Tonight on New Hampshire Crossroads, 300 cyclists take on the ultimate New Hampshire challenge.

Fairytale and fantasy in the heart of the Connecticut River Valley.

And in Portsmouth, sailmaking is a breeze.

Hi, I'm Eloise Daniels, and welcome to the season premiere of New Hampshire Crossroads.

Theme Music Presentation of New Hampshire Crossroads is made possible in part by Shaw's Supermarkets.

Keep New Hampshire beautiful.

Recycle your aluminum cans at Shaw's, where you're someone special.

Our first story of the year begins high atop Mount Washington.

Well, actually at the bottom of the Mount Washington Auto Road, where recently 300 cyclists gathered to begin competing in a 6,300 foot race up the mountain.

Let's go along for the ride.

Bicycle, bicycle, bicycle I want to ride my bicycle, bicycle, bicycle I want to ride my bicycle I want to ride my bike I want to ride my bicycle I want to ride it where I like The 13th Annual Mount Washington Hill Climb Bike Race.

To the casual observer, any attempt to ride a bicycle on this grueling eight mile trek up New England's tallest mountain is an exercise in controlled insanity.

And while this race does draw 1 or 2 people who attempt to climb Mount Washington as a lark, the majority of the racers are only crazy about the sport of cycling.

I want to ride my bicycle, bicycle, bicycle You get the general, the definite toughies, as far as the racers go, that are looking here to see just how fast they can get up to route up the mountain.

The record is like 57:41, held by Dale Stetina, but you also get a lot of people who are just, you know, the mountain attracts them itself.

The weather conditions are extreme.

You know, it's been stopped halfway up at one point in several years.

It's only made it up to the top of the parking or to the parking lot.

You never know.

Last year it was gorgeous.

Just very clear, very warm.

This year it looks like it's gonna be pretty cold up at the top.

And, just people that want to see if they can climb it.

While some came just to see if they could climb the mountain on two wheels, some came to win.

And others came, well, why did they come?

Honestly, I have no idea.

I hate hills.

I really do.

Anywhere else, I would ride around them, but.

Good question.

I think I get a wonderful sense of accomplishment when I finally, finally finish things like this.

Couple of days ago, I was out riding, getting ready, and I was just so depressed at the prospect of coming here again.

I don't know.

Why not, I guess?

I don’t know, me against the mountain.

That's - If I make it to the top and, you know, me against the mountain.

So me and my machine.

If I make it to the top, that's all I'm going to be happy for.

You know?

I don't care if I beat.

I don't care if I'm the last one.

As long as I make it to the top this year.

The other thing is, it's it's a real you get a real camaraderie with the people who do it.

And I really feel good about that.

That we have something in common and it's, it's a good way to keep healthy.

You know, the people that you associate with at events like this are generally pretty fit.

And, I really like that.

Certainly, pedaling a bicycle up the Mount Washington Auto Road can keep you fit, but with an average incline of 12 degrees, the steep grade of the hill can also give you fits.

Well, I crashed last year.

Yeah.

If you sit, if you go too far forward on your bike, your rear wheel comes up and you spin.

If you sit back too far, your front wheel comes off the ground.

I lean forward, spun my wheel and went over.

Learned, not going to do that again.

With that, the over 300 cyclists started towards the summit, putting themselves and their equipment to the test.

On your marks Get set.

Go!

Music Bicycle race, bicycle race, bicycle race Competing not only against other riders and the mountain itself, the cyclist must challenge the ever changing elements that surround Mount Washington.

Whipping winds and frigid temperatures make this race as tough on the mind as it is on the body.

I know my hands and my feet will be frozen.

My body will be sweating.

I'll be cold on the outside, hot on the inside, but it's all worth it to finish.

And finish they did.

Facing the subfreezing temperatures and biting winds, rider after rider crossed the finish line.

Some suffered cramps, some exhaustion, while others were happy just to have finished at all.

There was definitely a couple of gusts that that knocked me back a little bit, but I run drop bars and, I can just keep really low and it wasn't too bad.

Yeah, I had a lot of fun, I really did.

I feel great now.

I expected to feel a lot worse.

It was worse than I remember it.

Really.

It really feels bad.

But, Finished it.

Yeah.

I'm here.

I you know, I bested, according to my watch, I bested my time from last year by 12 minutes.

I'm real happy.

You’re happy?

How's the wind, once you got above the tree line?

That was.

That was the worst part.

The wind.

Well, you know, the wind bothers me.

It was a strong headwind all the way, from about 5 miles up.

There were a couple of times after, right after sixth mile, I just had to keep telling myself, you're not going to stop.

You're not going to stop, because I just wanted to stop and say, forget it.

I - That’s amazing.

Yeah.

Coming back next year?

I don't know.

You know, in a week or two I would probably say yes.

But right now I can't imagine why I’d do this again.

But if the past holds true, almost all who take on the challenge and finish the Mount Washington Hill Climb Bike Race can savor their success for another year, when they'll return once again to race their bicycles up New England's tallest mountain.

Bicycle, bicycle, bicycle, bicycle race If you think driving up the Mount Washington Auto Road might be just a little easier, the Auto Road should reopen, weather permitting, sometime around mid-May.

Here's a trivia question for you Mount Washington buffs.

Who was the first U.S.

president ever to visit the summit of Mount Washington during his term of office?

Think about it.

We'll tell you the answer later in the show.

You know, for many of the bicyclers that we just saw riding up to the summit of Mount Washington, just reaching the top was an impossible dream become reality.

The next story shows a talented New Hampshire woman whose work for children never lets reality interfere with adventure.

Once upon a time, in a beautiful valley, lived a bright and talented woman in an enchanted castle.

This woman had a magical gift.

Her hands could make beautiful pictures.

And she shared these pictures with all of her friends.

By the way, this is a true story.

Every day from her home in Lyme, New Hampshire, Trina Hyman draws herself into the world of children's literature and has become one of the premier children's book illustrators in the country.

There's a very expressive little girl still inside her whose wide eyed enthusiasm for picture books has never faded.

It's like watching a movie, isn't it?

Only it's better, because you can fill in the parts that don't move.

The incredible sensitivity and depth of Trina's art has not gone unnoticed.

Her version of Little Red Riding Hood was recently awarded the Caldecott Medal by the American Library Association as the best illustrated children's book of the year.

But Trina doesn't illustrate children's literature just to win awards.

If you decide, for whatever reason, to go into children's books, you do have that piece of a child in yourself.

And and it's because you love children and you're interested in them and, and worried about them and, and want to be part of their world that you do that work.

Understandably, many children's book authors want Trina to be a part of their world.

For the most part, she illustrates other people's work.

Her favorites being classics like Grimm's Fairy Tales and Peter Pa.

Becoming successful as both a book author and illustrator is incredibly difficult, but illustrating someone else's work doesn't guarantee a fairytale existence either.

The unspoken rule in children's book publishing is to keep the author and the illustrator as far away from one another as possible, unless they're married, of course, for very good reason, because when the author writes an incident, writes about a character, they have a particular picture in their mind.

They're seeing something, and it may not be at all what the illustrator is seeing when he or she reads the story.

But once in a while the rule is broken.

And I have met authors of books I've illustrated before I’ve even started work on them, and in a couple of cases, it's been very successful.

Usually they're intelligent people.

Some of my best friends are authors.

Her publisher periodically sends her manuscripts, and if she loves it, Trina will decide to illustrate the story.

Her work is slow and exacting, so she doesn't take on too much.

But once a story has her attention, she'll read it maybe 30 times and think about it all the time.

I know that the scene I want to do, I have it in my head, just like a movie, and I just start to draw with a pencil and an eraser, and I keep erasing if I don't like what I've got and keep drawing until it looks just right to me.

Ideally, illustrations should enhance the story.

They should elaborate on the story.

They should give you a story, sometimes, within a story.

They should make the story clearer, more understandable, more exciting, and more fun.

Moving to New Hampshire 19 years ago has given Trina a sense of direction and clarity, not to mention an inspiring landscape.

The minute I moved up here, I was, I fell in love with it.

I fell in love with the area, and I use it all the time in my books.

So, I mean, there's something about the combination of the river and the mountains and the, those stony hills and the trees, and it could be anywhere in the world, really.

Parts of England look like this.

Parts of France and Germany.

So I, I use it a lot in my fairy tales and I love it here.

So I use it whenever I can.

I think everyone has a favorite story from their childhood and when they read that story when they were a kid.

If it's little Red Riding Hood, for instance, the book you had when you were a child, that's how you remember Little Red Riding Hood.

You remember Little Red Riding Hood, don't you?

Music So that's the story of Trina Hyman, the magical lady in the beautiful valley who, along with her two dogs and cat, lived there happily ever after.

Music Trina’s books can be found in public libraries and bookstores throughout the Granite State.

If you've ever been to London, England, you've probably seen the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace.

One of Britain's most famous military spectacles.

Her Majesty's Royal Marines recently paraded through New Hampshire, beginning a four-month stay in North America.

And as we found out, this could be one of Britain's finest hours.

Music The British have invaded Hanover.

Only this time, they are armed with horns, drums, and an impressive musical repertoire.

These are Her Majesty's Royal Marines, one of nine such bands assigned to the Royal Navy around the world.

This highly decorated regiment has performed both musically and militarily for over 320 years.

The Royal Marines’ history goes right back to 1664, and four years on from that, there have always been musicians of some type or other attached to the Royal Marines for motivation of the men.

Their theater of operation for this engagement was the Thompson Arena on the Dartmouth College campus.

Lieutenant Colonel Graham Hoskins is the principal director of music for the Royal Marines, and is quick to point out that being a band member is not easy duty.

They are, after all, Marines.

And like their brethren in the colonies, the Royal Marines take their training very seriously.

The term of training lasts for two years and eight months, but during that time each musician is taught to play two instruments: an orchestral instrument and a band instrument.

This makes us unique in that, all our violinists have to play the clarinet, or all our cellists have to play the euphonium.

All our saxophone players have to play the viola.

It's that way so that at any time I, as the director of music, can say that I want to rehearse the orchestra and, within ten minutes of them playing as a band, they are sitting there as an orchestra with the right number of instrumentalists that constitute such a group, and that is part of the training.

But it also means it's part of the selection, because if, for instance, people wouldn't realize this, but if an excellent euphonium player came to us and the euphonium course is played like this with these fingers, but he only had, so shall we say, a finger and thumb on this hand that would be sufficient to hold the instrument, which is all he's required to do.

But I wouldn't be able to take him as a euphonium player in the Royal Marines, because 50% of his time he's got to have all those fingers because he'll be playing his cello.

So it's a it's a very interesting and unique situation.

Appearing with the Royal Marines on their 17,000 mile North American tour are the Scottish Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, an equally impressive, if not more traditional outfit, whose outfits would be hard to imagine in any conflict.

The mixture of stirring music, distinctive uniforms, and gleaming instruments makes for an impressive sight indeed.

But why would the boys from Britain start their 78-city tour across North America in New Hampshire?

I think we start in New Hampshire because it's a place where we're welcome.

It's a place where the show's been before in different forms, and it's remarkable for us that we are so welcome, because we are very conscious of the fact that in many ways it's an untried show.

But I think tonight, when the people have heard and seen what is on offer, it will be a very much tried show and one that they will have, I hope, enjoyed being present at in its first stages.

If you didn't have a chance to see the Hanover show, the Royal Marines and Highlanders will return to New England the first week in December, as they continue to show that over 300 years of tradition is no handicap to producing some of the most exciting musical sounds of the 1980s.

Music If you'd like to see the Royal Marines in person, they're due to perform at the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland, Maine, December 6th, and then again in Boston Garden December 7th.

You know, the Royal Marines are still part of the British Navy.

And so, of course, they spend a lot of time at sea.

Well, recently, Crossroads producer Chip Neal spent time on marine maneuvers of a different sort.

Swept away under sail.

Music Sailing.

What could be more simple?

You sew some cloth together.

You figure out some way to attach it to your boat.

You let the wind fill the sails, and then you just sit back and steer with one hand while you sip a gin and tonic with the other.

Ah, yes.

The joy of sailing.

Harnessing the wind.

Sailing takes me away to where I’ve always heard it could be Just a dream and the wind to carry me Soon I will be free Well, yes and no.

Sailing is fun, but it's not simple.

There were a few problems to overcome since that first day thousands of years ago, at a small seaside village, when someone, probably known as Mad Makhaya, decided to strap his wife's bathrobe to his little fishing boat in hopes of harnessing the wind, which up to that point had probably been nothing more than a nuisance.

By the way, these are some of Mad Makhaya's original working sketches.

Honest.

Music So Mad Makhaya would have been the first, the original sailmaker.

And of course, the craft of sailmaking evolved to bigger and more complicated bathrobes, and this growing pool of sailmaking knowledge was passed on to each new generation of sailmakers, which eventually leads us to the present.

And Jeff Anderson, who is carrying on the sail making tradition of Mad Makhaya right here in the New Hampshire Seacoast, at Anson Sailmakers.

Now, one of the first problems they had to overcome was finding a way to control your direction.

Geoff explains.

So if the wind was blowing in the other direction, they had to use the oars or any other means of moving.

However, as they started building the boats differently and the construction came from the inside out of the boat rather than from the outside in, they found that when they added the keel, which was necessary to build the boats from the inside out, that that also added to the sailing characteristics of the boat.

And now, instead of just being blown with the wind, that's as a leaf on the on the water, they could all of a sudden go in direction where they chose to go.

And that just developed gradually over thousands of years.

And they added more sails and different types of sails and the keel got longer and deeper.

And basically what we have today is that this mainsail is now the smallest sail on the boat.

What we add on to these things is we add on the genoa, which is what we’ll go and unfurl now.

Okay.

We bear off a little bit.

So now as we've added this genoa, we created a slot in between the two sails that automatically increase the wind speed.

And as you noticed, we just picked up speed.

So what can happen is as we furl the sail up again, yeah, just let go of the sheet completely.

See, we can furl the sail up, and it disappears.

And the boat just stops.

Just like that.

It is.

So the mainsail is only good in conjunction with another sail.

And that is the trick, to make these two sails, that's the trick in sail making, to make these two sail have a perfect fit.

Perfect slot between them.

Sometimes if you make one sail too flat and the other one to full, they don't interact very well.

Oh, that's a good looking shoot.

No really, that is perfect.

This is the loft.

The shop where Jeff makes the sails.

The floor is really one super large worktable for this sewing machine, which is mounted in the floor.

(sewing machine noises) To determine what type of sail to use that, you want.

Secondly, what, where are you going to sail with it?

From this blueprint that the naval architect gives us and which also the builder follows, which is called the sail plan.

That is what we work with.

From here we take the basic measurements of the sail and transfer that to a work plan that would go through the loft.

I have been sailing all my life, with my my parents, ever since I was yea high.

Jeff is from Denmark, where he did a lot of sailing as a youngster, and he spent some years sailing on the world class racing circuit after graduating from engineering college.

But finally he ended up working in Marblehead, Massachusetts for Ted Hood, one of the premier sailmakers in the world.

Then, in 1980, he moved to the New Hampshire seacoast, where he found new customers for his own sailmaking loft.

How are you doing down there?

Are you're done with the cover?

Yeah.

He doesn't do it alone.

He gets help from apprentices and seamstresses and of course, his wife Pam.

She keeps the books.

I just traced my pattern.

She used to help sew, too But now she's too busy with her own part of the business.

You see, it's Anson Sail and Flag Makers.

And guess who makes the flags?

Initially, the equipment is the same.

The space that you need to to make flags is similar to what you need to make sails.

The machinery, all the utensils.

As it turns out, Pam and Jeff weren't the first to combine sail and flag making.

These are advertisements from a sailing book published in 1899.

We were making a historic connection, almost by accident.

Not only do they use the same tools, materials, and space, they both use the wind.

Just you wait and see Okay, that's how far we can go on that one until we put the reinforcements on.

Sailing takes me away So let's go sailing.

to where I’ve always heard it could be Just a dream and the wind to carry me By the way, this 39ft O Day is owned by the Arsenault family of Pelham, New Hampshire.

They're one of Anson's customers, and they agreed to let us on board so we could show you Jeff’s sails in action.

I know, I know, it's a tough job, but someone's got to do it.

Music If you're interested in New Hampshire's Seacoast, Crossroads will be devoting an entire show to New Hampshire maritime activities later in the year.

Have you figured out the answer to our Mount Washington trivia quiz?

We asked who was the first U.S.

president ever to visit the summit of Mt.

Washington during his term of office?

Was it Rutherford B. Hayes, Ulysses S. Grant, or Theodore Roosevelt?

The answer is B. Ulysses S. Grant.

He visited the summit on August 27th, 1869, just two months after the completion of the Cog Railway.

By the way, if you still haven't sent us the location of your favorite New Hampshire town green, there's still time.

Send it to New Hampshire Crossroads in care of New Hampshire Public Television, and we'll show you some of the most popular ones next week.

That's our show for tonight.

Thanks for watching.

We'll leave you with the splendor of a natural river setting.

Thanks to the efforts of all the folks who took part in the second annual Lamprey River Tube Race.

I'm Eloise Daniels.

See you next week.

Music Sailing up (sailing up) Sailing down (sailing down) Up (down), down (up), up and down the river Sailing on Stopping all along the way The river may be dirty now But she’s getting cleaner every day Sing it here (sing it here) Sing it there, (sing it there) Here (there), there (here), up and down the river Sailing on Stopping all the way The river may be dirty now But she’s getting cleaner every day Hey, Steve’s playing!

Music People come (people come) People go (people go).

Come (go) Go (come) up and down the river Sailing on Stoping all along the way The river may be dirty now But she’s getting cleaner every day Yeah.

(inaudible) Well-rowed!

All right, we made it.

Presentation of New Hampshire Crossroads is made possible in part by Shaw's Supermarkets.

Keep New Hampshire beautiful, recycle your aluminum cans at Shaw's, where you're someone special.

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