This years “excellent adventure” was a two week bikepacking trip through central Vermont and southeastern New England. This is Part 2 of the trip (Part 1 was the solo ride from Wellfleet to Burlington), which was a guided version of the infamous bikepacking.com Green Mountain Gravel Growler route around central Vermont.

The guiding was through my friend Scott Cone’s company Discovery Bicycle Tours which he purchased a number of years ago. The 6 day/5 night route they picked was a slightly more accessible version of the bikepacking.com route in that it did not contain any hardcore MTB terrain and it was slightly tempered by adjustments due to the flooding of the prior weeks. They scouted the entire route prior and had to remove a few class 4 gravel roads – this means not maintained by the local government and could be quite gnarly – and route around them. But, this was fine given the other riders in the group and the fact that my Maxxis tires were lacking any significant tread.

This tour is very unique for them in that it is their only tour that involves camping; all of their other tours are essentially “Inn to Inn”. Camping allows for a more “rustic” experience as well as provides better quick access to the remote gravel roads without having to traverse longer non-riding distances to find suitable lodging. Even though the “lodging” was camping with user supplied camping gear, they included a van and trailer to both carry our gear as well as all the infrastructure for meal prep (which they did), other “comforts” notably charging infrastructure (more on that later), and a set of camp chairs for everyone, something I do not carry on my bikepacking trips. While the large passenger van had interior space and a 15 bike rack on top, it was not meant to be a “SAG” as it could not alway follow our route, but we did intersect with it several times a day in case we needed to get something from a bag, get some supplied snacks/water, or more importantly, put some of the great Vermont IPAs you can buy at breweries and stores into a cooler for post ride consumption. Since I had been camping the week prior, I was already in camping mode so this was no adjustment for me (not so much for others, which will be a theme throughout this tour). It’s funny though, prior to leaving, I anticipated continuing to carry all my gear during this part of the trip – you know, because I am a tough guy 🤣 and am practicing for a longer trip – but it was clear by the time this part of the trip rolled around, that was not happening. The terrain was just too hard, another lesson that I will cover in my wrapup post.

Even though this part of the trip included camping, the vibe of this part of the trip was distinctly different. Basically it went from solo everything (planning, navigating, riding, food) to essentially a series of group gravel rides that someone else planned and did all the logistics for (routes, campsites, gear hauling, food). There were 10 people on this tour: a group of 7 friends from the Pittsburgh area, Charles and me, and fellow from New Haven, plus 3 guides from Discovery (including Scott who was “working” but appeared to me more enjoying the riding!). I don’t know the ages of the rest of the group, but certainly everyone was over 50 (with one possible exception), all recreational rider types (not racer types) and all had gravel suitable bikes and a fair amount of riding experience on gravel type routes. A couple interesting bikes on the trip, a really nice looking Scott e-gravel bike and some e-MTBs owned by discovery that Scott and Jayne (a tour leader who had a sprained ankle) rode. These two bikes would feature in an informal man v. machine “race” (ala John Henry) later in the week.

The rhythm of the tour was wake, coffee and breakfast, a discussion of the route, ride at our own pace coming together at various points along the route (breweries and lunch stops), and arrive at the campsite where the guides had set up for meals and socializing and gave us all of our gear to set up up own camp spots. After the trip up doing everything myself, it frankly felt a little “bougie” having someone carry my bags and prepare (and clean up!) breakfast/dinner for me. But the food was really good and I definitely (over)compensated for not generally eating much for dinner on the way up, and I guess that’s what you are paying for. Nonetheless, I am a serial helper and am not used to people waiting on me. That said, it was nice at that point to just concentrate on riding and socializing, just a change of pace, figuratively and literally.

After my “rest day” with Steve I was ready for more riding. It took a few more days of riding at a fairly chill pace as I started to feel less fatigued and on the third day (my 9th day riding) my body kind of woke up. The legs did not feel heavy and I was spending much more time out of the saddle on the hills and generally outpacing my tour mates pretty easily. I basically had recovered from my “depth of despair” point on day 5 into Burlington, which was in sharp contrast with the rest of the group starting to enter their own “depth of despair” period. Fortunately, much of the riding was at your own pace as one has to do in hilly terrain with different fitness levels, kinds of bikes and associated gearing. Also, a forte of mine (if I have one on the bike) is descending, especially on gravel, so I often would get pretty far ahead. But that was fun as I was able to stop and get pictures and of the rest of the group ascending and descending. What narcissistic cyclist doesn’t like pictures of themselves? I certainly do.

The weather was really nice for most of this part of the trip, cool at night, fairly warm and humid during the days and there was only a little rain at night until the 5th day. The night before was our one schedule stay at an inn (Warren Lodge on VT 100 right near the entrance to Sugarbush) and a dinner out a restaurant both which were a nice change of pace, especially being able to put your feet down when getting up in the middle of the night! As I mentioned, by that point everyone was feeling a bit fatigued so when it was forecast to rain all of the 5th day, the group made the decision to call it a “0” and do some sightseeing in Stowe and a nice lunch at a brewery that Charles and I had been to earlier in the week but was closed, followed by a stop at Ben & Jerrys for an ice cream. In addition, we decided to stay one more night at the Warren Lodge and modify the last day’s route to include the iconic (and hard!) Lincoln Gap. While it was nice to just hang out on that day (I got some new bar tape at the local bike shop as mine started to disintegrate), it was a little boring (I’m just not a sightseer) and I would have been fine with riding, especially if it were accomplishing some goal of getting somewhere (like day 5). I thought about doing a ride that day, but just riding around in a circle in the rain just to ride seemed silly, so I let inertia get the best of me and just went with the flow.

The last day was a bit truncated but included Lincoln Gap, which had a lot of 20% grades, but at least it was paved as neither bikes nor vehicles would have any traction at that grade on gravel. Scott and I struck out ahead of the group as I wanted to do some more miles. He suggested towards the end of the ride that I also do Middlebury Gap (something we skipped on the rain day) as it was just a detour of the last day’s route. I’m glad I was able to do that as it’s a pretty historic part of Vermont made famous by Robert Frost, including the namesake Robert Frost National Forest, just east of Ripton VT, incidentally a place my parents had spent time in as my father’s college bestie’s family had a farmhouse there. We ended the day in Middlebury, packed the bikes on the van and drove to the Zero Gravity Brewery in Burlington for a post tour celebratory beverage(s); it was just a touch too long to ride, given people’s departure schedules.

Upon returning to Burlington we picked up Charles’ car and headed to Steve’s house for the evening and had a nice dinner in Burlington. The next day we packed up leisurely, bid Steve adieu and drove to my sister’s in Boston in time for her and Hans’ anniversary party. It was awesome that the timing happened to work out to finish the tour and get there in time. The next day I departed for the last part of the journey.

That’s an over of Part 2. If you are interested in the day by day routes and rides, read on, but if not, move on to Part 3, the “Tour De Family” through southeastern New England.

Day 7

Strava Track: https://www.strava.com/activities/9508704900

Saturday after leaving Steve’s I rode up to the Mallets Bay Campground (yet another RV park) to meet Scott, Jayne and David the three Discovery folks as they were also camping there. Charles rolled in about the same time I got there. We pitched tents, socialized a bit and Charles and I went to a nearby pub for some dinner as the Discovery folks were getting some takeout and we wanted to sit in and have a few beers.

Sunday we work early, got packed up and Scott and I rode back downtown where the tour officially started. Charles drove his car to a long term parking lot while Jayne and David to the van and picked up the rest of the tour guests. Since I was in the mode of packing all my stuff with me and the first day route was pretty easy, I just carried all my gear.

The route pretty much unwound part of the last part of my trip to Burlington going east and then a bit north to the Little River State Park Campground.

Day 8

Strava Track: https://www.strava.com/activities/9519055652

There was a lot of climbing and several breweries, a great way to spend my 62nd birthday! The climb up to the von Trapp (yes, that family) Brewery was a really tough gravel climb. Monday night we stayed at Elmore State Park.

Day 9

Strava Track: https://www.strava.com/activities/9520971736

This was the most remote with some of the most awesome views of Vermont lakes. Yet another day sans cell service!

Tuesday night we stayed at a Hipcamp site in Woodbury and they had the “best” electrical set up!

Day 10

Strava Track: https://www.strava.com/activities/9527180514

We again rode through Montpelier (which has cleaned up a lot in a week!). When I rode into Montpelier, I didn’t realize how steep the descent into town was until we had to climb out going the other way! We finally hit some nice gravel and stopped at the Old West Church to see inside. It’s 200 years old this year and it was cool that it was open for passers by to come in and see it.

The big items on tap after that was the final climb over Roxbury Gap that was a 2 mile or so gravel climb at +/- 10%. On the lead up to it a few of us were talking – the other two were on a e-MTB and the sweet Scott e-gravel bike – about battery management during this trip and not sure how it came up but I think I challenged them to a race to the end because they had been less than efficient with their battery usage. It ended up being about 10 miles with 3 rolling, 2 up and 5 down. The question was which would prevail, man or machine? My strategy was to limit loss uphill and gain on the descents since that is a skill of mine. As long as I could keep them in sight I knew I could catch them on the down. They eventually got out of sight (a good tactic) but I was careful not to take the bait and kept being as efficient as possible. But when we got to the steep part of the climb I thought I was beaten as I was only making about 2 mph uphill. But I did pass the guy on the e-MTB with a blown battery but did not see the guy on the e-gravel bike. I ripped the descent and finally saw him in the distance and passed him with 2 miles to go! The informal race made a ball buster of a climb interesting. A dip in the Mad River behind the Warren Lodge at the end felt great as did the aforementioned putting your feet down getting out of bed.

Day 11

Strava Track: None, no riding!

This was the “0” day. We played tourist in Stowe, then went to lunch at Lost Nation Brewery, an ice cream at Ben & Jerrys and a trip to the bike shop for some bar tape and a trip. We stayed an extra night at the Warren Lodge.

Day 12

Strava Track: https://www.strava.com/activities/9538165973

After a day off I was again antsy to get riding, so rolled as soon as we were all prepped. There was a bit of road riding on VT 100 and I ended up rolling off the front with Scott. We eventually got to some really nice rolling gravel and then to Lincoln Gap. It’s steep and there were some false flats that let you get a short respite for a few pedal strokes, but the last 1/3 of a mile or so was relentless at easily 20%. Eventually, I had to paperboy it even with my 36×42 gearing and none of my gear. There is no way I could have ridden this with my full rig, I’d have had to walk most of it for sure. Scott powered up on his e-MTB to grab a few pictures and enjoyed the descent but it was steep and technical requiring a lot of brakes, especially as it turned back to Gravel.

We were way far ahead of the rest of the group and when we came to the junction in Ripton so we both turned up towards Middlebury Gap for some extra miles. Scott went as far as the National Park and I kept going towards the the top with a “drop dead turnaround” time in mind in order to get back to the end of the route in Middlebury around the same time as the group. I beat my turnaround time by about 10 minutes. This climb at 8% or so felt quite easy after the prior 20% climb! I took a few pictures at the top and really ripped the descent because it was not technical (swoopy turns, no brakes) and eventually rejoined the route that kept descending along the Middlebury River all the way into Middlebury. I got there about in the middle of the group. Once we were all there, we changed, loaded up the bikes and drove to Burlington for the final post tour cheers at Zero Gravity Brewing.