753; telephone (802) 388-2453. Personalized tour planning, including route finding.
Bike Vermont: Box 207, Woodstock, Vt. 05091; telephone (802) 457-3553. Rentals, inn-to-inn tours.
New England Bicycle Tours: P.O. Box 26, Randolph, Vt. 05060; telephone (802) 728-3261. Rentals, inn-to-inn tours.
Vermont Mountain Bike Tours: P.O. Box 685, Pittsfield, Vt. 05762; telephone (802) 746-8580. Self-guided tours, rentals.
Other sources:
*"Bicycle Vermont" map and guide, Vermont Life, 61 Elm St., Montpelier, Vt 05602 ($2.95, plus $1 postage and handling); telephone (802) 828-3241.
*"25 Bicycle Tours in Vermont," by John Freidin, New Hampshire Publishing Co., Box 70, Somersworth, N.H. 03878.
*For updates on progression of fall foliage (state tourism offices): Vermont (802) 828-3236; New Hampshire (800) 258-3608; Maine (207) 289-6070.