Almost a whole month has passed since Ride 35. On that one, I needed to switch to a different route. And between travel and other fun summer plans, it took me a while to get organized to ride what I was originally going to do and head up to the NEK. I still put a call out for friends and Kristine came through again. She brought along Beth who I’d ridden with on the Wednesday Winooski rides, and Jon, who it turns out is good friends with Tyler and Rachel and is co-owner with them of The Ranger (of Ride 30 fame). I worked Saturday at the South End Art Hop, so only had one weekend day. Maddie graciously said she’d hold down the home front, so at 9:15 on a Sunday, we all met up on the Irasburg town green.
Irasburg was named for Ira Allen, brother of Ethan, noted Green Mountain Boy, land owner/speculator and debtor among other things. More recently the town has been known as the home of author Howard Frank Mosher whose fiction was based in “Kingdom County” a world very solidly based upon Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. He lived in Irasburg until his death in 2017. We were thinking more about what a picture perfect day it was than any sort of town history as we geared up for our ride. The route was fairly long (about 70 miles), plus we’d be briefly crossing into Canada just for kicks, so we all double and triple checked we had our passports and had completed the prescreening questionnaire on the ArriveCAN app. We soon had everything together and headed north out of the village. We turned onto Covered Bridge Road which is named for the Lord’s Creek Covered Bridge, which does not cross Lord’s Creek any more, but in fact spans the Black River (it was moved in 1958). It connects the road over to some farmland and is private, but we stopped to check it out anyway. We climbed up a bit, crossing Route 5 onto Airport Road. That road is named for the Northeast Kingdom International, which sits about 5 miles up the road. This sleepy airstrip and its town of Coventry are perhaps most notable for the muddy, sad, end of an era Phish festival it played host to in August 2004. Less than a month later, I was an incoming freshman at UVM with an understanding of the band, thanks to my cool, more musically inclined older brother Lyon. But I have a distinct memory of sitting in the Harris Millis cafeteria, hearing how dedicated folks were that they’d broken up and realizing that people cared way more about this band than I ever knew.
Our route took us along a beautiful ridge, providing panoramic views of the surrounding hills and valleys. We dropped down towards the Barton River, which meanders lazily north into Lake Memphremagog. It wasn’t always lazy though. The summer of 1810 was fairly dry and a well-meaning miller named Aaron Willson wanted more water to power his mill. He decided that he’d go up stream and dig a trench to allow more water to flow out of Long Pond. With a crew of workers, they dug and it ended up working too well: within 1.5 hours, Long Pond’s two billion gallons of water had flowed downstream, wreaking havoc and forever changing the name of the Long Pond to Runaway Pond. It’s a wild story and you can read a full account here and watch a fun video about the bicentennial celebration here. We matched the current pace of the river: slowly continuing northward, passing the Northern State Correctional Facility. As we rode by I of course thought about the hundreds of people incarcerated there (it’s the largest prison in the state) but also those who have been sent out of state to for-profit prisons, as well as the corrections officers who will soon be working 60-hour workweeks. We ducked through a railyard to hit some dirt in Newport, before soon coming around the bend to see the downtown proper of Newport City.
The City of Newport officially formed in 1917 when parts of the main village of Newport Town combined with the village of West Derby to incorporate as a city. Like many Vermont cities, it’s small geographically (7.63 sq mi) and demographically (4,455 people). These days it’s unfortunately known for its development struggles. Namely the EB-5 ponzi scheme that rocked the Northeast Kingdom, leaving the city with only dashed hopes and a hole in the ground. Maddie and I traveled there for a weekend last year, and while the downtown offerings are somewhat limited, it’s certainly worth a visit. Newport Natural Foods alone makes the trip worthwhile. This day, we didn’t need any supplies so we nixed stopping, and we were happy to get hooked up with the bike path that begins right at the downtown Pomerleau Park. We zigged and zagged a bit around some shopping plazas, spilling into a neighborhood and through a park, before connecting up with the old Beebe Spur rail line that used to connect up to Stanstead Quebec and beyond. There were some nice views over Memphremagog and we enjoyed dreaming about which lake house we’d take (if they were being given away). We eventually reached the end of the line and headed east to the small hamlet of Beebe Plain and its border crossing. It really is just a few houses and a border crossing (which I’m amazed is still open). The next crossing is only 2 miles due east, but we’d be taking advantage of this customs quirk and making a short loop north into Canada. The traffic here is controlled by a small gate that pops up from the ground. Once it’s lowered, you cross an active street and pull into the border patrol station to check in. It was a smooth process and one of the first things I noticed was the Canadian flag hanging at half staff (or half mast as they’d say). I’d forgotten that Canada is a Commonwealth country and was therefore in a state of mourning for Queen Elizabeth II. After clearing customs, we took a quick spin out Rue Canusa, a geographical oddity where the houses on one side are in the US and the other side Canada. It used to be more informal, in the pre-9/11 days, but we were able to ride down and come back, seeing the Vermont plates in the driveways on our left and Quebec plates in those on our right. We then headed for Maison Gorchon, a well reviewed cafe placed right along the “piste cyclable Stanstead”. The whole area is awash with bike paths. In fact Quebec has a province-wide network called La Route Verte, which is in turn part of the Trans Canada Trail: “the longest network of multi-use recreational trails in the world.” They really know how to do it up here. At the cafe I ordered a smoked meat sandwich and a lemon tart. We all enjoyed a break on the picnic tables outside and I’d certainly recommend a stop if you’re in the area. We continued onto the bike path, soon coming across a couple with an e-bike that had gotten a flat. They removed a large nail and had a patch kit, but try as we might, we couldn’t find the leak. Luckily we were near a house and the people there said they’d be able to help. We had some views on Rue Maple and had one more wiggle on a bike path before arriving in the Rock Island village of Stanstead. We took a circuitous route to pass by an old customs house/post office and then over a pedestrian bridge, before crossing back into the good old US of A.
Living that bike path life 
A random Walden cabin replica in the woods 
Mont Bear (left) and Owl’s Head (right) over Lake Memphremagog 
So many more paths up there! 
Obligatory “in a different country” shot (thanks Beth) 
Rue Canusa – Vermont on the left and Quebec on the right (they get a sidewalk) 
Good boy (or should I say bon garçon) 
These are from Costco, but you put them under a fancy lid and stick some french on there and voilà: 80 cent energy balls! 
A custom Subaru paint job 
Trying to fix the flat (photo by Jon) 
Customs House/Post Office
We were now in the village of Derby Line. It’s most famous for the Haskell Free Library and Opera House which was intentionally built on the international border in order to give Canadians and Americans equal access. In fact, it technically has two addresses: 93 Caswell Avenue, Derby Line, Vermont, and 1 rue Church, Stanstead, Quebec (which makes for some funny looking Google directions). This beautiful building had long been easily accessible despite its unique geography, but between the hardening of the border after 9/11 and Covid travel restrictions, folks on both sides of the border have needed flexibility, creativity and patience. The library isn’t the only building that the border bisects: there are several right in the neighborhood. But it’s the most public one, and it’s inspired countless articles, cheeky videos and tourists over the years. We didn’t have time to do a proper tour, but it was fun zooming by on Caswell Ave as we paralleled the border. Quickly we came to the much larger and recently revamped border crossing that handles traffic coming north on Interstate 91 and south on Autoroute 55. We rose up onto a bridge with the Canadian customs building on the left and the American on the right. I really liked the look of the new American building, so (not thinking) I decided to take some photos. We’d actually spoken earlier about how you’re not supposed to take pictures at or of the inspection stations and as soon as I raised my phone and pointed it south, I heard some sharp whistles coming from that direction. It didn’t sink in right away but quickly I realized my mistake and half expected to have a border patrol SUV zoom out to pull us over. Luckily no such drama ensued and we were able to continue east. We chugged up a hill and were eventually rewarded with some fantastic views back west along the border. We soon crossed into Holland. The town is named after the region (NOT COUNTRY) of Holland and once played host to a disaster of a music festival at which 9 people were shot. These days it’s much sleepier and the most exciting thing we saw was a road that shares its name with my brother. We continued into Morgan, stopping at the Morgan Country Store. With its PO boxes and taxidermy, it’s a classic Vermont store that seems to mainly cater to the residents of the camps that ring Lake Seymour as well as snowmobilers in the winter. We enjoyed a quick resupply there before heading south towards Charleston and Echo Lake.
The next stretch of road took us past some farms and there was a ton of haying going on. We were passed a few times by large trucks carrying loose hay. That, the rough road condition and a stretch of Route 5A, made this section less than ideal. The main highlight was Devaney Farmstand, which looked lovely. We eventually made our way to Brownington and the historic Brownington Village area, a much more picutresque sight. This wonderful cluster of buildings sprung up because of the area’s location on Hinman Settler Road (which was also seen on Ride 27) and it also was the site of a dormitory for the Orleans County Grammar School. It was named Athenian Hall by its builder Alexander Twilight, but everyone mainly called it the Old Stone House. Twilight was a fascinating figure with many “firsts” to his name, including the first African American elected as a state legislator and first African-American man known to have earned a bachelor’s degree from an American college or university. The building now serves as a museum and is actually where the 251 Club held their Spring ‘22 get together! We continued south, passing a horse and buggy sign and sure enough, within a few minutes we saw two going north! Brownington has recently seen an influx of Amish and VPR did a great story on it last year. In fact, the photo at the top of the story is of the very sign we saw. We descended down to Vermont 58, climbed around the original Hinman Settler Road that passes through a golf course and seemed sketchy to ride, then down again into Barton. We zipped through quiet streets, which made sense since the Orleans County Fair was having its last hoorah on the south side of town. We then had our final climb up Roaring Brook Road to East Albany Road to West Glover Road where we skimmed past the route we’d ridden on Ride 16, finally officially checking off Barton. We then hit our only Class 4 of the day which connected us over to Burton Hill Road and one of the best downhill finishes of a 251 ride so far. Definitely ride down Burton Hill Road, not up. We then de-biked at our start point and all drove south, stopping at the Burger Barn in Cambridge for a well-deserved dinner.
The Details:
NOTE: Normally this is where I post the link to the Strava activity and a visualization from Ayvri. Unfortunately Ayvri is shutting down. This is a major bummer, since they’ll not only stop allowing new uploads, the old uploads will be taken down as well. So the links on my older posts will soon be broken. Moving forward, I’ll be using “Relive” which is okay, but you can’t move the map as it goes and it only moves at one speed, not like Ayvari which matched the speeds, stops and such of a ride. So it goes. It’s still pretty cool I suppose.
Dirt 251 
Another very entertaining entry. Thanks
Sam!
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