August 30, 2026

Our final day of the bike trip took us across two states, and ended with mild disappointment. In retrospect, we'll call the Late Summer VT Bikepacking a success, but the Later Summer NH Rail Trail Riding an abject failure.

Our final day of riding began around 7, despite our early bedtime. We rose to a crisp 50ish degree bone-dry dew-free morning, just the right amount of morning sun streaming through the trees and plants uphill of us.

We packed up the tent, brushed our teeth, split a cereal bar, and headed out towards the East Calais general store for breakfast -- just 20 miles of pointy dirt road and class IV road riding away. But we're not complaining: the views were breathtaking, the traffic was as light as could be, the sky was a perfect deep alpine blue, and the sun was out.

Once we crested the hill, we journeyed through a number of valleys up on the plateau, weaving through thick, dense forests, the occasional hamlet replete with post office, church, and school popping out of nowhere after a speedy hill descent.

We passed through Adamant, VT, a cute little town with some beautiful public waterscaping right along the main drag, and stopped in at the general store. Unfortunately, they didn't have breakfast, but I did learn a bit about Adamant (originally Sodom, VT), where allegedly:

Local lore tells the story of a preacher slamming his fist on the pulpit proclaiming, "I am adamant that we change the name of this town!" In 1905, residents petitioned the state legislature for a name change to "Adamant."

Our stomachs beginning to grumble, we rolled along to Calais, and then pushed the short remainder of our route over the hills and through the woods to East Calais.

We were rewarded with the very last breakfast sandwich, some freshly baked blueberry muffins, an italian sub for an early lunch, and a sourdough cider donut, alongside my coffee and meg's iced coffee (complete with iced coffee cubes, a nice touch).

Meg took a break to sketch and watercolor, and I took some time to record our epic feats in my journal.

Fully fueled, we headed along to the Marshfield Country Store, where we planned to continue our tradition of calzones, creemees, and heady topper. The ride turned out to be mostly downhill, and before we knew it, we were enjoying an (oddly gritty) creemee.

I suspect the maple syrup crystallized overnight, and we were the first people to order a fresh one in the (very late) morning.

So we loaded up my panniers with additional beer, strapped a calzone to my rack, and nabbed some hi-chews as a pick-me-up.

The Marshfield Country Store sits at the bottom of a pretty deep valley, so we had a good climb to get over to New Hampshire. Thankfully, a man picking apples off of the road with a lacross stick (brilliant) suggested that even the lower road took us by the scenic waterfall, helping us better pace our ride.

Once we climbed the hill, the old railroad bed through Groton State Forest took us along a smooth (recently-regraded and repaired!) downhill all the way to New Hampshire. Of course, we had some stops...

A quick dip:

Some swamp views:

And actually eating lunch:

Just before leaving the state forest, we spotted some people floating around in the lake on tubes. It seemed like a good idea, so we parked the bikes and sunned on a rock for a little while.

Once recharged by the surprisingly warm waters of Ricker Pond and perhaps too much sun, we proceeded along the XVT. We were very impressed by the next few miles of trail -- since we last biked this stretch, Vermont has re-graveled and re-graded the entire surface (which developed a lot of washouts and boggy bits after the 2022 and 2023 flash floods), built new trailheads, installed way more signage, and even connected some of the trickier bits with new sections of trail on the existing (but previously ignored) right-of-way.

Way to go, Vermont! Previously, I would only have recommended this ride to bikepackers, since some sections were really rough or singletrack, but I think it would all be doable by a novice on smaller wheels today. It's nice to see investment in infrastructure that matters to us!

The final section of the XVT took us on some highway, but we cleverly routed across the highway onto Creamery Road, which has a bridge closed to cars -- but not pedestrians or bikes. Honestly, the XVT should probably route this way by default, since this highway section is the worst in the entire route, especially uphill.

But thankfully we were going downhill towards the Connecticut River, so the unpleasant highway section was over very fast. We were soon crossing the border to New Hampshire, just 20 miles from home.

Unfortunately, the New Hampshire connector leg of our trip left something to be desired. Historically, we've routed across the XVT (and onto the XNH) to keep ourselves off of New Hampshire roads and highways, since New Hampshire doesn't have as many nice through dirt roads (or class IV roads) as Vermont. But we underestimated how much the Ammonoosuc Rail Trail has deteriorated over the last couple of years.

The washboarding, the dust, the deep pits of rutted dark almost-volcanic-ash-sand, let alone the bugs and the overgrowth... the rail trail is passable, sure, but it's not pleasant, not even on big slightly knobby 2.1" tires likes ours. And of course, you have to deal with side-by-sides, ATVs, and dirt bikes, none of which belong on a rail trail. And all of which weigh so much and have so much torque that they're entirely responsible for the trail's deterioration. But they come up on you fast, and of course you need to move out of their way -- they never seem to yield to bikes. Fun stuff. Once they pass, you get the pleasure of inhaling their poorly-regulated exhaust and all of the dust that thousands of pounds of basically-a-car kicks up.

And while it's not New Hampshire's fault, dear lord is the rail trail buggy -- we hardly noticed any bugs the rest of our trip, but it took some serious doing to avoid eating or getting bugs in your eyes along this stretch.

Honestly, we would have been better off riding on the shoulder of the recently-repaved 302, despite the cars going 60 miles an hour.

The only saving grace was our ice cream stop in Lisbon, which yielded some very well-priced generous scoops, along with a sample of their maple "creamy" (OK, NH) which was honestly a lot better than our gritty serving from Marshfield. Score one for New Hampshire.

But after Lisbon, everything fell apart. In one particularly nasty stretch of ATV rutting by a bridge, my beverage-loaded panniers contributed to a pinch flat. Naturally I have a spare tube, but even swapping that was miserable with the mosquitos, thick coating of volcanic ash (seriously, is Mount Orodruin nearby?), and passing heavy, noisy vehicles.

Just a couple of miles after the swap, my tube blew out again -- probably due to friction from all of that dust getting caught in the tire. Yikes. I sent Meg ahead to spare her from the mosquitos while I laboriously repaired the tube. Twilight waned, I acquired several thousand mosquito bites, but I can safely say...

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You should not ride the Ammonoosuc Rail Trail on a bicycle. It is not a rail trail. It is an ATV, dirt bike, and SxS road masquerading as a rail trail to take advantage of micromobility funding.

Between Woodsville and Lisbon, the trail is absolute trash. Dusty, rutted, unfriendly to bikes in most ways.

Between Lisbon and Littleton, it gradually gets better; navigable, but not fun.

From Littleton to the end point of the trail, it's much better. Probably because we don't allow ATVs, SxS, or dirt bikes through Littleton.

Snowmobiles in the winter are OK, if you ask me -- aside from a small number of fat bikers (who would have more fun on the PRKR mountain trails, which are groomed!), most bicycles aren't even capable of riding the rail trail in the winter. But motor vehicles simply don't belong on a rail trail along with bikes. It's unsafe, it's unpleasant, and most of all they absolutely destroy rail trails that need next to no maintenance for decades of pedestrian and bicycle use.

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End rant. Sorry, fake rail trails just piss me off. Lesson learned: bring two spare tubes. And check to make sure that the cement in your repair kit hasn't dried up before a big tour.

Conclusion

Our Late Summer VT Bikepacking trip was an absolute blast! The weather was perfect. Swimming every day was so much fun -- enough that I'm not sure we'll ever wait for late September/early October foliage season again, when the rivers, lakes, and air have cooled off just enough to stop you from impulsively jumping in. Bugs weren't an issue at all in Vermont, but I should probably remember to bring cozy pants to wear by the fire next time. We ate great food, drank great beer, biked some incredible roads, and took in some gorgeous views. And we even got to socialize with my family a bit! This year's VT bikepacking was a smashing success.

This year's NH connector? I think we'll reroute through the hills next time.