August 27, 2026

This year, we decided to move our typical fall foliage bike tour up to late summer, to better enjoy some perfect weather, swimming holes, and sun.

Because New Hampshire's bicycle infrastructure is woefully inferior to Vermont's (more on that later in this series), we decided to start in the nearest Vermont population center: Saint Johnsbury, a 20 minute drive from the Littleton Lambda Latitudinarian Headquarters. Some local friends volunteered to drop us off there in exchange for a delicious breakfast at The Buttery. But we secretly got the better end of the deal, since they loaned us a highly valuable USB-C cable that we conveniently forgot to bring with us. Tricksy shirefolk.

Anyway, our first day was a whopper: over 50 miles of biking on 90% dirt roads, over a solid mile of climbing, a couple of potential swimming holes, one delicious pizza stop, and a campsite destination with a reputation for stellar starviewing, cute animals, and crispy mornings. What more could we want?

The day began on the very easy side, with an automobile journey to Saint Johnsbury courtesy of the Smike Taxi Service. After breakfast at The Buttery, we headed to Bang Bang Bagels, only to discover that they're closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Fortunately, Saint J has a plethora of excellent breakfast options, so we pivoted to picking up pastries across the street at Boule Bakery instead. Perhaps our spinach artichoke pastry and almond croissant were less nutritious than a bagel with veggie cream cheese, but who's judging on a bike tour with a caloric deficit?

Once we grabbed our essential butter- and flour-based fuel, we proceeded North up the hill and transitioned to dirt roads even sooner than we thought -- easily within a half a mile. We climbed past the cemetery, along some satisfyingly pastoral farmland and trail-pocked forest, and eventually over Interstate 91, where I conveniently dropped my freshly-lubricated chain on the dustiest stretch of concrete possible. We took in the views, the vaguely-toxic scent of aerosolized tire rubber, and a hint of burning gasoline over the interstate, then happily moved onto the first major chunk of our ride: 30+ miles of rolling green country and dirt roads on our way to Glover and a promising hearty pizza lunch at Parker Pies.

I couldn't have asked for better conditions. The roads were practically empty. The views were sweeping, with much of our routing taking us past houses who clearly value the view enough to clear most neighboring trees. The sun was out and the sky was a perfect shade of Colorado blue, an indication of the surprisingly-low humidity that kept us the perfect amount of toasty in the sun, cool in the shade.

The air smelled like a typical late August in the rural Northeast: the last blooms of the latest-blooming zinnias and coneflowers, the cut-grass scent of sliced, yet not-quite-baled hay. The crisp, papery, slightly-sweet air of corn ripe enough to eat straight off the stalk.

A last-minute reroute past Shadow Lake provided the first swimming hole of our journey, a beautiful place to enjoy a dried mango jerkey snack.

We zoomed past the lake on freshly-paved roads (that sadly used to be dirt just a couple of years ago) and nearly missed our next turn: our first taste of adventure onto one of Vermont's famous (to us, at least) class IV roads. Things started tame enough with some chonky baby-head gravel and an easy water crossing. Then the trail routed seemingly straight upwards. No strangers to vertical vermont veloing, we pushed ahead, and were eventually rewarded with a transition back to a normal dirt road, yet another class IV road (this one nearly a class III road in quality), and a lengthy descent, as what goes up must inevitably come down.

The descent took us very nearly to our lunch destination in the early hours of the afternoon, with one problem: two ROAD CLOSED signs, one electronic, one analog. Too shy to inquire for an exception with the nearby Town of Glover employee, we consulted our map and chose to try routing West around Lake Parker. 45 minutes later, we discovered our error at a locked gate with a No Trespassing sign at the end of Philips Road, a solid half-mile before Town Highway 32 ought to begin.

With the afternoon rapidly disappearing before our eyes almost as fast as our hopes for delicious pizza, salad, and beer, we headed down the hill, where we discovered the analog sign moved off to the side of the road, but the electronic ROAD CLOSED sign still dissuading us. But we really had no alternative route, other than pushing our way back up multiple steep class IV roads to Shadow lake and rerouting along miles of busy (for Vermont) paved highway. Refusing to touch our tires to so much pavement, we decided to chance the possibly-not-closed road. At some point, bikes are more flexible than cars, since we can always walk along the shoulder of roadwork, so it made sense to ask for forgiveness, not permission. Turns out to have been the right attitude, since we biked all the way to West Glover without seeing a single town employee or any sign of work whatsoever. The slightly-downhill road provided idyllic views of Lake Parker, and at the end of the road, I was slightly validated -- and slightly annoyed -- to discover another set of ROAD CLOSED signs that had been much more helpfully relegated to the side of the road.

Our struggles were finally rewarded with a delicious Green Mountain Pizza and Dave's Salad, replete with Bayley Hazen blue cheese and candied walnuts. We relaxed our tired quads in the backyard and prepared for the last push of the day, another 15 or so miles of slightly-less-pointy dirt roads ending in Greensboro.

Compared to our hungry, desperate struggle to get to lunch, the afternoon's ride was easy. Many of the roads were obviously recently re-graded, providing that perfectly smooth dirt road ride quality that's closer to a self-sealing concrete than the dusty, rocky mess you get on neglected dirt roads. We briefly stopped in a cemetery for a water break (entertaining ourselves with a competition to find the oldest gravestone), but very few of the hills were steep enough to slow us down.

It wasn't long before we arrived in Greensboro, taking the opportunity to snag a photo of our campsite from a nearby ridge, and swing by the beach for yet another swim (a tradition we would uphold every day of this tour).

We checked in at our campsite, set up a fire, prepared the tent, and cracked a cold one under the stars. Not a bad start to the tour.