Biking in Burlington, VT

[type2sam]

All,

Heading up to Burlington (South Hero to be exact) with my crue in late September. Looking for rental placing/riding recommendations that are somewhere between the carriage roads of Acadia and the D2R2.

What does the hive mind suggest?

TIA!

[lucieli]

The Green Mountain Gravel Growler may be worth a look. We really enjoyed riding the Island Line Trail from Burlington to South Hero last year. Same trip we also rode a section of the LVRT, the Stowe Recreation path and the northern section of the Northern Rail Trail. Looking forward to returning this year.

[type2sam]

Thanks! The Gravel Growler is something we've got on the bucket list for a subset of this group of guys and we did the Stowe Recreation Path in 2021 (stayed in a house across from the Alchemist Beer Hall).

[type2sam]

Going to throw a non-bike question in here as well. Couple of us are interested in renting a sailboat...catamaran preferred. All I can find is chartered options. Any local knowledge here?

[buddybikes]

Get up into southern Quebec, lot of fun. French cafe's, wineries, French speaking people. Saves a trip overseas

[bmeryman]

Plenty of amazing dirt to ride here! I am about 15 minutes south of Burlington and happy to provide routes of varying lengths, difficulty, and terrain in the area. Happy to be a guide for a ride or two as well.

I'll ask around regarding the boat rental and see if anyone I know has any tips.

Feel free to send me a PM and we can exchange info. September is possibly the best time to ride here!

[NHAero]

I did the Growler in June 2022 and happy to provide any info that might be useful.

[benb]

I would also recommend the trail out to North Hero but you need to verify the bike ferry is running or it’s hard to get onto the island.

If the ferry is running it can be pretty amazing to do a VT+islands+NY loop where you take the Burlington and Cumberland head ferries to connect across the lake. On the NY side you get to ride past Ausable chasm as well.

A lot of the gravel on the islands has now been paved.

[type2sam]

Tons of great ideas! Thanks y'all!

[hypnos]

My daughter will soon be moving to Burlington for a two year Rheumatology fellowship, so I will be following this thread closely. I have a week off in August and plan to spend most of it in VT.

[November Dave]

Re: the sailing, it's going to be tough to find a catamaran but Community Sailing is right downtown and does rentals -https://communitysailingcenter.org/rentals-storage/rental-procedures/

[benb]

The sailing is absolutely amazing on Lake Champlain. Growing up my dad had a sailboat for a while. He got interested in motorboats which I have never understood. I have a lot of fond memories of sailing up there. There is still a Sunfish in the family I can borrow from time to time when I'm up there.

Back 15 years ago or so when I took a bunch of lessons in Boston I looked but there wasn't much up in VT that was very reasonable. The clubs cost as much or more than Boston and had almost the same requirements which wasn't great for just visiting.

It's a big lake and if you're sailing out of Burlington it can be hairy in smaller boats if you don't know what you're doing. By the time you're into a big enough boat that it can deal with the "broad lake" you're into something that is big enough and expensive enough the clubs put some barriers up to make sure you know what you're doing.

My parent's place was in the enclosed area between Grand Isle/South Hero and Mallett's Bay. That enclosed area is much easier to manage in a dinghy sized boat that is easily rented. The breakwater formed by the bike path, Island, and Road drop the waves down and make it much more manageable. As soon as you leave that area the waves can be pretty big and the lake is so big the wind can easily go above the max ratings of those super fun little boats.

Re: Community Sailing a lot of days the Sonar would be worth the extra money sailing out of their location.

[merlinmurph]

Originally Posted by November Dave

Re: the sailing, it's going to be tough to find a catamaran but Community Sailing is right downtown and does rentals -https://communitysailingcenter.org/rentals-storage/rental-procedures/

What he said.

I'm not local, but we spend a week or two in S. Hero every year now with our trailer. I swung by this place last year because I was curious about renting a sailboat and it sounded pretty easy - you do not need to be a member. I never rented.

Riding in the immediate area is kinda limited and can get repetitive after a few rides. Stay along the shore roads, go up to Isle La Motte, bike path, etc. As others have mentioned, if you're willing to drive a bit, gravel riding can be excellent, because well, VT.

Enjoy.

[benb]

There's lots of good riding but you're generally getting out of Burlington and then heading in a direction and then looping back to Burlington. The area in general shines a lot brighter when you have time for a 50-100 mile ride. If you only have time for a 20 mile ride you're just not leaving the built up area very much. And the paved part of the bike path is nothing special, it gets busy like every other bike path and it's not that wide or smooth.

The city itself isn't that great to bike around although it has pretty decent hills for a small city. Lots of dangerous traffic, but it also takes next to no time to ride across the busy area since the city is not very big.

But it is very quick to ride out to Winooski, Colchester, or Essex Junction, and then from there you are very quickly on beautiful rural roads.

Another one I did frequently is to leave from Colchester and head to to Chimney Corners/Milton and then head out to the islands that way. Then do a loop around Grand Isle and come back and it ends up ~50 miles. And very pretty.

There are some good spots to drive to and leave from there, Stowe is great obviously, but so are some areas down by Hinesburg, etc.. where you can loop through some of the mountain passes.

It is really hard for me to get up there now. My wife is also from the area but for some reason really doesn't like going up there anymore.

[merlinmurph]

Originally Posted by benb

There's lots of good riding but you're generally getting out of Burlington and then heading in a direction and then looping back to Burlington.

He's staying in S. Hero..... ;-)