I wake up at the normal too early time of 6:30 and head out to grab a cup of coffee. Being that it’s July 4th, there’s not much open, so I get convenience store swill and head back to the apartment to have a half bagel breakfast with PB and a banana. I’m going a little low-key with breakfast because it’s easy to overeat on these trips.
After we both eat, we pack, clean up, and hit the road. This has been a nice little AirBnb with a great host and a great location. But 2 nights was enough in Rutland and it’s time to move on.
As we climb the hill to Killington the rain starts up again, which wasn’t really supposed to happen today. Thankfully we won’t be riding here, but we do dip into the town to look for a cup of coffee at a few of the spots I frequent, but the lines are out the door and we have a ~2 hour trip ahead of us.
We hit the road and head up north, passing the Green Mountain Trails on our way to Stowe, which is where we will spend the bulk of our day. But first we need to get that coffee we never got so I stop in at the Artisan Coffee shop between Waterbury & Stowe. Or as I like to call it, the Coffee Barn.
We’d been here last Labor Day and there was such a long line that I skipped it and kept going. Today this is not an issue and we manage to get in & out in no time. While in there, I see another guy wearing a Kingdom Trails hat, which is funny because I was wearing the same. As he pulled out of the lot I saw that he had NJ plates.
We are everywhere.
We sit outside and eat our snacks, which is a tart for D and a mini cupcake for me. Mine looked better than it tasted. The espresso was great and the coffee very good. I look forward to getting these beans back to my very own coffee lab at home.
We wrap up that stop quickly and hit the road for the last 12 minutes through downtown Stowe to the Cady Hill lot. The plan is to meet up with Capers but we are ahead of schedule so he will be a few minutes behind us.
While waiting for him we talk to a couple from NH about tomorrow’s ride. They have a cat who is incredibly interested in the sandwich I am eating.
Capers gets stuck in a parade in town and ends up being 15 minutes late, which is no big deal as we have all day to ride bikes and eat an early dinner.
The plan today is to link up 3 parks for a huge ride. Cady Hill to Adams Camp and returning to Cady Hill through the Trapp estate. Yes this is the same Trapp family that was in The Sound of Music.
We start with a quick Cady Hill run that brings us down Flo, which is the gem of the park. Then we hit some bootleg trails to the high school and climb up Pipeline.
At the top of Pipeline we meet a few guys from MA who we ride with to Adams Camp. It ends up that 1 of the guys lives a town over from where my work office is so we exchange info and I tell him I will look him up next time I am in town. Eventually they go their own way and we head up the Adams Camp loop.
It’s a really long climb that takes a lot of energy out of us all. But we get there.
From here we blast down Cheddar and Kimmers, which is the payoff to this climb. We go along the bottom and decide that climbing back up the huge climb to finish with the Trapp trails is a bit much. So we head back down the hill and take the Stowe town trail back.
In all we did just about 19 miles in 2:45. The Strava link can be found here.
We get changed in the lot then head down the street to Ranch Camp to try to find a spoke for D and to have some early dinner.
We smash all the food and it’s not really enough. But it’ll have to do. It’s been a great day hanging out with Capers but it’s time for us to move on and part ways. But it won’t be for long as we will meet up again in 2 days up in Kingdom Trails at the yearly team house rental.
We do a reasonably peaceful drive to NH and add another state to our trip. We are heading towards the White Mountains, but not really too deeply into them. But they do loom pretty large in front of us.
We are literally in the middle of nowhere, which is kind of awesome. The husband of the hosting couple, Bill, meets us with the dog, Buck. He’s super friendly and greets us as we get there, explains everything, then we unpack and head into the apartment.
The place is spacious, and looks perfect for us for the next 2 days. We clean up and relax after that.
Thus wraps up day 3 of 10 of this tour. A lot of stuff has transpired these first 3 days but we still have 7 full days to go. It’s going to end up being an incredibly stacked week for us.
Traveling Normandy 