cobalt123

79pmooney

Cool! No advice here. I have done a 40 mile ride on both sides of the Connecticut near White River Junction. Beautiful! Drove down the river from Quebec to Amherst many years ago. Again. beautiful. I was blown away at how different the shone and rock formations are on the opposite sides of the river. Vermont and New Hampshire are very different for being so close.

Ben

indyfabz

There is a relatively cheap Econo Lodge in Brattleboro, VT close to a large grocery store and a restaurant or two, but you will have to climb a hill to get there. I've ridden VT/MA 142 south from Brattleboro then some other roads to Deerfield, MA. 142 is pretty low traffic in the morning. Most of the vehicles are heading towards the Brattleboro area.

BTW...I would map out both sides carefully if you goal is to avoid as many hills as possible. I would also use Street View to check for shoulders.

cobalt123

indyfabz

This is what I did last year (Planned around my 35th high school reunion at Deerfield):

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/27849657?beta=false

I didn't bother taking the W. River Trail into Brat. The hill I am referring to is Canal St. I stopped at the market at the top for food than continued on to Ft. Dummer State Park. I was warned by a BF member that climb to get to the park gets stupid steep. He wasn't kidding. Then to add insult to injury, after you register for a campsite at the office you then have another steep climb to get to the camping area. The camping area itself is nothing special. In hindsight, I should have stayed at the Econo Lodge, especially after such a hard day. It was only 53 miles, but there was a long climb out of Manchester and then a headwind all the way to Brat.

How do you plan to get to the Canaan, VT/Canadian border area?

BTW...From the traffic patterns I have seen both times I have ridden through Brat, it looks like the NH 119 is generally a busier road then VT 142.

Leebo

Thinking just pave? So many options for dirt roads and bike paths. Check out the XVT and rails to trails.com.

rumrunn6

BobG

Should be a sweet trip the whole way! VT 102 is nice all the way from Canaan VT to Lancaster NH. NH 135 takes you to Monroe NH where you have the choice of crossing to US 5 in VT or staying on the NH side. US 5 is fine, all the traffic is out on I 91. From Brattleboro take VT 142/Turner's Falls/W Gill Rd as indy suggests.

River Road, just below Greenfield MA is a popular bike route south along the river to Hatfield. It then turns west to Northhampton...

berner

I'm jealous. I love that area and have done some backpacking there. It is beautiful and laid back. I had planned a bike route along the bucolic Connecticut River, along one bank and down the other in the area of Hanover, N. H. but did not follow up.The area is partly agricultural on the New Hampshire side and much more so on the Vermont side. Whether or not the roads have a shoulder, motor vehicle traffic will be minimal. The Appalachian Trail crosses the Connecticut River at Hanover. Dartmouth College, at Hanover, as bucolic an Ivy League campus at you can find, in the past has allowed thru-hikers to stay in their dorms. Hanover, a very pleasant small city would be a good stop for you. From my present location, I do not have any phone numbers for you at Dartmouth to confirm this.

cobalt123

I was considering incorporating the 19mile Ammonoosuc Rail Trail from Littleton NH to Woodsville.

Also, a little further north there is a 10 mile trail from Canaan to Colebrook

Also in consideration is the Ashuelot Recreational Rail Trail (21mile) from Walpole to Keene and the Cheshire Rail Trail (Cheshire Branch Rail Trail) (25 mile) to bring me towards home, but then it wouldn't be the full length of the river on the NH/VT border - haven't decided if that matters to be or not. Both of these trails will be warmup rides for me this summer I think.

I will be on a Salsa Marrakesh, so gravel is good. MTB'ing... not so much.

cobalt123

I'm thinking I will start further North than Canaan:


It is 4.5hrs from my home... thinking I will just ask a friend to drive me up there.

And yes, 119 is definitely busier.

indyfabz

That's a good friend.

BTW...BobG, who chimed in above (as I thought he might), was the member who warned me about the climb up Ft. Dummer S.P. He was also the third and final leader of my first ever unsupported tour, which was from Seattle to Bar Harbor, ME. He took us from the Adirondacks to Bar Harbor. You can trust his advice.

rumrunn6

I'm listening in, in case I hear about a fun section to try. fwiw ~ the Ashuelot is very nice but watch out for the holes & nails on those old bridges. also, I didn't see any services (like someplace to buy drinking water) along it's entire length. I rode it's length 3 times last Fall with 2 diff. bikes

cobalt123

that's great to hear this about that trail. I didn't want to commit not knowing it would be like. Thanks,

cobalt123

Thank you BobG!

djb

that's funny, I stayed in that cheap hotel about 6 or 7 years ago, when going from Montreal to Boston. Walked over to said large grocery store, bought and ate supper at some tables inside, appreciating the a/c.
seem to remember heading towards the town following a river, but quite possibly have mixed up memories.

djb

Re memories, it seems to me that the towns along that way often had short sections of steep bits, with parts of the town up much higher than the rivers.

just be aware and ready for some climbing. As you say, not having camping gear will be nice. Fall riding can be great, but you have to be realistic about the chances of cool and rain combined, which is never pleasant, so trip timing in fall is important, but sometimes one year from another can be quite different weather wise in the same time period.

most important thing will be regular riding this riding season, all the best

bikenh

NH side up close to the river tends to have better pavement conditions. Route 5 in VT is an old carriage road that they paved over and widening into a normal two lane highway. As a result the old carriage roads were narrow roads and they didn't do proper road building, they just laid down the blacktop over the additional road width so the road always cracks where the carriage road meets the widened road so you find long cracks in the road not far from the white line. Back in the past, 2011/12/13 have ridden everything, pretty much on both sides of the river from St. Johnsbury down to the MA border. I live 20 miles or so east of Claremont, NH. So I'm over that way quite often, not as much as I used to be but I know from experience VT hasn't changed their way of road construction along Rt 5. It's really noticeable between Windsor and Ascutney. You also notice it down around the Putney area as well. I know at the end of my 2015 trip I was going to ride down Rt 5 from St. Johnsbury to WRJ but when I woke up in the morning and started heading south I decided to take the better pavement and crossed over at Woodsville and took NH10 on down to Claremont instead.

mev

This brings back some memories from ~35 years ago when I was in college...

We had a four day Columbus Weekend where I decided to cycle from Boston to the northern tip of New Hampshire and back. A fairly gonzo ride of 525 miles. Even then, I wasn't particularly fast as a cyclist and the fall days were getting shorter, so it meant cycling most of the daylight hours. Towards end of the second day, I came through Pittsburg around time of sunset as it was getting dark. I didn't have lights, but there wasn't much traffic on the road and the moonlight was bright.

As I cycled on the dark road, I spotted a moose ambling across the road. I'm sure it was a normal sized moose, but on a dark road when you are cycling towards it, it looked enormous. I hesitated briefly, not sure what to do, but fortunately the moose just kept walking across the road as if it never even noticed me.

I reached the border somewhere around 8pm and cycled past an already closed US border station. Somehow there were lights on the Canadian side, so I biked to the border post. Here I briefly talked with the border guard as I at a chocolate bar before turning around to head back south. I cycled back to the outskirts of Pittsburg where I spread out my tube tent and sleeping bag for the night. It was a little below freezing the night and my water bottles had ice in them. However, by morning a combination of hot breakfast and sun coming warmed everything well as I continued south on my way back to Boston.

hilltowner

Beware, both of those trails are more like singletrack MTB trails. My experience with the Chesire R.T. is older so things might have changed there. Was on the Ashuelot (heading north from Winchester toward Keene) this past summer. It was not pleasant on an all-road randonneur w/42 mm tires. Would have been really unpleasant with panniers. Bailed out at the first road crossing. There appeared to be more pleasant stretches of it further on toward Keene (in the vicinity of W. Swanzey) but I was staying on the pavement at that point. Google bike directions you can give some pretty weird suggestions sometimes.

cobalt123

That's a different trail than I'm thinking of. Maybe I got the name wrong?

The one I'm thinking of runs from Keene to the MA boarder mostly along rt12.

here is the route: https://goo.gl/maps/R2Zd1mkNskS2

cobalt123

Ashuelot Rail Trail: https://goo.gl/maps/XCJfgZgV5ay (Winchester to Keene)

Cheshire Rail Trail was what I meant to say: https://goo.gl/maps/TonNWNBxtx22 (keene to walpole)