Gravel Routes Around Burlington?

[ridethecliche]

I'm going to be in BTV over labor day weekend for a wedding. I'll be staying at smuggs with a friend and we're bringing our bikes to get some riding in during the day saturday, sunday, and before checkout and our ride home on monday.

Does anyone have any suggestion for gravel rides in the area? I think we're hoping for 2-4ish hour ride options. We're probably going to be more in 'enjoy the view mode' vs 'ride like hell mode'. I don't think we're going to be trying to get too crazy with the underbiking.

Would love to see what folks recommend.

[tellyho]

Bikepacking.com has a good list of trips in VT that could be a reference when building rides:

https://bikepacking.com/locations/vermont/

[smontanaro]

Komoot might have some routes. You can filter by road surface, distance, expertise, etc.

[NHAero]

Originally Posted by tellyho

Bikepacking.com has a good list of trips in VT that could be a reference when building rides:

https://bikepacking.com/locations/vermont/

Two years ago I rode the Green Mountain Gravel Growler route, and Angry joined me on Day 2 from Burlington to Morrisville. Good riding! And Lost Nation Brewing in Morrisville got two thumbs up!

[morrisericd]

I'd stop at Bootlegger Bikes in Jeffersonville and get some local info. They have a bunch of rides on their site. Great shop!

https://bootleggerbikes.com/pages/local-routes

Here's the local Stowe Gravel World's route we do. If you start at Trapps, you can go into their Biergarten at the end of your ride for a well deserved beer.

https://www.strava.com/routes/3263112548673364854

Tons of great gravel and road on either side of the Notch!

[ridethecliche]

So much awesome info here!

Thank you.

[verticaldoug]

https://gravelmap.com/map#_=9.24/44.3907/-73.0117

knock yourself out.

I might drop down to Sugarbush forLincoln and App Gap. (two of the 6 gap)
Lincoln descent is gravel. Two really nice climbs in my opinion.

[.RJ]

Having spent a little bit of time in Vermont - you may want to be mindful of elevation as you plot your route, and the only flat(ish) land seems to be west of the green mountains or along a river and there are 500-1000ft climbs pretty much any direction.

Most of the roads are really good but there are plenty that are basically rocky jeep track, singletrack or "closed" - I'm not sure if those are well indicated on the gravel maps, but the last time I tried using the strava routing tool there it had a real knack for picking up every single one of them which wasnt great on 38mm tires.

The gravel riding and scenery is absolutely world class though.

[NHAero]

Originally Posted by .RJ

Having spent a little bit of time in Vermont - you may want to be mindful of elevation as you plot your route, and the only flat(ish) land seems to be west of the green mountains or along a river and there are 500-1000ft climbs pretty much any direction.

Most of the roads are really good but there are plenty that are basically rocky jeep track, singletrack or "closed" - I'm not sure if those are well indicated on the gravel maps, but the last time I tried using the strava routing tool there it had a real knack for picking up every single one of them which wasnt great on 38mm tires.

The gravel riding and scenery is absolutely world class though.

Good point about the jeep roads!
The town-maintained dirt roads (not gravel in New England) are often better than pavement in a lot of places. I rode the Growler with 650Bx38 slicks, and heck, much of these roads could have been ridden with 25s!

[.RJ]

Originally Posted by NHAero

The town-maintained dirt roads (not gravel in New England) are often better than pavement in a lot of places. I rode the Growler with 650Bx38 slicks, and heck, much of these roads could have been ridden with 25s!

Yep. I took my wife who really hates any sort of gravel or off road on a few rides on 30mm tires and she was totally fine.

[XXtwindad]

Originally Posted by NHAero

Good point about the jeep roads!
The town-maintained dirt roads (not gravel in New England) are often better than pavement in a lot of places. I rode the Growler with 650Bx38 slicks, and heck, much of these roads could have been ridden with 25s!

Damn that bottom pic is frame worthy!

[572cv]

Lots of good comments in the thread.

Another thing to remember, though, is that cell coverage is spotty in VT, so having a downloaded map on your phone is good, and better to have a downloaded map app that you can find yourself on with GPS. I use GuruMaps Pro. It works all over the world, even in VT.

And also as a reminder it has been a wet summer, downpours and washouts everywhere in the region, so pay close attention to the road surface to avoid loose stuff and gravel fill. Generally road surface is quite good, but you can’t be complacent this year!

[.RJ]

Green Mountain Sugar House is my pick. Nice spot on a lake to post up during a ride.

[November Dave]

Originally Posted by .RJ

Green Mountain Sugar House is my pick. Nice spot on a lake to post up during a ride.

We visited the Champlain Valley Regional Fair on Sunday (that was a trip) and had a GMSH cremee as they were on site. A+ on the consistency, A++ on maple-forwardness, B- on not having waffle cone option. Maybe this was just because they were on site at the fair, but if I'm a dedicated "in for a penny, in for a pound" maple cremee consumer. But for the cone issue, they'd have knocked our local Woodstock Scoops off the top step.

Class 4 roads are really variable in their surfaces, just be ready for anything with them. As others have said, 100 year storms are more like every 100 day events lately so things can be really torn up. A bunch of dirt roads around Essex were fine this weekend, and normally in the summer the dirt roads look more like NHAero's photos.

[NHAero]

Minor correction- the gorgeous photos are by .RJ. Mine is the portrait of the Angry Scientist