Saturday July 8, Peru Vt to Lake Bomoseen VT, 55 miles.
Today was short mileage and very few hills over familiar roads,so we did a short hike early this morning for variety. I felt good yesterday but today I'm getting acid reflux from the cyst pushing against my stomach. We packed up and left, As we neared RT 11 the road makes a short up steep uphill turn. Pop! goes Hartman's chain.
Hartman had his chain tool and repair pins for the 9 spd Hyperglide chain. But the repair rivets seemed to be too short no matter what he did, either one plate or the other would pop off the rivet when he snapped off the guide pin. I suspect he was given rivets for a 10spd chain. I use an 8spd sedis chain, so we tried putting his chain back together with a powerlink. it worked except the wider link was floating and causing the chain to slip or ghost shift. We unhooked the power link and shimmed out the link with bits of paper to one side and placed the chain on the lowest gear so the link wouldn't grab the ramps on the adjacent gear. It worked! he couldn't shift but we only had about 3 miles to ride uphill untill we had a 7.5 mile downhill into Manchester which has 3 bike shops.
In Manchester we went to BattenKill Bike shop . They had 9spd hyperglide chain pins, but Hartmann went for a new 9spd Sedis and two spare links. We made the
repair and went off looking for breakfast, Manchester was once a cute little Vermont town, now it is covered with outlet stores and honking tourists jostling over parking spots. We found breakfast in a diner and soon headed out of town.
Leaving Manchester we rode on Rt 30, We had planned to do some backroads and hills but my reflux was making hard effort difficult so we rode on the relatively flat VT Rt 30
After 1/2 an hour riding the reflux seemed to go away so I suggested we tackle the climb on Rt 315 over to Rupert and then get on the rail trails to Poultney.
I have never been over 315 coming from the east it certainly was harder than coming from the west. I was hurting at the top! On the west side is a nice long down hill into Rupert. The Rupert post office is pictured below
In Rupert we had to serach around for access to the rail trail, In the mean time I had a flat on the front to repair.
The rail trail is part of the old D&H rail system that served this area. the right of way winds back and forth over the state line. Vermont and NY had an agreement to each develop thier side of the trail. Vermont has done their part NY hasn't.
So You have to bypass some sections of trail that are impassable. In Granville NY we took a short break to have a snack before heading North on VT 31
A Few miles later we were in Poultney VT home of Green Mountain College.
From Poultney we rode the Rail trail to Castleton VT and then on to Hartmann's house near Lake Bomoseen. just north of Castleton. Homemade beer and organic fed steaks was on the menu for dinner! It was incredibly good!