East Bound and Down: North by Northeast

By late September in northern Vermont, the first signs of autumn are beginning to surface, with hints of orange, red and yellow peering out from the region's dense canopy of green. Peak foliage is still a few weeks away, but with average temperatures in the low 70's, plenty of daylight hours remaining, and in my estimation, some of the planet's oldest and best soil to lay your knobbies on, VT is primed for the best riding of the year right around this time. Any time (even during the winter) is a good time to ride your bike in Vermont, but autumn in the Green Mountain State is special. Most of my time spent in the region has either been bike park oriented, or on the Kingdom Trails, and I've long been keen to explore more of what I've heard by many to be some of the best trails anywhere on the east coast. There's no time like the present, especially when you're presently in the middle of a week with perfect September weather, while uncrowded trails beckon.



Earlier in the year, while in East Burke for NEMBA Fest, I discussed my desire to explore more of the area with Alex McAndrew and Ella Skalwold, who this past spring took over guiding duties for Kingdom-based tour and trail construction company, Ide Ride Tours. Both race downhill professionally, possess engineering degrees, and have a huge passion for sharing their love for Vermont trails. My parameters were pretty simple: fun trails and hopefully a chance to sip on some tasty brews while we're at it. Vermont is, after all, home to some of the most dialed-in breweries in the country, including the legendary Alchemist Brewery and it's wunder-can Heady Topper, Hill Farmstead, Harpoon, Magic Hat, Long Trail and Fiddlehead among others. As it turned out, Alex and Ella were keen to showcase some of their tour offerings, one of which was called Hoppy Trails, which celebrates some of Vermont's best trails, and the best places for beer within close to proximity them.


"You finish a bike ride, and someone always has a cooler." Alex tells me during one of our many 'rehydration stops'. "For a while, it was always bad beers too that you’d sip on after a ride. But, Vermont has grown this culture of really strong breweries, and they’ve got the trails to match, so it’s become a challenge to come up with a new beer for after the ride. We’ve just enhanced that idea by spending time on trails that are right next to some great breweries."

Ella agrees. "It’s a great way to highlight Vermont too. We’re known for good beer and fun trails, so combining the two makes sense. We’re mainly focused on the northern part of the state, but we’ve got a pretty comprehensive idea of what breweries are found where. And we know where we can hop on a trail near any of these spots."


We left NEMBA Fest with a plan in place, and I returned to East Burke in September for the Burke Enduro, with the intent to spend the days following the race driving across the state to sample its finest trails and beers. Fortunately, Vermont takes up roughly 10% of the land area compared to most of the states in the American West, so the drive was an easy undertaking. We spent three days exploring trails in Stowe, Waterbury and Victory State Forest. We also sampled some of Vermont's requisite beer offerings, which for the Hoppy Trails Tour, is an integral component to the experience. For the record, Ide Ride offers up a multitude of other tour options.

"We’ll offer 5 signature tours," Ella reminded me. "Which include Hoppy Trails, Downhill Adventure, Fall Foliage, the Backroad Foliage Tour and Ladies Only. It’s a chick party based out of the Kingdom Trails, and ladies can make the husband take care of the kids for the week."

Early each morning Alex and Ella would meet me at my cottage, we'd load bikes, bags and gear into a 14-passenger Ford Econoline (#VanLife), grab breakfast and some coffee at the Bagel Depot, and head out for some fun trails and quenching brews. On day number 1, we headed 60 miles east to the biggest mountains in the state.

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Day 1: Stowe, VT

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Cady Hill is located right off of route 100 in one of the east coast's last true mountain towns, Stowe. Cady Hill Forest consists of 320 acres and roughly 11 miles of singletrack, much of it directional, and with a handful of trails designated for mountain bikes only; although the network as a whole is in fact multi-use. The Econoline rumbled into the parking lot about an hour after departing East Burke, and after a quick exchange of pleasantries with a couple who had just wrapped up a ride, we headed out to explore the network of flow trails.

Yellow Birch, Red Maple and Sugar Maples, Hemlock and White Pine combine to produce an aromatic canopy, and provide the forest floor with a soft blanket of pine needles that border either side of the well packed singletrack. The trails throughout Cady Hill offer us ample opportunities to rally: berms are trustworthy, doubles and triples abound, and the average overall speeds high are not far from what you might experience on the famously rapid trails surrounding East Burke.



After a few hours of testing our cornering traction on the groomed trails of the Stowe's 3-year old conservation easement, we packed up our bikes and gear, and headed up Mountain and Luce Hill roads for some food and beverages at the Trapp Deli Bakery and Brew House. Owned by famous Austrian exports, the von Trapp family (if you haven't seen Rodgers and Hammerstein's Sound of Music, you should), the Brew House is part of a much larger resort complex situated on 2,500 pristine acres that overlook the town of Stowe several hundred feet below its hilly landscape.


Alex, Ella and I grabbed some sandwiches and lagers at the Brew House, and discussed our options from there. Alex, a von Trapp descendent, was somewhat familiar with the trails on the property and was looking to connect them with Adam Camp trails, a neighboring network before circling back onto von Trapp land, and finishing down into town for dinner. The plan turned out to be rather brilliant, and somewhat sizable, as the three of us hammered the pedally system throughout the von Trapp property. The terrain may not have featured much in the way of steep gradients, but the scenery was stunning, the dirt top notch and the trails traffic-free.




Eventually, we worked our way around the 3,000 foot tall summit that looks over the property and used Ranch Camp to connect to Kimmers; a mile-long descent that dropped us 600 feet down several switchbacks, roots, rocks, and small drops. By the time we finished the climb up Hardy Haul and worked our way back to the Brew House, the light would be fading quickly. Ella kindly offered to relieve me of my camera pack and would meet us with the van down in town, while Alex and I would take what would prove to be my favorite trail of the day, Pipeline. With dusk upon us, I did everything in my power to stay on Alex's wheel, and lent him my full trust as we worked our way through the near black forest; grazing trees with our bar ends, hooting and hollering anytime either of us managed to toss some dirt into the air, and generally hanging over the ragged edge more often than not.

We would eventually pop out of the forest, directly across the road from the high school, and pedaled into town to meet up with Ella at Sushi Yoshi for dinner and drinks. It was here that I was finally able to wrap my fingers around one of Vermont's most famous elixirs: Heady Topper. A product of the Alchemist Brewery, based out of Waterbury (and practically next door to another famous Vermont export: Ben & Jerry's), Heady Topper is without a doubt the most talked about American IPA on the market right now, and while that level of hyperbole is tough for any beer to live up to, the fact is that this beer is really, really tasty. It was a fitting end to a stellar day riding. With our bellies full, we headed back to East Burke, where the falling temperatures helped sleep come quickly (perhaps the Topper assisted there as well), which was good because we were going to need all of the rest we could muster for the next day.

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Day 2: Waterbury, VT

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Waterbury, Vermont is home to some of the state's most well-known commodities, including Rome Snowboards, Green Mountain Coffee, Ben & Jerry's, and the Waterbury Bike Park, also known as Perry Hill. This would be our destination for the second day of the Hoppy Trails sampler, and this time we would be joined by teammate and friend, Adam Snyder, as well as another good pal and ripper in Tom Sampson. Both hail from New England and had been in the area for the weekend's enduro festivities.

Perry Hill is located in Putnam State Forest, and is comprised of roughly 8 miles of singletrack that offer riders of all abilities the opportunity to have a good time. 8 miles of trail isn't much, but after spending a few hours familiarizing myself with this place, it's sitting somewhere near the top of my favorite places to ride on the east coast. The doubletrack climb up is surprisingly interesting, and it's not a particularly horrible chore as you're only ascending a touch over 800 feet. The great thing about this sort of design, which can be found in other places as well, such as Black Rock, OR and Beacon, NY among others; is that the network branches off of the doubletrack throughout the climbing route, allowing riders to cut the climb short at a number of spots. The trails work their way down the southwest facing aspect from the summit of Perry Hill, eventually spitting riders out on River Road, across from the Winooki River. We spent the day rinsing and repeating on trails such as Joe's, Rastaman, and Burning Spear before meandering down Campfire and calling it a day. This place presented us with a bevy of excuses for high fives and smiles. Berms, flat turns, rock rolls, doubles, triples, drops, wet loam, dry loam, roots and rocks were all provided in a steady stream of Green Mountain Grandeur.






From the trailhead, we headed just a few minutes down the road and into town, where our first stop for libations would be at the Prohibition Pig; a barbecue and brewery offering a large number of beers from several breweries in addition to their own. There we grabbed some chips and a variety beers and sat outside, savoring the transitional weather as the early evening temperatures reminded us autumn was just around the corner. We finished our beers as the daylight waned, and headed across the street for some dinner and perhaps another round or two at The Reservoir, where we laughed about some of the day's antics, discussed our affinity for last season's record snowfall, and looked forward to one final day of riding ahead of us as a group. The 3rd and final leg of the week would feature some unfinished business on the other side of Burke Mountain.

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Day 3: Victory Hill, VT

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On our 3rd and final day of riding, Alex and Ella decided to give me a sneak peak at a project their boss and Vermont legend, Knight Ide, had been working on for some time. East Burke sits at the base of Burke Mountain, where the ski resort and bike park can be found on its northwest facing aspect. On the other side of the mountain, Victory State Forest can be found stretching 16,000 acres from the eastern slopes of Burke Mountain down into the valleys and across several smaller peaks. Here, Knight has been working on a new set of trails for over a year, alongside John McGill of Conservation Collaborative, a company dedicated to the protection of large tracts of land from being parcelized.

"I’ve built two descents," Knight tells me during our first shuttle. "One is a mile and a half, and the other is just about 2 miles. There’s still a lot more work to be done, though. Mainly what I’m doing is using a trail corridor, enhancing the parts that are good, and eliminating the parts that aren’t. By the end of next season, if I am able to put as much work into it as I did this year, we’ll have 8 miles of really good descending out here."

Due to the nature of the unfinished trails and work to be done, I was convinced to leave the camera pack behind and to just enjoy some of the work that has been completed. While a bit of bushwhacking was required to connect various sections of trail, it was clear that Knight's team had been working hard, and doing a damn good job while they were at it. Throughout the morning, the forest echoed with a cacophony of riders enjoying the fruits of Ide Ride labor. The dark and deep old growth forest presents an enormous amount of potential, so much so that once finished, this place may very well find itself near the top of Vermont's trail offerings. The dirt alone is some of the best I'd ever ridden, and that's on just what amounts to two incomplete trails.


The ceiling here is high, and Knight knows it. "What I’m here doing is trying to develop some stacked loops where each trail will fully descend before ascending, rather than going down and up throughout. Within reason, of course. Obviously, you can put a small climb in a downhill trail that will actually make it better. There’s so much room right here on this mountain, and we have a connection with Conservation Collaborative. The next step would be the getting state of Vermont involved so that this area becomes accessible for further trail development."

All things considered, three days simply isn't enough to get anywhere close to the full picture of what northern Vermont offers to mountain bikers. But three days of riding some amazing trails alongside the likes of Alex and Ella is more than enough to whet the pallet. I'm excited to see them develop their guiding services, and continue to cultivate some Green Mountain stoke. I'm just glad to have sampled a bit of their Hoppy Trails concept in moderation, like any reasonable person would be. I'm especially looking forward to going back for another round of riding...and brews.

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To book your own trip to Vermont with Alex and Ella, click here!
Thank-you to the Wildflower Inn for Vermont's best breakfast!
Thank-you to Roll A Fat One for the hospitality!

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MENTIONS: @briceshirbach

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