I'll probably be in Vermont first week of june for a 5 days stay with a friend. We want to do some mix surface riding (ideally more gravel than road) and I would like to do one day of mtb at Perry Hill in Waterbury. I was wondering if there's some good place to ride near Colchester/Burlington. If not, do you have any suggestion for a place to stay that would be central for good riding opportunities and not too far from Waterbury (within a 1h drive).
Lucky you, there is tons of gravel in Vermont! Take a look at the calendar on this site, that should give you some ideas. Personally, I don't like a ton of singletrack during my gravel rides, so I'd suggest looking at the Cabot Ride the Ridges course. The director posts on here under the New England page, you can check that out as well. Not too far from Waterbury, and definitely worth it.
The causeway across the lake north of Burlington is interesting. Not worth a full day, but if you’ve got a couple of hours it’s something different.
Yes! I rode there 6 or 7 years ago but with my young kids, so it was short and mellow! I really liked our time in the area. It would be fun to be close to Burlington and the lake but we might choose Waterbury surrounding as a base camp to get more riding option without too much travelling. I will have a look at those event route. I might even register eventually to one of these... I'm planing to do Paris Ancaster in Ontario in april...
You could also go park in Jonesville and follow either Wes White Hill or Dugway Road. That leads you to a bunch of riding between Hutington and Richmond (Sheman Hollow Road, Texas Hill Road, Lincoln Hill).
There's so much gravel around here and very little traffic.
How many miles are you looking to ride? Looking for the biggest hills?
If you want a real challenge, go south and hit Lincoln Gap from the east side to the west.
In reality, pretty much any dirt roads you choose, you'll be good. You can borrow a VT Gazetteer and make your own route.
Central Vt (Waterbury, Montpelier, etc) will be hilly unless you stick to out and backs along the rivers or do one of the rail trails (Lamoille or Montpelier-Wells River). It’s much flatter on the west side of the Greens. There’s a whole lot of good gravel riding within a 1 hour drive of Waterbury. I live in The Randolph area (40’ drive) and we have terrific riding around here:
Enjoy your stay in VT! I guarantee that after a few rides here, you'll want to come back! I moved to Northeastern VT a year and a half ago, and love it. A word of warning: it's hard to find a ride thats less than 100ft elev/mile. Most rides up here average 150ft elev/mile or more. It was a hard adjustment going from a 2 hour ride covering 30-32 miles, to 20 miles in 2 hours here. Unfortunately, im not familiar with Waterbury area, so cant recommend rides. Theres a great rail trail system crossing much of VT, which is the flattest riding you'll find here (check out the LVRT). If you ever find yourself in the NEK, i can definitely give you recommendations. Enjoy!
Hello there!! New to the forum, several years deep into gravel riding. My girlfriend and I ride tons of southern Vermont Gravel and bike commute in the area. If anyone needs or wants routes post up a comment.
I live over the border in NH and love the gravel in VT, ridewithGPS has tons of routes [search with gravel as the keyword or the event name]..so far I have hit Raputista long, The Overland, and the Nek 100K course [this and the raputista were hard cause I so wanted to hit the trails in the kingdom]. Unfortunately I have run out of season...and well the border to VT got shutdown for quick weekend rides. I have a dozen or so VT routes I can't wait to try in the spring...
I'm down in the Seacoast area of NH. I am really hoping for Spring to allow the states to open up a little so I have more opportunity to ride up that way. There is great riding "down" here in NH, but RAID Lamoille and Vermont Overland courses are on my list!
