Vermonster 2017 - Day 4

The final day was the downhill day. Look at the route profile at the bottom of the page and you'll see what I mean. Sadly after surviving all the climbing on day 3, Kait's stomach rebelled overnight and she felt too sick to ride and called for rescue.

So we were down to four.

Unusual for us, we did have a brief climb at the start, but this helped warm us up as it had gone quite chilly overnight.

But then we got to coast along for hours... Well not really, the guys hammered downhill!

Vermonster 2017 - Day 3

Day 3 started with a chilly descent, because we always end the day with a big climb.  And what goes up must come down.  No fear though, we warmed up quickly on a long steep climb, because what goes down...

And this pattern would repeat over and over throughout the day.

When SadiB, my alter-ego on ridewithgps mapped out the day, it was clear that it would be a tough one. I had wanted to take a more westerly route than last year, but the trick was to find a place to stay within a reasonable distance from Woodstock. A friend has a place near Prospect Mountain, but every route I came up with to go there was too long and also involved more main roads than I'd like. At some point, while scanning the map, I realized Mount Snow was a reasonable distance. As a ski resort, we might have some hope of finding reasonably priced accommodations in October. Sure enough I found a B&B that had a large room that could take 5 people for not a lot of money. John and I had ridden all around the area before and had a few must-do roads both north and south of Mt. Snow, so I mapped out the final two days as one route, taking in roads we knew with just a few new-to-us sections. The climbing ratio was the typical 100 feet per mile. So it seemed a 75 mile day would be long, but doable.

However when Kait broke it up into the individual days, she pointed out that 75 mile day had well over 9000 feet of climbing.  It should have been obvious to me since ski resorts are on top of mountains.  At least the next day would have a lot of downhill! Since Kait expressed so much concern about this day, I jokingly subtitled the route - Kill Kait.

Vermonster 2017 - Day 2

Vermonster continues, now with 8 riders. Dave and Nancy planned to join us for one day. They had just returned from a tour in Japan, and had literally reassembled their bikes the night before. Injury had prevented Nancy from riding last year, but this year she planned to take advantage of her fitness from the recent tour.

Daniel joined Kait and Caleb on the train up Friday night. They had a mild evening to enjoy a short but hilly ride from Montpelier up to Waitsfield.

The route profile for the roads John, Jamie and I took from Burlington looked pretty benign, meaning we all had relatively fresh legs.

But now we would face some proper (SadiB) Vermonster terrain, rolling up and down along a ridge, before a climb to the highest elevation for the weekend, then a long fast descent followed by some choppy climbs to finish the day. Now I am allowed to say this, today, a month and a half after the trip. At least we had better weather than last year! So  folks could enjoy the magnificent views along the ridge, and have fun playing with cute farm animals.

This section of the route was suggested by Dave. It was a bit rougher than the pristine dirt roads SadiB had picked, but it served to properly break in Daniel's brand new bike. When you have a new bike, you need a good story for the first scratch.

Vermonster 2017 - Day 1

The memories of 2016 Vermonster remain seared in Kait's memory - in a PTSD sort of way. I'm sure she still wakes in a cold sweat reliving nightmares from that weekend.

Last year, we crested Rochester Gap in pouring rain with temperatures hovering around freezing. At the top we found 2 feet of snow lining the roadside.  We then had about 10 miles of descending in these conditions. When we arrived in Bethel, we were wet and 80% frozen and in serious need of some hot food and a chance to dry out. Luckily we stumbled into a café where we ordered anything and everything that was hot and attempted to dry our soaked gloves with a full  roll of paper towels. After an hour, we had filled the void in our bellies and thawed just enough to head back out to ride another 30 miles. This day will stay with all of us for a long, long time. It will be the standard by which we judge misery. It is also our badge of honor. After surviving that, we know we we can get through anything.

Despite that still-raw-memory, we were all quite eager to do Vermonster again this year, including PTSD sufferer, Kait. We had new folks who even after seeing the photos and hearing our horror stories, still wanted to join us.  We had hoped to pick a date earlier in October, but due to various scheduling issues, we selected the 3rd weekend of October.

It is amazing what a difference one week makes.

Where last year's photos showed us all wearing winter cycling boots with overshoes and woolies and rain gear and heavy gloves; this year's photos featured smiling cyclists in shorts and short sleeves. Last year's snow photos have been replaced by pictures of amazing foliage. Last year's memories of stalling inside heated cafés as long as possible were replaced outdoor coffee stops. We even got to experience peak autumn color!

The basic idea of Vermonster was the same as the first year. We'd take the Amtrak Vermonter train to the northern reaches of civilization, and then ride home, sticking to as many dirt roads as possible. Just like last year, we faced a limit of three bikes per train, so our group had to travel up on two separate days. Hopefully Vermont tourism can work with Amtrak to make bike travel a bit less hassle in the future.

It seems to vary according to the humor of the conductors whether bikes can be rolled on and parked as pictured above. The official policy is that one has to use a special bike compartment with just one of these per car. IMNSHO, these compartments are poorly designed, requiring the removal of the front wheel, potentially damaging a front fender, requiring one to lift the bike and taking much more time loading and unloading. It would be much better use of the space as pictured above, where 3 or 4 bikes take barely more space than one bike in the compartment. Since the wheels remain on, the bikes are quickly rolled on and then off, and gear can stay on the bike.  And with 4 bikes per car, we could have 12 cyclists travel on the same train, rather than 3 one day and 3 another. This is twice as many folks staying in local hotels or B&Bs, twice as many cyclists eating at cafés in small towns along the route and twice as many cyclists buying Vermont souvenirs. So, ahem, Vermont tourism and Amtrak, if you are reading this... please let's make this process better.

But enough complaining about Amtrak. On to our trip.

Vermonster - Day 4 - what is that bright thing in the sky?

The final day of our four day tour left us wanting for more. More of this blue sky and sunshine, for sure. This was the weather we had hoped to have for the whole trip. But then the story wouldn't have been as interesting and the trip wouldn't have been as memorable!

We packed up and rolled out of our Airbnb and headed into Putney. Our first stop of the day was at the Co-op to get some (excellent) breakfast. Despite the second "B" in the name Airbnb, breakfast isn't part of the deal, due to regulations!

So it was into town for breakfast sandwiches and coffee. While waiting for our sandwiches, I took the time to do what I should have done the day before. I pulled out my iPad, remapped a section of route and reloaded it onto my GPS. One of the cool things about the Wahoo Elemnt GPS is you can wirelessly load routes from online tools like RideWithGPS. So while the Wahoo is missing the critical panning feature that makes changing your route on the fly easier, I have used the ability to alter a route online (mid-ride) using my tiny iPad and then re-upload to the Wahoo on more than one occasion, most notably when the original route proved too busy, or after taking a detour to somewhere interesting and then not wanting to backtrack. In this case, it was to avoid backtracking after breakfast.

Vermont is known for its covered bridges and we had several on each day. I'd like to say I planned to hit the ones we did, but it's actually hard not to see lots of them in Vermont.

Vermonster - Day 3 - I'm not certain the road I mapped out is really a road

We woke to the sound of silence. This was a good thing. There was no noise from rain or icy sleet on the roof. After checking the morning forecast, it seemed that we might actually get lucky. A milder day was predicted. Of course at this stage, I didn't have a whole lot of faith in weather forecasts, so don't ask me why I trusted this one!

And while we might have a hope of milder weather, it would definitely not be an easier day. Our route planner, SadiB, had plenty of great dirt climbs mapped out for us, with one very special climb, planned for right after lunch, just in case we needed extra help warming up again!

Vermonster - Day 2 - A Day for Badasses

Remember the soundtrack that plays when you are watching a scary film and you find yourself screaming out loud to the foolish person who is about to open the door, "Turn around!  Get back into the house!  Don't you know what's waiting outside?  Do NOT open that door!"

So, now that we've established the mood, let me tell you about Day 2 of our Vermonster ride.

When we left off, our six protagonists had turned in for the night, dreaming of good fortune, believing the worst of the weather was behind them.

Yes, there was snow on the ground, but Day 2 was to be an improvement on Day 1 and Day 1 really hadn't turned out that badly.

(Music from Law and Order - dun, dah, dun)

Vermonster - Training and Day 1

Back in the last century (I love saying that), skiers and cyclists could use the Amtrak Vermonter to travel with their bikes and skis from Washington, D.C. and points north so they could ski and cycle in various spots throughout Vermont. Sadly, after 9/11, the Vermonter removed its baggage car with little fanfare or publicity. I say "with little fanfare," because John and I only discovered the discontinuation of the bike service as we were planning a bike touring trip in Vermont in 2006. We had planned to cycle to Brattleboro and take the train to the northern terminus in St. Albans and then cycle back home to eastern Massachusetts. Unhappily, when I called to book our tickets, I learned we could not take the bikes after all. Don't ask me how removing a baggage car on a train to Vermont prevents terrorism! So instead of a trip covering the length of Vermont, we set out from home and did a round trip bike tour into southern Vermont. Have I mentioned that we did not own a car at the time?

The benefit of a remote start is skipping out on some of the nearby stuff we have ridden a million times already and it allows us to cover more ground farther afield. So, while we were bummed to miss getting into northern Vermont, we took the opportunity to ride areas in the south that we hadn't explored before. And it was an amazing trip. As a bonus, we happened to meet two ladies along the way with whom we have become best friends. We have biked together on numerous weekends ever since and taken a couple of trips overseas together also. So I am quite happy with how that trip turned out, but still hoped that someday bike travel in Vermont with Amtrak would be possible.

We have travelled with our tandem and single bikes on trains throughout Europe with ease. But in the USA -with Amtrak - ease is not the word that comes to mind. We've managed to get our coupled tandem onto the train in Eugene, Oregon, but not without a bit of hassle and warnings that there would be complaints about our lack of box from conductors at journey's end in Portland. We've also used the Downeaster service to get back to Boston from Portland, Maine, but the Downeaster baggage car disappeared earlier this year, and there is still no news on a return date. On the plus side, if you live someplace called Portland, you're in better shape than most!

As you might imagine, we were thrilled recently when roll-on bike service was announced for the Vermonter, which has a stop near our home in Greenfield. Various articles appeared in my news feeds promoting train/bike tourism in Vermont. This was set up as a trial, so we figured we should take advantage ASAP, before the trial might be terminated.

Well, loyal blog readers know that I was off in Ireland all summer, so we only got the chance to try it out this fall.

We'd heard success stories from friends in Vermont who had used the service, so we were optimistic. Then I looked on the Amtrak web site and saw that tandems were not allowed... And that only three bikes in total were allowed per train and there is only one train per day. Also bikes must be hung in a special bike cubby, with the front wheel removed, which sounded unnecessarily complicated. I surmised if we decoupled the tandem and bought two bike tickets that we could just hang each section by a wheel in an individual bike cubby. So we booked our tickets for a weekend away in mid-September. 

We planned to take the train north on Friday afternoon and then cycle back home over the next two days. However, given the mileage and just having two days with limited daylight, we decided to head for Montpelier, rather than going all the way to St. Albans. We could go up to St. Albans on a future trip.

Friday afternoon arrived and we pedalled our lightly loaded tandem the mile and a half over to the station. A short delay meant we had plenty of time to decouple the tandem as we waited on the platform. We were using a frame bag, seat pack and bar bag. We left the frame bag in place and removed the others. The tandem was also equipped with lights and fenders. 

The conductor was not happy with us and didn't see the humor in our claim of two touring unicycles when telling us that tandems aren't allowed. Surely the reason for this is the length. Since we'd decoupled and paid for two bikes, it seemed reasonable to me to allow these two bike parts. He let us on, but not without major grumbling on his part. 

Once on the train, the first thing we discovered when trying to make use of the bike cubby is that the hooks are tiny, and will not accommodate even mildly fat tires. Ours were 50mm. Don't think of bringing your fat bike or even your mountain bike. It is not going to fit! I don't know what they are thinking. No mountain bikes or fat bikes in Vermont? Really?