Self supported biking in Vermont
 

Can anyone provide general recommendations for a bike camping road cycling trip in Vermont next year. Any advice would be appreciated. Is southern better than northern? I've read Lake Champlain is nice but im not afraid of hills. Southern Vermont has more camping. Thanks

David

You might want to checkout Traveling Thru's youtube channel for some ideas:
He has recently toured the Lake Champlain area and the Vermont Trail.

I did a one-way trip back in June of 2022. Parked in Brattleboro (There is a cheap garage that allows long-term parking. IIRC, it was $5/night with Sunday free.) and rode north, almost to the Canadian border (Ritchford), before turning south to St. Albans, where I caught convenient Amtrak service back to Brattleboro for the drive home. (You need a reservation for a bike space.)

I camped exclusively at state parks except for one night in Newport, where I stayed in a city park campground. Every state park I stayed I had lean-tos, which was nice when it rained. All the parks had flush toilets and showers. So did the park in Newport.

The route was pretty good, but there were some places near larger towns that had traffic. I’ll post the RWGPS route next time I’m on my desktop. Note that there were unpaved miles, but nothing rough or technical. Dirt roads in VT are generally pretty good. Largest climb was over Jay Peak east to west. It was harder than it needed to be because of a very stiff headwind. If you have a passport, you can avoid Jay Peak by going into Canada an coming back into VT at Richford. Much flatter, and there is at least one campground on the Canadian side.

I also have a route from St. Albans south through Burlington and Brattleboro that I’ve done twice as part of tours home to Philly. Burlington is a fun place for a day off. The Island Line Trail is unique, and there is a campground right along the trail and not far from the center of town.

The Island Line Trail:

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...46d01cb58.jpeg

We did a portion of the Vermont Gravel Growler a couple of years ago. Lots of hills but also lots of great beer!

https://bikepacking.com/routes/green...ravel-growler/

Here is my 2021 route from St. Albans:

Routes · Ride with GPS

Stayed on Burlington (North Beach Campground), Half Moin Pond S.P. at mile 92. (Bomonseen S.P., down the road a way, is nicer but closes for camping after Labor Day.), Dorsett RV park at mile 130, which has a tent site back away from the highway, and the KOA in E. Dummerston. Fort Dummer S.P. is in Guilford, just above the center of Brattleboro. Be warned that part of climb is stupid steep. To add insult to injury, when you reach the campground office at the entrance to the park, you have to do more climbing to get to the camping area. I ignored the warning of a BF member and chose to stay there back in 2018. When I got to the campground office a ranger broke the bad news to me.

If you find yourself in Brattleboro, mind your surroundings. Drug addiction leads to petty crime. Stopped at a shopping center grocery store on the way to E. Dummerston in 2021. There was security patrolling the parking lot during broad daylight. I brought my bike inside the store and stashed it out of the way. Employees never said a word. When I was there in 2018, I rolled up to a couple sitting in the doorway of an abandoned storefront and asked them if there was an outdoor store around. One of them asked me if I was travelling by RV. They both looked like addicts.

Here is 2022 from Brattleboro to St. Albans:

Routes · Ride with GPS

One important thing to note:

From what I understand, the unpaved portion heading east from Plainfield to Groton State Forest was severely damaged by the heavy flooding a year or two ago. (The west part of that section was bad in places when I rode it before the bad floods.) Check the website for the Cross Vermont Trail, because it eventually uses that segment, but jumps on farther east, so it might be ok there. Or you could stay on U.S. 2 and climb up from Marshfield to get to Stillwater State Park. My itinerary camping spots were Jamaica S.P., Mt. Ascutney S.P., Silver Lake S.P., Stillwater S.P., Brighton S.P. and the municipal campground along the lake in Newport. (There are only 3 tent-only sites there. Reserve No. 2. Shelter from the wind off the lake.)

I've had good luck with planning a couple trips just by stringing together state park campgrounds in the parts of the state I want to visit. You can also think about integrating Amtrak into your trip if that is helpful. One tip given to me by a state park trooper: VT state park campgrounds state on their site that you need to purchase a minimum of two nights for every camping reservation, though there is an exemption for those traveling by bike or foot. However, if you want to do that, you have to make your reservation via phone instead of the site. Saves you a bunch of money.

If you're up for it physically, I'd also recommend attacking one of the famous "gaps" in the middle of the state.

Looks much better than it did in 2011
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...6b1b74e39b.jpg

I did an earlier tour from St. Albans to Philly in 2018, with a stop at my 35th high school reunion in MA. That was in early June. The trail was closed due to damage caused by a freak storm in May: I was pissed. Glad it was open in 2021, but there was no ferry service on the Monday I rode out to the gap because it was in September. Ferry only runs on weekends after Labor Day.

On my short list for this year https://bikepacking.com/routes/vtxl/

Check on the status of the Lamoile Valley Rail Trail to make sure it wasn't damaged by flooding.

Vermont has a wonderful and extensive selection of state parks for camping and I think all have lean-to’s, which if you can into, make for a pleasant stay. Sometimes you need a tent in case of bugs, but if it’s raining, having a shelter for cooking or hanging out is really handy. I wiould look at generating a route that has the parks as daily designations.

That’s exactly what I did in 2021. As I think I mentioned above, I spent every night except one in state parks. I got lean-tos every night, and they came in handy due to rain. Early in the trip I swapped days off because of heavy rain much of the day. It was nice to have a spacious, dry place to hang out.

The lean-tos were not that much more expensive than regular sites. The “premium” (e.g., lake view) ones are slightly more expensive than regular ones, but still worth the extra money.

I definitely set up my tent every night for bug protection.

All the workers I interacted with were terrific. One place gave me an extra bundle of wood because it took them about 30 min. to deliver what I had purchased to my site. I hadn’t even changed out of my riding clothes yet. What was really interesting were the employee residences at at least some of the parks. I guess it’s a way to attract workers who don’t live close by.

The biggest drawback is that you might have to carry food for a ways. But that’s not always the case. Silver Lake and Jamaica had well stocked country stores very close. Mt. Ascutney had a store a few miles away.

I remember a Bikepacking website had an article on the Gravel Growler, a loop from Burlington involving dirt roads and local breweries, as John Flores mentioned. There is a cross Vermont trail from Burlington to Wells River, about 90 miles, a lot off road. When you get to Wells River, you are right across from Woodsville, NH and the start of the Cross New Hampshire Adventure trail, about 80 miles of mostly off road riding to Bethel, Maine.
If you want to DIY, the Champlain Islands going north from Burlington are charming, smooth, low traffic pavement and the Green Mountains on one side and the Adirondacks on the other. Just about anywhere you go in Vermont will be pretty, some research on RideWithGPS will yield routes from cute to challenging, depending on the hills.

a real nice route is the Adventure Cycling Green Mountain loop. https://www.adventurecycling.org/rou...ountains-loop/
I rode this back in 2015 but I modified the route to go up through the Island Line Trail as Indyfabz photo shows and also through Canada for a short bit to avoid going over jay Peak. I can send a gps route if interested? It's 402 miles and 23,000 ft of climbing. We rode it in 8 days.

Here's the link to the Gravel Growler route. It's on my list to do with the gravel bike or my hard tail mountain bike. https://bikepacking.com/routes/green...ravel-growler/

How many days and how many miles per day are you envisioning? You might look at crazyguyonabike website, there are lots of tours in VT described in detail.
Enjoy Vermont!