Vermont

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Saturday 24th:

When we awoke today in Williamstown Massachusetts, it was 3 degrees C outside. A nice crisp clear autumn morning. We had a motel breakfast and got started about 8.30. By this time, it had warmed to around 5 degrees. As we rode through town and joined the BDR route which climbed Mt Graylock, it went to around 7 degrees. As you can imagine we had many layers on and looked and felt like the Michelin men!

We took the BDR route up Mt Graylock which was a secondary gravel road through the forest, next to a stream, a very scenic and a bit gnarly but a good morning warm up. By the time we reached the summit at 3500' the temperature was back down to 5 degrees. We walked up to the cenotaph/obelisk which is a war memorial. You can walk to the top – 87 steps inside the edifice. We didn’t. Construction of this memorial was started in the late 1930s and ended up being finished after the 2^nd world war. The views were spectacular, and you could see "forever". A few photos and a look inside the memorial later we started our descent to warmer climes.


We had ordered tyres from a motorcycle dealer in Bennington Vermont, so we headed the 30 miles or so to reach there. A quaint little town (very pretty) we rode through and out the other side a few miles to where Ronnies cycles was. One of the five shops that Ronnies have around the North-East. We have booked our bikes into their Albany storage facility just out of New York at the end of our ride.


Stopped at McDonalds for lunch….none of us are McDonalds fans but they have free Wi-Fi and we wanted to explore our options for the afternoon route and for accommodation that night on line. Needs must!



Out of Bennington our route directed us onto more excellent roads, once again beside rushing streams and rapids (they have had plenty of rain here in recent times) amongst the amazing colours of fall. The fields are lush green, the scenery in Vermont famed for mountains and neatly kept farmhouses, barns & yards, is awesome. Riding through a canopy of golden & red leaves with dappled sunlight streaming through the trees is pretty scenic. The sunlight through the trees is nice but as you can imagine the definition to “read” the road is a little fraught. The odd unseen pothole gives our suspension a good workout.



During the day we passed 4 or 5 riders coming the opposite direction with all the gear so probably BDR riders. After a few hours of this enjoyable riding we arrived into the town of Londonderry - our destination.



We hadn’t managed to book any accommodation as nothing was available to make a booking on-line and only 1 out 4 cell phones hooked up to a local network. So the search began. We found a couple of places that judging by the price they quoted thought we wanted to buy the establishment, but eventually we lucked onto a nice older style motel 4 miles out of town. Checking in we immediately changed 3 of the 4 tyres we had, so only one (mine) left to change. I am trying to break a world record for stretching the life of a rear tyre with knobs breaking off and no centre tread but will probably change it tomorrow night or the next day.



Around 180 miles (300kms) today and another great ride on a well-planned route. I had drafted a rough schedule from day 1 and so far, we are around 2 days ahead mainly because we got started from Houston promptly. This builds in a buffer for problems or extra rest days so it’s all panning out well.

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Comments

[David Vinsen]

Keith's role
I hope that, as always, Keith is off doing everybody's washing while the tyres are being changed That's the deal, isn't it?

[MikeV]

Washing
Exactly