Rough outline ends in smooth ride
Vague planning leaves Vermont trip up to fate
My plan was a rough outline without details: Bike the state of Vermont from the Massachusetts border north to Canada, then take the train back to Massachusetts.
If I’d had company, I would have planned with more detail, but traveling alone, I embraced vague. For three days I would ride, eating and camping wherever I happened to be. I put myself in Vermont’s hands.
A rusted sign south of Brattleboro welcomed me to Vermont. I made mistakes in Brattleboro and continued making them. I missed turns and rode steep gravel roads that took me in the wrong direction. I also rode beautiful miles beside the West River, the water and crunch of my tires on gravel the only sounds. I ate bacchanalian lunches on the porches of general stores while being quizzed by locals about what I was doing. Many were happy and proud to learn I wanted a deeper look at their state.
After my first night camping, I woke to buzzing — a hummingbird hovered just outside my tent, investigating my yellow jacket. I drank my morning coffee in a bluetdrenched field surrounded by the Green Mountains. I smiled a lot that morning.
I rode pavement, gravel and “Vermont surprises.” The staff at Jamaica State Park wisely counseled me against riding the rocky, rooted West River Trail. There was no one to give me such wise advice after I made the long climb up Sherburne Pass. My options: the paved, scenic byway of Route 100, or something called Middle Road on the edge of the Green Mountain National Forest.
My Middle Road education came the same way I learn everything else, via the hardest possible way.
The gravel road climbs roughly 1,000 feet over two miles. There are humans who can bike up a road like that, but I am not one of them. I pushed my bike in 90-degree heat with fantasies of the downhill cruise on the other side.
At the apex of the climb was a “Class 4 Road” sign. Class 4 roads are as “Vermonty” as maple syrup and covered bridges but not as wellknown. They are unmaintained roads that the local municipality considers a trail. The sign is essentially a warning not to complain about whatever you find after the sign.
The farther north I went, the worse the road got. I lifted the bike over branches and carried it around flooded sections. There were side roads, or what I hoped were side roads. Muddy, sweating and semilost, I found the sun still shone, the birds still sang and I lived. Maybe lived more fully than usual.
It took me hours to make it just a half-dozen miles. I put on bike lights and rode through the Vermont night to make up distance before setting up my tent in the dark. Too tired to eat dinner or drink the treasured tall boy of Allagash White I’d been carrying, I slept instantly.
I woke early the next day to a fledgling light and the rushing New Haven River. I ate breakfast on a stone surrounded by wild beauty. I smiled a lot that morning too.
The morning sun was softly painting the Bristol cliffs in pink and orange when I began riding. A herd of cows stared as if it were my turn to bring them breakfast. After two steep climbs, I remembered the beer and considered its weight for the next 90 miles. I found a couple sipping coffee on their porch and the wife laughed when I told her husband to wait until noon to drink the Allagash.
My phone battery died on my final day, so I was guided by Vermonters. I rode in the hills east of Burlington with views of Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks on locally recommended roads.
Near the Canadian border, the hills were kinder or I was stronger. I rolled through open farm fields as thunder rumbled and plump raindrops fell. A couple invited me to wait out the storm on their porch. This was the story of the trip. I came for the mountains and rivers but it was the people of the state that made the journey. They offered water, bike repair, directions and shelter in a storm.
Later, I biked through an empty American checkpoint at Morses Line and stopped at the border. The Canadian point of entry is automated and travelers interact remotely with an agent someplace else while cameras scrutinize their vehicle.
The high-tech Canadian checkpoint looked as if it has been dropped by aliens, but the fields of the American side probably looked the same as when J. Morse built his general store sometime in the 1800s.
I had a room, hot meal and Allagash White waiting in St. Albans but I lingered at Morses Line to soak in the last of the details. A pair of bobolinks fluttered in fields of tall grass. The wind rose and dark clouds again appeared but the storm did not find me, so I rode the final miles in peace.