IknowURider

Hey anybody ridden route 5 to northern VT? Looks like it might be awesome, I've been going way up north near Lake Willoughby and drooling at it from 91. any blogs ppics, much appreciated thanks!

bikenh

I've ridden all of Rt 5 from Brattleboro to Newbury, VT. Not bad. Down south of White River Junction the pavement isn't the best. From what I've heard it used to be a concrete road wide enough for two horse wagons. They paved it and made it full width for two cars. Now you have a nice drop off because of the difference between how the pavement holds up over the concrete and how the pavement holds up with nothing underneath it.

Up north, north of WRJ, it does flatten out quite nicely compared to down south of WRJ.

VT_Speed_TR

I've driven many sections north of WRJ and its a very nice road. 91 now carries the majority of traffic so its mainly local traffic that thins out away from the villages.

martianone

i live in northern VT, often ride or commute on route 5; especially the portions north of St. Johnsbury. The road in my area is generally in pretty good shape. In Burke rt 5A splits off, going past lake Willoughby - a fairly hilly ride until the lake. in Burke if you stay on route 5, it will take you past Crystal lake. One of my favorite pass time rides; from my house - it is around 10 km of dirt road to rt 5A, then i go south along Willoughby, over the hills to Burke. In Burke on rt 5 north along Crystal lake to Barton, then Orleans to Coventry - then cross lots on another dirt road back home. Often take rt 5 to Quebec, then on rue 143 into Quebec. Just north of Lyndon, from rt5 you can take rt 114 to Island Pond - a very pleasant ride. From Island Pond, rt 105 will get you back to rt 5A & rt5 - good roads all the way.

indyfabz

I did ACA's Cycle Vermont ride in '10. Rode past Seymour Lake to Island Pond and Brighton State Park. Really nice place. Classic morning scene with a light layer of fog on the lake and loons diving. I think we then took 114 to Lyndon. That was nice, too.

IknowURider

awesome responses. I am curious what the general hill gradient mixture is like from the Mass border on up. A friend said he rode it on motorcycle and said it was hilly, but I can handle "rollers". Some of the hills here in CT, like the "Litchfield Hills", can get pretty brutal. I'm hoping it's not as intense as that, because it's in the CT River valley. I'll be on a pretty heavily loaded bike...

bikenh

Probably the worst climbs you would see would end up being around Putney and especially White River Junction...at least as far north as Newbury.

The easiest way to find out and compare stretches of road with routes you've ridden before is to sign up at ridewithgps.com...you can do it for free...I do. I do all my route planning/refining on the website all the time. It gives great feedback as to how much vertical any ride will have and shows you the profile of the ride as well. It allows to quickly map out your route. It will even do the mapping for you if you want it to...just pick the start and finish point and it will find the route for you. You can leave it set to choose routes that cars can drive or if you want to include bicycle trails you click it over to bicycle and it will find you the flattest possible route and take you that way. When I did my ride to the midwest and back this summer I didn't realize what I could do with ridewithgps just yet and I ended up with a route, all highway, that had 13,000 feet of additional climbing, and was almost 100 miles further than if I had let ridewithgps.com choose the route based on bicycle trails and then moved the route off the trails and onto the nearest highways. I still can't believe such a slight move in the route would have made that much of a difference.

IknowURider

Thanks, I've actually used that site, I should have thought of that!