The tour started in Stowe on Sunday evening, where we met the two tour leaders and the other people crazy enough to vacation in this manner. It was absolutely
pouring rain down in buckets, which is good because we didn’t ride the first day. So the recap is as follows: Monday morning we rolled out ridiculously early to head to Montpelier, which was about 38 miles of back roads away. Monday and Tuesday night we stayed at the
Inn at Montpelier, which was really nice (and the rooms had TVs that got the Tour de France coverage, yay). Tuesday we did a 36-mile loop from Montpelier through a few minuscule towns and lots of fabulous countryside, hills and bucolic settings galore. Here’s a shot of a friendly goat—no moose spottings, though.
Wednesday we packed up again and headed from Montpelier to the
Highland Lodge in Greensboro, about 33 miles away. There was a damn serious hill we had to slog up to get to Greensboro, let me tell you. Actually, the day started with a miserable hill but I took the van for the first three miles. Hey, the van is there, why not take advantage! Swami took the macho route and sweated up the hill. Thursday was a loop from Greensboro that included a visit to a little town called Marshfield, where there is hidden a totally awesome pastry shop and cafe called Rainbow Sweets (see photo below). Best damn spanakopita I have ever had. I cut that day’s riding a little short at 23.4 miles, and Swami did about 33 just to show off. That gave us a little time to check out Caspian Lake, a beautiful blue lake just across the road from the Lodge. (Somehow I neglected to photograph the lake, whoops! But
here’s one by someone else, and
here’s a site with a lot of cool aerial photos.)
On the last day, even before I got out of bed I could hear some ominous rumbling outside. And a peek out the window revealed some seriously black clouds. But hey, there’s breakfast to get before we have to worry about the weather. During breakfast we got to experience a pretty spectacular mountainside storm: first we noticed that we couldn’t see the lake anymore, then we noticed that we couldn’t see the road just outside the lodge. In a final dramatic flourish, the power went out. Fortunately the breakfast food had already been cooked—at that point I was guarding my potential calories pretty intently! Although as time went on, it was looking unclear whether we’d even get a final day’s ride at all—riding in the rain is doable, but not in a ridiculous thunderstorm. But either by van or by bike we were heading back to Stowe, because it was checkout time.
Finally after breakfast the sky cleared, and we started to get our stuff together. Everybody’s luggage got loaded in the van, and a couple of people who were fed up with cycling got in as well and started back to Stowe. Then, as Swami and I were headed to the shed to get our bikes, another storm blew up and stranded us in the shed for about 20 minutes. Were we going to end up riding or not? Weirdly, after four straight days in the saddle I was feeling like I needed another!
Fortunately the storm did blow through and for some reason the tour leaders thought it would be okay if we got on the bikes. So ride we did, kicking up spray and generally getting wet and gritty. And the rain did stay off in the distance, for the whole 32.6 miles back to Stowe.
Back in Stowe it was time for a quick shower and packing up. A huge storm squall even washed the bikes clean on top of the car on the drive back (although it was actually a damn scary trip—at one point we even had to get off the interstate because there were tree branches coming down around us and it was decidedly Not Safe). But overall it was a great week and I’m proud that I survived. I didn’t even take any painkillers and I still have full use of my legs! On the other hand, sitting at my desk at work doesn’t seem like such a bad thing at this point. Anyone up for a ride next weekend?
