These pages contain information for participants in the Velo Vermont Weekend. The route maps and cue sheets will be provided in the map package when you arrive.
This year we will be staying at the White Horse Inn in Waitsfield, Vermont. For those of you who have done the weekend when we stayed at the Powderhound Lodge, it is about 2 miles north of there off off Route 17 (road that goes over Appalachian Gap)
This trip has a long history with local bike clubs. It was first started in the early '80s by Fran and Amato Ciampa of the Seven Hills Wheelmen. Known as the "Velo Vermont Challenge" it was originally a point to point ride, staying at two locations with a back to back 125 mile ride between them. The ride wasn't led for several years, when Susan and I decided to revive it. Instead of a point to point ride, we based it out of the Powderhound Lodge in Warren Vermont, and led day rides from there. The location is right in the center of Vermont's mountain gaps, but there are relatively flat rides in the North-South direction or rides with remote starts on the other side of the gaps.
In the beginning, after Susan and I took the Velo Vermont weekend over from the SHW, there was just one ride, the Smuggler's Notch Century, developed by John Tobin. That and shorter rides up and down Route 100 were it for rides. One year, Jeanne Kangas suggested that there were a lot of nice roads on the other side of the mountains, and developed the Northfield rides, which introduced the concept of a remote start. On the other end of the spectrum, for those for whome a mere century was not enough, Pete Knox suggested the Mad King Challenge, a 9000 vertical feet, four gap and 113 mile exercise for the truly masochistic. At some point we also adopted the route of the Mad River Century, a popular event held every year sponsored by the Hyde Away Inn & Restaurant in Waitsfield. Some time later, Larry and Diane Telford explored the possibilities of rides on the other side of the mountains (West), and came up with the ever popular Bristol-Lake Champlain ride. Ken Hablow created the Lake Elmore ride, which was a modification of a ride he did out of Stowe. Along the way, the other popular two gap rides, Appalachian-Middlebury and Appalachian-Brandon came into being. I think Charlie Lamb came up with the Middlebury Century, a longer version of the Appalachian-Middlebury ride. To round things out, Dave Markun, who was a regular on the weekend for a number of years, developed some mountain bike rides.
So, the rides that are in the present ride package are really a collaborative effort of a number of people over a number of years, and we are still getting suggestions for new rides.
Please send corrections, additions, and comments to
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