Lake Champlain Bikeways

Riding North on the Lake Champlain Bikeway with the inland sea and Green Mountains to the right and Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks to left I have to disagree somewhat with Pico Iyer. I don't travel to get outside my normal comfort zone. I travel to get in touch with it. Nothing feels quite as right as pedaling through the islands of Vermont.

Some places are better for pedaling than others and the Northern Lake Champlain region is certainly one of the best. While I scoffed (actually snorted) when the guidebook (which I highly recommend - 25 Bicycle Tours in the Lake Champlain Region: Scenic Tours in Vermont, New York, and Quebec
) said that “although few roads have shoulders, the traffic is low enough, and what drivers there are, are kind enough, the Lake Champlain region is perfect for bike riding." But it's true! Along with that the views are fantastic! Lakes and mountains, mountains and lakes. From our campsite alone we can see east to Mount Mansfield and south to Camels Hump.

Our first ride was a 60 miler to Isle de la Motte. The ride reminded me a lot of riding in Holland. The road goes along a flat coastline for while then up ahead you see a bridge and in a few miles you cross that bridge. There are 3 islands between Grand Isle and Isle de la Motte, Oh, and good coffee too. On North Hero Island there is Hero's Welcome. A general store, post office, restaurant, outdoor sporting goods shop and cafe all in one – with picnic tables on the lake. For a small island, Isle de la Motte boasts a number of firsts. The first place Champlain landed, the first Catholic shrine in the United States, the first black granite quarry, the first ferry from Vermont to New York, and the first inland coral reef. It is a pretty nice island, it was also the first place I tasted a Zesta apple. I hope there are many more of those to come.

The second day S. and I took the riding down a notch, circumnavigating Grand Isle. More beautiful riding along quiet roads with the addition of a side trip down to the causeway, an abandoned railroad bed that originally linked the south end of Grand Isle with Burlington, Vt. Once the railroad was abandoned the drawbridge was dismantled so the only way to presently ride the whole 15 miles to Burlington is on summer weekends when volunteers run a bike ferry. Still it was a good ride just going out to the cut and waving to the folks on the other side. We also got to see a salmon carving someone had done of one of the many amazing chunks of granite that made up the causeway.

Wednesday we looped North then west and into New York. Stopping at Lakes End Cheese for a sample then at the Welcome Center in Alberg. The guide there was a serious bike tourer riding every summer from Vermont to Wisconsin and putting on lots of miles on the roads we were just discovering.

Crossing into New York we stopped in Rousse's Point for lunch then road 28 miles due south along smoothly paved farm roads. Along the way we stopped to read all the historic markers. Not so much because they were all that informative but because it was amusing to see how far someone would stretch facts to justify a historical marker. My favorite had to be the one that recounted how General Burgoyne, in his march to Ticonderoga built a number of corduroy log bridges across “inland swamps like this.” Of course a close second was entitled “Benjamin Franklin” and related the story how two brothers who had met Franklin lived “somewhere close to this spot.” If this is what classifies as deserving an historical marker, the mind reals. We spent the next 15 miles cursing the headwind and inventing our own.

We left NY for Vermont via the ferry and finished the ride with a 3 mile spin across Grand Isle.