Showing posts with label Vermont. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vermont. Show all posts

Monday, January 7, 2019

Taconicked: Day One, Vermont to Rhode Island Adventure Ride


How far can you get on trails?  That’s the burning question that has motivated my bike adventures for the better part of two years now:  The Kingdom Sampler, Boston to Northampton, Southern NH Overnighter, the Trunkline Adventure, and the Big Dirty South ride. All iterations of the same goal: get as far as I can using as little road as possible.

Saturday, November 11, 2017

A Kingdom Sampler: Bikepacking Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom


Brandon and I were running out of daylight. Miles short of our goal, we pushed our bikes through dense forest and around jagged rocks, lifting them over blowdowns on a barely visible trail that seemed more a figment of my imagination than reality. I had been nervous about this scenario all day- and now my fears were materializing. We were hitting the most difficult section of the day at precisely the wrong time. The thick woods were closing in around us, further choking out what little light remained in the gray skies above. Just as I began to consider retreating to the road we crested out of gully and my perspective changed completely.

Friday, September 23, 2016

Moosalamoo's Leicester Hollow & Chandler Ridge Loop (August 2016)

Sun, bike, singeltrack and water: a winning combination.
"Just beware of the stinging nettles."  Those were the words of Chas, co-owner of Frog Hollow Bikes in Middlebury after recommending that I check out Leicester Hollow/Chandler Ridge loop in Moosalamoo National Recreation Area.

I'm no stranger to brambles, having stumbled through more than my fair share of bushes over the years.  I regularly fished for baseballs in rasberry bushes wearing only shorts and a t-shirt when knee high socks and parachute pants were all the rage.  Heck, you'll still find me waist high in thickets of prickers looking for hidden singletrack.  I've picked more thorns out of my body and cursed more burdock than I care to remember.   So a warning about "stinging nettles" didn't phase me, until he repeated with any hint of a smile now gone from his face: "Really, watch out for those stinging nettles."

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Prime Time and a Return to Ascutney (August 2015)

Mt. Ascutney
These are good days to be a mountain biker in New England. Trail networks are popping up like Republican presidential candidates.  From Stowe, VT to Charlemont, MA communities are embracing mountain biking and pouring resources into building and improving trails.  

But is more always better?  And does trail building equal improvement or progress?

Friday, February 20, 2015

Lincoln Gap and the Last Truffula Tree

I speak for your trees? 
I spend a lot of time contemplating my legacy while bottle feeding my four month old daughter. The enthusiasm with which she takes nourishment and rewards the world with giggles and poop is refreshing, and inspiring. To kill time between feedings, we read a lot of Zen buddhist literature taught by a giant panda bear. When I'm feeling particularly leftist-philosophical, I crack open The Lorax. She's learning a lot about social responsibility, and I've been thinking a lot all the bad things I did to Lincoln Gap.

Monday, December 15, 2014

Thanksgiving: Turkey, Football and Lincoln Gap


In what has quickly become a Thanksgiving tradition.  I made a trip up to Lincoln Gap to sample the powdery goods that the closed Lincoln Gap road has to offer.


Monday, September 22, 2014

Green Mountain Trails and The Fourth Lap


Coolest. Medal. Evar.
It happened in an instant.  My wandering mind had led to a wandering front tire and the rain soaked bridge was offering no quarter and no forgiveness.  In the blink of an eye I was over the handlebars- hurtling face first into the abyss.  I could only close my eyes and pray for a soft landing.  But I deserved no mercy.  After all, this was all my own doing.  Despite my exhaustion, the pouring rain, the chilly September air and the mud seeping into every crevasse of my clothes and bike-- I had chosen to do another lap.  My fourth lap.  And I had to earn it.

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Blueberry Lake Trails: First World Problems

I'm getting really fed up with the beautiful scenery too.
This is getting ridiculous.  It's getting harder and harder these days to go anywhere in Vermont where you can pull your bike off the back of your car and not land on some fantastic singletrack.


Thursday, January 3, 2013

Trip Report: Lincoln Gap 12.28.12









If you're anything like me you'll spend most of your workday this Friday pawing through satellite images, psychoanalyzing canopy density, speculating on tree species and forest age, tracing shadow length and slope grade, and generally looking for the perfect backcountry tour. But before you do, burn this image into your mind. This is what the world's most perfectly spaced hardwood glade looks like. From the ground up.

If, by some stroke of luck, you can actually learn to read the signs and find yourself guessing right and standing some place that looks a little like this, there's a very good chance you will be somewhere in central Vermont, just south of Lincoln Gap Road.

Friday, December 21, 2012

Uphill Report from Pico: 38 Degree POW



I may be a GED legal-beagle when it comes to public land use lawyering, but I make up for it by being a semi-professional weatherman when it comes to picking amazing ski tours to do on apocalyptic end-of-Mayan-calendar days like today.

In a world of climatic uncertainty, at least one thing was guaranteed. There was no way I was going to let the end of days pass me by without skiing one last time, low pressure front and 38 degree air be damned.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Vermont Uphill Skiing Policies

Us
Them

Being from biking circles I always thought the term 'randonèe' referred to a bunch of aging fat nutters who pretend a weekend ride from Paris to Brest and back (or, Boston-Montreal-Boston) constitutes some sort of race. Only when Andy took the term on as part of his web-Avatar did I become aware that randonèe refers also to a bunch of young super fit nutters who like to race up random Alps (almost always in France) on skinny short skis and whiz back down again.

I'd never seen it in action until one fateful day last winter.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Kmart Special: Ski the Skiddies for Free

A rare shot of Killington without hundreds of
human cannonballs overhead

Two days ago the New York Times reported that the ski industry was dead. And the Times is almost never wrong. Everyone but me remembers what they did to disco. And maybe Donna Summers too. But skiing? Not on my watch you leftist tree-humping pessimists. Not when mankind can harness the power of dead dinosaurs to pump millions of gallons of reclaimed sewage water into sub 32 degree air, to freeze before it falls like concrete onto the logging and fire road wastelands of America's ski areas.

And this magical phenomenon is even more appropriate when you consider how much manmade snow in a bad snow year makes a mountain look like a pile of s#it with streaks of white skiddies all over it. A white ribbon of death from your a@%.

Luckily I'm within driving distance of the cradle of s#itty man-made skiing, and this morning I rose extra early to find out for myself if the rumors were true. It's been years since I've violated that sacred oath that every Vermont grade schooler takes daily before the pledge of allegiance. To never, ever, not even for a million dollars ski at Killington. Would the ski gods ever forgive me?

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Five Favorites Countdown (#5- Camel's Hump)

Camel's Hump
November has me eyeing the stationary trainer again with a mix of disdain and desperation.  The weather has turned grey and rainy.  I've eaten all the leftover Halloween candy and  crashed off of a three week sugar high.  It is time to go to my happy place where I relive five of our favorite backcountry ski tours.  Come live in the past with us for a while.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

November Is Thin Cover Month

Baldface showing a little stubble.

Just like the thin cover of creepy facial hair that sweeps across men's faces in November, so too is the terrain transformed by a thin cover of snow.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Pre-Season Stoke: Burke Mountain's East Bowl

My favorite trail sign of all time.
The pre-season is fast becoming "the season" as ski areas have been opening around New England.  Killington, Sugarloaf, Stowe and Sunday River all have the guns firing and lifts running.  Others are soon to follow.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Bolton Backcountry Fundraiser This Wednesday (11/07/2012)


If you're a fan of the Bolton Backcountry, like we are, here's your opportunity to make sure those lands remain accessible to the public.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

CircumBurke 2012

The course map. Of course.


Twenty four miles.  Three thousand feet of climbing.  Bridgeless stream crossings. A soul-crushing twelve-hundred foot, three and a half mile 7% grade climb straight out of the starting gate.  Speeds approaching 30 mph down a glorified streambed covered with leaves.  Twisty singletrack up the side of a mountain that makes FOMBA look like an airport runway.  And let’s not forget the half-dozen or so mud pits big enough to make your redneck friends build a bonfire, buy a case of beer and make a mess of their favorite truck.

These are the foes that line up to do battle with your psyche when you step up to the start of the CircumBurke ride. 

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

-Trip Report- Mt. Hor, VT: Insert Inappropriate Remark Here (February 2012)

Gered ponders whether he can freeclimb a granite wall with tele skis.
If you look out from the mid-mountain lodge at Burke, you can see an immense crack between two mountains where Lake Willoughby is located. Let me tell you the story of that crack's Hor.

Monday, January 23, 2012

-Trip Report- Lincoln Gap Road: Backcountry Groomer Lemonade (January 2012)

I did not use the low gear.

It seems like every place you take your skis in New England, you’ll hear this year’s catchphrase “If we could just get a little more snow...”

Sick of thinking about what “could be”, I decided to take my thin cover lemons and make some backcountry lemonade at Lincoln Gap in Vermont this past weekend.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Millstone Hill Trails: The Video

It looks like mountain biking weather for another weekend, so in celebration (okay consolation) I put together a video from my recent trip to Millstone Hill with Brad.


Note that Brad was riding a suspension-less singlespeed that day.  He deserves some sort of trophy.

According to the Millstone management, this is the last weekend that the trails are open.  So get out and enjoy them while you still can!