Hello, Vermont. Good-bye, Vermont. Hello, New Hampshire. We checked off states 13 and 14 in a single day as we rode across the entire state of Vermont today.
The start to the day wasn't quite what we were expecting. We headed to breakfast at 6:30am and all looked good, but by 6:45 it was pouring down rain and cold (low 40s again). Riding in the rain is fine. Riding in the cold is fine. Riding in the cold, rain is not fun. It did stop raining before our start time, but unfortunately it didn't stay dry for long. We made it just across the Vermont border before it started raining again. We had maybe an hour or so of rain, but by then the damage was done. We were all cold and wet, and since there wasn't much sun we stayed cold all day even with clothing changes.
Despite the rain, the ride across Vermont had its good moments. Prior to entering Vermont we rode across Lake Champlain, and then we made our way to Middlebury, which looked like a super cute town. This was also where one of van stops was located. Instead of the usual van snacks, we where treated to our choice of items at a coffee shop. Lunch wasn't going to be until mile 66 and both of our tough climbs were before lunch, so I decided a pastry would be a good idea. And it was, I got a Vermont maple cream cheese danish that was awesome. We then made our way over the next several hours through the Green Mountains. Today they were green, yellow, orange, and red. They were also tough to climb with some rather steep sections. The first climb was about 9 miles and the second was about 4. The beginning and the end of the 9 mile climb definitely hurt, but there was an easy 3-4 miles in the middle. The second climb was 8-12% almost the entire climb. Definitely happy when that one ended.
We were then treated to an excellent lunch prepared by Megan, one of our guides. All of the lunches are good, but two of our guides really go out of their way to make sure we have amazing lunches, and Megan is one of them. It was really nice to have a tasty, healthy lunch on a hard cold day.
One more big day, similar to today, but hopefully better weather, as we make our way through the White Mountains of New Hampshire to North Conway.
Day 44 stats:
distance: 95.7 miles
elevation gain: 6854 ft
nutrition:
breakfast: egg and cheese on english muffin, yogurt, large muffin, NuGo protein bar
lunch: avocado toast with tomatoes, goat cheese, basil, balsamic, sea salt (OMG. so good), 1 small coke
post-ride: 1 recovery drink, nutter butter, 1 small coke, 1 La Croix
gels: 2
bloks: 1
52 oz skratch superfuel, 26 oz zym
other: vermont maple cream cheese danish, 1 small coke
Day 45 details - Hanover to North Conway
planned distance: 98 miles
planned elevation gain: 6759 ft