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[johnbryanpeters]

John Peters, New Haven, Addison County.

Any other Vermonters up this end of the lake?

J

[johnnyt]

Wow, this is your first response since last August!!! Unreal! I will soon be a Vermonter, but quite a ways from you. I am moving to Lyndon in the shadow of Burke Mt and a mere 5 miles from the Kingdom Trails!

I know there are other riders in VT especially in the Mad River/Waitsfield Area. The southern part of the state ie Manchester and south seems to be very anti-mtb with the exception of Mt Equinox and Mt Snow. The GM National Forest is totally off limits from what I understand. >:(

Looks like there are lots of new trails in the Jay area and with the possibility of the Continental Land opening up (about 30,000 acres) to mtb, the Northeast Kingdom may be the new Moab of the east!!! I will likely be up there every weekend until our house is finished and then permanently soon there after. Know anyone looking to buy a house in CT?

JT

[CouchingTiger]

JT, you going to attend LSC or something? If not, what the heck are you gonna do in Lyndon? Man, that place is the armpit of humanity. I only know as I grew up there and my damily is still there. If you get a haircut from a barber in Lyndonville, it'll be my brother. He's the barber in town.

I was there yesterday and rode KT for the 1st time this season. That is just plain the BEST XC in New England. I love that stuff! We're riding it again this coming Sunday.

-Couch

[MMcG]

Know anyone looking to buy a house in CT?

JT




JT,

A guy and his wife at the Foundation are looking for a house just about the same size as yours and they are looking in the
Vernon, Tolland, Ellington area.

Mark

[johnnyt]

JT, you going to attend LSC or something? If not, what the heck are you gonna do in Lyndon? Man, that place is the armpit of humanity. I only know as I grew up there and my damily is still there. If you get a haircut from a barber in Lyndonville, it'll be my brother. He's the barber in town.

I was there yesterday and rode KT for the 1st time this season. That is just plain the BEST XC in New England. I love that stuff! We're riding it again this coming Sunday.

-Couch

Since you grew up there, you know then that the armpit lies about 5 miles south in St J. ;)

We got a nice little house with a view of Burke Mountain in the Sheffield/Wheelock part of town. The only thing I might be doing at LSC is swimming in the pool and maybe teaching a class or two. I have to admit the KT had alot to do with our descision, so did the tranquility, the fly fishing, proximity to rock and ice climbing, and of course the Trout Brook Brewery!

I will be up there this weekend also. Maybe we should meet on Dead Moose Alley!
JT

[AA]

If you get a haircut from a barber in Lyndonville, it'll be my brother. He's the barber in town.


The haircut is $6, but the offroading magazines and all the cuss words are on the house!

[CouchingTiger]

Yes, my brother does lack certail cultural grace ;) He has a complete and utter mastery of the f-bomb in normal conversation though though.

St. J. used to be high-brow when I lived there. I actually grew up in East St. J. and attended St. J. school system through grade school. I then switched and went to L.I. for high-school.

Wheelfield and Shefflock, fun places. My mother has some cousin-uncles that live there. I dated a girl from Sheffield in high-school (no-relation). Her step-dad had the nicest trailer in town ( just kidding, it wasn't the nicest one ;)

Dead Moose is still a swamp, at least the XC connectors. We are gonna stick to Darling Hill side as it's in really good condition. May slide over White School Trail -> Moose alley though afterwards.

-Couch



If you get a haircut from a barber in Lyndonville, it'll be my brother. He's the barber in town.


The haircut is $6, but the offroading magazines and all the cuss words are on the house!

[johnnyt]

Dead Moose is still a swamp, at least the XC connectors. We are gonna stick to Darling Hill side as it's in really good condition. May slide over White School Trail -> Moose alley though afterwards.

-

Thanks for the beta. If you feel like it, stop on by my house and I will quickly put a paintbrush in your hand and a bucket in the other and you can help my wife and I paint...

I think I saw that trailer your talking about. Is that the one with the chevy in the yard or the one with the Take Back Vermont and Never Forget Ruby Ridge signs?

[CouchingTiger]

Painting, yea, fun ;) Between our house here in Bedford and the one in Bethel, ME, we have more projects than we can find time to do. Now we're thinking about looking back in VT for a place (and ditching or renting the Bethel house).

Fun-fun-fun!

So are you just retiring up there or tele-commuting or are you gonna be packing Bag-Balm for a living?

-Couch

[johnnyt]

The internet is my friend, so are the vermont septic laws...Know anyone who needs there septic system certified, designed, installed or surveyed?

I guess you could say I have a crappy job! ::)

[CouchingTiger]

Ah I see. We were just talking about that yesterday and how the law is supposed to be changing so as not to force engineered septic systems, but that it hasn't changed yet. Good deal for you ;)

We are riding at 10AM Sunday from E. Burke Sports. It'll be a motley crew with a mix of hardware including at least 1 tandem. We're leaving ours at home for this run though. I figure the recent changes to Poundcake and Fenceline (tighter and twistier) will be a challenge on the tandem. Most everything is ridable but more fun on a single geared bike (also leaving the SS at home this time).

-Couch

[rogueVT]

quote from JT:

"The southern part of the state ie Manchester and south seems to be very anti-mtb with the exception of Mt Equinox and Mt Snow. The GM National Forest is totally off limits from what I understand."

This is far from true. There are lots of great places to ride in the southern end of the state, We're not, however, real organized about publicizing them.
We are also just getting our foot in the door with the National Forest. First route open there is the old IP road by Stratton.
There are fairly extensive trail networks in Putney and Grafton, among others...There's also the West River Trail, in sections between Brattleboro and South Londonderry. There is lots of riding to do on private lands, with due respect to the landowners...
Stay tuned to the places to ride page on the main NEMBA section, as we'll be getting some of these places posted in the near future...
With all due respect to Kingdom Trails Assoc. and the incredible job they've done, eventually the southern end of the state will boast of a trail network to give them a run for their money... This depends on people getting organized and active, any more volunteers?

[CouchingTiger]

JT, it was good to meet both you and your wife Sunday. Too bad she was forcing you to work on the house instead of ride ;) The weather held all day and we actually saw sun at the end.

We were out for about 3.5 hrs and did most of the good junk on both sides of Darling Hill. Absolutely incredible ride. Cathy and I had worked on piecing together the trails so that we had mainly tight, twisty, technical downs and doubletrack ups. It worked great. The 1st 5 miles or so appeared to be all downhill.

Next time you'll have to break the chain around your ankle and get out for a ride ;)

-Couch

[johnnyt]

Couch,
That "chain" as you say ::) was broken on Tuesday evening when I got out for a ride with some folks from up there. We did about 12 miles and some of it was in an area not open to the public but since one of the guys owned the land, I was treated to some very sweet, less travelled single track. Very nice stuff!

[CouchingTiger]

JT, glad to hear you got some riding in.

We were at the KT again this past Saturday. We wrangled PK into coming up to our place in ME for the weekend and we headed over and rode Saturday.

The trails were great and we pulled off a mini-epic, 5hr ride that did some of the best of both sides (Burke Mountain side as well as both sides of Darling Hill). We ended up with 30 someodd miles and were pretty well spent by the end. We got started off with the climb up to the top of Owl's Head off of toll road (I think that it's about 2500' of climb from East Burke Sports) and in on Dead Moose. We then looped over to Moose Alley via mostly road to miss the mud/wet of the XC trails.

From there we crossed the road and headed back via White School Trail and then up to Darling Hill. Most of the good stuff both sides save Widowmaker, Leatherwood, East Branch and Rim. I was so bummed when we hit the bottom of Pines and I realized I missed Rim (possibly the best trail there). I wanted to go back but PK wouldn't ;) I'n reality, neither of us could have. I had just finished the last of my water and we were both in survival mode.

Good deal. Can't wait for the next time.

-Couch

[johnnyt]

We are heading up again this weekend and are planning on letting the house duties take a back seat to some riding and fly fishing. We will likely stick to Darling Hill side. Sounds like a great ride with PK!

The other task for this weekend will be to complete building up our two singlespeeds! The parts are in. ;)

[CouchingTiger]

Good deal, have a great ride! SS's and the KT's are, uh, well, a whole lot of work ;) PK, Hogboy and I gave that a try a couple seasons back. We started by climbing to the top of Burke Mtn. Bad, bad idea. The hardest 36 miles ever ;)

-Couch

[johnbryanpeters]

By gawd, I thought this post was dead. I will be at KT 18-20 July with a gaggle of geef from Ridemonkey, first time I will have visited there. any of you happening to be there in that interval?

John

[johnnyt]

Ayup, my wife and I are going to be there and plan to ride at least one of the two days. I believe IAB, MBC and MrMG will also be up there. Should be a crowd descending on the NEK!

Look forward to meetin' ya!
JT