Stop #2: Burlington, Vermont

Although it's still early in the Heavy Pedal Tour, I realized there's one thing that's as true as a well-built wheel—the mountain bike community is tight.

Whether you need a spare tube on the trail or, in my case, you're looking for a place to crash for a couple nights, help from a bike-riding stranger is usually not far. I don't know exactly what the bond is we all share, but it may be the unique characteristic mountain bike riders have of enjoying painfully long rides or serious crashes we lived to tell about. We know about voluntary suffering.

Getting underway at Catamount

While I was buying coffee at Pedro's Fest from the Detroit Coffee van, which supplied the caffeine for the masses throughout the weekend, I began talking with Josh, one of the founders of the company. He told me Detroit Coffee travels to a lot of races and events around the country to support weary riders and spectators with good, strong cups of coffee.

Josh and I started talking about my traveling, about how I was heading up to Burlington, Vermont for my next stop. When he said he went to school there, I expected some good tips on camping in the area. I ended up getting much more. Josh said he was leaving the next day for France to see the final stage of the Tour and I could have the keys to his apartment if I wanted to stay a few days. I gladly accepted his offer, but I couldn't believe his willingness to help some roaming mountain bike rider.

After getting into Burlington, I headed over to Catamount for the weekly race series held on a privately owned network of trails 15 minutes outside of town. I sampled some of the singletrack, then let the racers take over. Everyone was so enthused about the riding it seemed like racing was just a reason for hundreds of riders to get together and ride extra hard.

One of the racers, Brooke Scatchard, was excited to show me more of the area's trails. The next morning, we rode a trail about 20 minutes outside of Burlington called "The International." It began with a good technical climb and ended with downhill sections that made me want to keep climbing.

On top of being a very strong rider, Brooke is a geography major at the University of Vermont. Throughout the ride, he calculated GPS coordinates to use for his map of local trails he hopes to publish. He also explained the history of the land, pointing out the old, weathered stonewalls that sometimes cross the trail. They were built in the 1800's when the forests were cut down to raise sheep. I learned that back then there were six sheep to every person in Vermont. I hoped to see a wild sheep walking through the woods during the ride, but I only saw squirrels.

A crowded evening at Church Street

Burlington had much more to offer than I could soak up in just a few short days. Aside from the riding, it has all the happenings of a college town—sidewalk cafés, concerts and diverse shops. Church Street, a wide, car-less brick road in the middle of town, is where most of the young people congregate to eat and socialize. With everything going on, just walking down the street felt like an event.

It wasn't just the cycling community that was kind to me in Vermont. When I was leaving a crowded café on Church Street, a strap from my messenger bag caught on my saddle and I had to bail. I just barely landed on my feet, and the bike crashed to the ground, but as I picked up the wreckage I didn't hear a single person laugh. After I took a bow, a few people even applauded. Vermont is home to some very encouraging people.