26-June Burlington City Tour

Single Track.  On a Road Bike?

Next time Dennis says, “Why not? Let’s get off the main road”, just say no. The only consolation to Edwina’s first single track experience was that of the two bikes, only Dennis’ decided to take a tumble.

In his defense, when we decided to take the bike trail back….the trail named the “Cycle the City”….there was absolutely no signage that the trail would go onto dirt road; nor that the trail go to crushed limestone, but definitely no indication that the trail would peter out into 8” wide single track. Oh, and when we hit the dirt….it started to rain(*). Needless to say the bikes got a bath before we hauled them back into the hotel room.

While today’s route was planned out to be an easy 30 miler, as rains threatened we decided to cut the route short. But, several “short cuts” later and a romp down to the flood plain (yep, that single track was actually flood plain—probably explains why it got muddy so quickly in the rain) and we still managed to get in 30 miles.

But, most importantly we did achieve the goal of today’s ride—brownies from Vermont Brownie Company. Oh, not just any brownie, but the Throwdown! winner dark chocolate chevre brownie along with a peanut butter brownie. Oh, yeah—those are good brownies. There is a reason they got chosen for a Throwdown and why they won.

After the rain subsided we took a walk to the Old Spokes Home where Edwina bought a bell.  Given the traffic on bike trails, a universally translated bell is better than guessing "On your Left" or "à gauche"--not to mention, the bell is so much more polite.

Food: Vermont Brownie Company (outstanding). American Flat Bread (great, particularly when accompanied by an extra dry cider). Indian for dinner (ok).

(*) On arriving home, Local Motion’s web site does indicate the route is not recommended for road bikes….a day late and a dollar short. Teach me not to do my research.