The conditions today were perfect for bike riding; sunny, cool, and almost no wind. Our route was from Ticonderoga to the Lake Champlain ferry crossing, into Vermont, on route 74 and then route 30 into Middlebury VT.
The conditions were great but we had other challenges …
There were some very steep hills on the way into Middlebury. Our bottom brackets started making some serious noise. By the time we got to Middlebury it was clear that we could not continue on without overhauling the bottom brackets. Luckily we found a highly recommended bike shop - Frog Hollow Bikes. Middlebury is a college town and located near Vermont mountain biking hot spots. The mechanics didn’t have spare parts for our brand of bottom brackets, so they installed new compatible ones and had us back on the road in three hours! Fantastic!
From Middlebury we rode to Ripton on 125, which starts the climb into the Green Mountains. In the first 4 miles of climbing we struggled with long sections of 8 to 10% grades, and one short stretch of 23% !! We expected steep but this is much steeper than we thought.
Short ferry ride across Lake Champlain
Docking on the Vermont side of the lake
Hello Vermont !
Aaarrrggghh
Todays route
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