The “Rules”

As this is a self-imposed challenge the rules are simple and not entirely rigid, but here’s my aim:

• Ride my bike through all 251* cities and towns of Vermont, plus its 3 gores and 1 grant, for a total of 256 “municipalities”.
• Do it on dirt as much as is feasible.
• Ride on dirt at least once in all 256.
• I can ride through a corner of a town, but (again when feasible) I’m going to try to not just clip them.
• I need to intend for a ride to be part of the project for it to “count”. I’ll ride in many towns during the months and months I’m completing this, but only the rides that I intend to be 251 rides will go towards the total and get the whole write-up treatment.

*Actually, 252 as of July 1st 2022

The How

I’ll slowly chip away at this over time. There’s no deadline or even intended time frame. I’m slowing planning routes, but I’m sure they’ll change as well. They’re all loops so far, but some point-to-points may happen as well. I also want to be clear this is not one continuous line through the state and certainly not something I’m doing non-stop. This is a mellow, finish when I get there sort of thing.

Route Planning

I have pretty much all of the routes planned out, but as things progress, I imagine they’ll change. I don’t plan on sharing them before I ride them, but here are some resources I’ve found useful in planning where to ride:

• Google My Maps has been very useful for collecting routes and keeping things organized.
• GPX files such as those of the city/town outlines as well as ones you can download from Strava can be added to these Google maps.
• Strava route planning is really great. It requires a paid subscription and it does not generate turn-by-turn directions, but it’s been easy to use and how I ultimately catalogue and follow my rotes.
• I also tend to use Vermont’s E-911 map viewer a TON. It has all the roads, trails and even driveways of the state. It’s super powerful and invaluable. It’s not a guarantee a road will be passable, but it’s a good bet there at least used to be a road there.
• Seekingdirt.com is also a very slick tool, especially if you’re looking from wider view and tying to find a good route that’s on dirt between two points. Those orange roads just jump right out.
• Alternatively, town websites sometimes have pretty good maps and VTrans has PDFs of maps that break down how exactly the roads are categorized and there’s also this Vermont Center for Geographic Information map (though I haven’t used it much).
• You also can’t beat a good old fashioned gazetteer or a USGS paper map, especially for thinking bigger picture.
• Lastly, when it comes time to actually ride and follow a route, I originally download the portion of the state in Google Maps on my phone. However, I have now upgraded to a Wahoo Elemnt Bolt bike computer. They’re great, giving you lots of stats (if that’s what you’re into) as well as clear directions among other features. All without cell service. I’d highly recommend them.