Road Trip! T&R's Ubersweet MTB Adventure - East Coast Edition - Days 5 Millstone

So in actuality it is still Day 4, we left the Kingdom Trails with good vibes as we had now rode increasingly better trail 4 days in a row! The bar was high for Millstone and it did step up, but not before we hit a snag... So we had some trouble finding the trail centre since Garmin couldn't find it and since we had no local maps, we stopped at the friendly neighbourhood service center for a Q&A session with a local wrench. Well needless to say the guy had no idea but his buddy told him it was near something else so he gave us directions to that. They involved going thru the new roun'-a-bout, which I quote "you're going to like". Oh the small things that amuse the smalltown folk. We proceeded on and apparently drove past Millstone so we pulled into the Rock of Ages Tourist trap and were informed that we were indeed in the wrong place and then we received very specific and long instructions from the guy which started with, "you're going to leave my property...". Well sure as shooting we found the place as the guy had told us we would. Pretty small town feel up there, it was quite nice. We arranged to stay on the property as they have campsites with access to their rental chalet for showers and shits. Also, came with free firewood which anyone can appreciate. We took advantage of the sunlight and dry weather (temporary of course) to dry our gear out and get the tent back up to an acceptable dampness level. The site was great and we were the only ones there. Got our gear unpacked and went about our daily chores of deciding whether to go out for dinner or just make due with what we had. Since we had done a late lunch at the Miss Lyndonville Diner which involved copious amounts of calories in American style portions of deep fried delicacies, we opted for the latter. After completing refueling, I got to the task of cleaning and lubing the 'Truth'. tosse the bike itn the stand and got to it. Things were going along nice and smoothly as usual until i removed the rear wheel...Disaster Strikes! As you can see the non-drive side chainstay suffered from a deficient weld, cracked through 3 of the 4 faces of the chainstay. Luckily for me the fourth side is still intact as is my calf as should this have given out it would have resulted, without a doubt, in a trip to the local ER for some good times. So here we are its 7:45pm in the middle of nowhere with a broken bike and the rest of our trip in jeopardy. So, no Internets going to be a problem but not insurmountable. I call my buddy Dave, with whom I'm doing this Crank the Shield in September, back in the Hammer and ask him for a list of Ellsworth dealers in VT which he emails to me quicker than the world could collapse around me. Call the 3 shops, 1 is open and doesn't have it the other 2 are closed. Call the Millstone bike center to inquire about a rental and they are also closed. Well we decided to have a couple of VT's finest brews, enjoy the fire and call it a night. Next morning the Millstone bike center calls back and I arrange a rental...poor little bike. Call FitWerx and talk to Ian, friendly and helpful. Get put in contact with Kevin at Ellsworth and make arrangements to ship a the chainstay overnight from Cali to Fitwerx for delivery by 12 noon. Things are going well. Now on to the ride. Randall gets ready as I go to arrange the rental. The choices aren't pretty but what can you do. First off they give me a 19" (correct size) Jamis 1.0. This beaute is an aluminum hardtail which has rim brakes and alevio componentry (really craptacular stuff here). I inquire as to the rest of their fleet. He tells me the 21" is out of commission, so I ask for the 17". The 17" Jamis is a Reynolds 520 steel hardtail with a much better fork, mechanical discs and a LX spec. Realize the seatpost is a 27.2 and well...I've got a plan. Complete the small talk and take the new trusty/rusty steed back to the pen to get some quick mods taken care of. As I get ready, Randall swaps the wheelset for those on my Truth, swaps out the platforms for my Time Atac'a and pulls the seat and 400mm post from the truth and gets her lubed, dialed and ready to rock. We're on our way...too bad the sun didn't come out to play! So we getter going and it's not warm, and soon it's really not warm, and then it rains...oh well. We just keep biking. Millstone has some really wicked trails. These are near complete opposite of Kingdom Trails and like nothing I've ridden in Southern Ontariario. The trails are technical but ridable for the most part considering all the rain we were pleasantly surprised. The only unridable sections were some rather large offcamber rocks...the roots were slippery as well but only the birch tree roots. Millstone had some really cool scenery. The trails, located roughly in Barre, VT, traverse between granite quarries...lots of them. The trails were a challenge and would love to go back to ride these again. Anyone who plays on these trails everyday would be a riding demi-god. The lines were there although hard to find at times. The trail system, although we did get lost right off the bat, was extremely well marked and that's the lifesaver cause as you get turned around so often you wouldn't have a clue where you were...although Garmin kept us assured of out possition. All and all my rental Jamis Elite held up great, the Racing Ron's triumphed again and we had logged our 5th consecutive day of great riding

Below are some shots of our day...as you can see in one of them we may be in our thirty's but we sure aren't planning to grow up any time soon. With another successful day of riding on the books we decide to head on to our next stop, Waterbury VT home of Ben & Jerry's!

So with our riding behind us the sun came out, we packed up our gear, returned what was left of the rental bike and headed on our way. The drive to Waterbury, although scenic, was rather uneventful. We got the lay of the land and dropped in at 5 Hills Bikes to get the scope on riding. We talked to a nice chap named George (owner) who invited us to the group ride in Stowe that evening, but with 5 days riding in our legs and the last tough 4 hours of it just mere hours ago, we took a pass. Dude had a pretty sweet shop with a very impressive line of bicycles for purchase, everything from Niner bikes to Moots to IF all fully blinged out! We were also informed that the Waterbury trails were way too wet to ride and were closed and would probably remain that way for a solid couple days (with sunshine). This news was pretty much equivalent to putting on a soggy chamois. He let us know that there was much more rain on its way and that if we wanted to stay high and dry to check out the Inn just down the road for reasonable accomodations.

So it was time to generate a new plan...on the go. We decided to head to Fitwerx to see what they had to offer. Fitwerx according to our good buddy Garmin was only a short jaunt down a couple back highways a little south of Waterbury in an equally as sleepy town of Waitsfield. Met Sarah the very bubbly owner and she laid out lots and lots of options for us for things to do in the area. We checked around thier shop and this place was off the hook(unless you're a mountainbiker than you're S.O.L.)! Fitwerx is geared heavily to the Triathelete crowd. They carried the full line of Zipp wheels, as well as everything imaginable in carbon. They prowdly carried Serotta customs as well as IF and every bike in the store was outfitted with a Chris King headset! If you were a cyclist with money to burn, than this was the shop for you! Strangly enough there wasn't a single Ellsworth in the place but hey, at least they agreed to have it shipped to them.

Deciding that the only famed establishment to eat at in the area was The Alchemist Pub we headed back to Waterbury to get cleaned up and get a bite to eat.

The alchemist is a 7 barrel brewery and was packed when we got there. I got my name on the list for getting a seat to eats and was informed we'd be drinking beer for 45minutes while we waited. Judging by the perplexed look on the kids face that was incharge of seating it was actually going to be much longer. You see he was writing the names on the back of beer coasters, and although that sounds cool, his system was severly flawed. The only way I can explain his incompetence would be that he must be the Owner's kid. After about 1/2 hour i decide the sityeation is redonkulous and that before my stomach eats itself for dinner I had better get me a snackski...cajun sweetpotato fries please! They came out right quick and we dug in. These fries were "top shelf" I say and went well with the pint of 'the blond' i had. Follow up to 'the blond' was 'morbid sin' and although Randall informed me it was really good...next time I'll stick to the blonds.

Finally, being seated I ordered the burrito...and an uncaesar salad. Burrito was excellent, although chewing it probably would have been a good idea. The salad...well, it was warm and lacking in many ways.

After devising a plan for the next day we packed it in... wicked busy day ahead.