Chittenden / Mendon
5/7/23
Water, Water Everywhere!
Sunday May 7, 2023
I call this ride water, water everywhere, because basically there IS water everywhere – from the gushing rivers at the beginning and in the forest, to the swimming pools and hot tubs at the end.
This ride is a surprisingly fun mix of back roads – half gravel and half paved, some through pristine undeveloped forest at the foot of Pico Mnt., and some through small town neighborhoods. This fun route, that Chis created, offers 25 plus miles of good distance, but with easy elevation of 2000 feet.
We parked in the Sugar and Spice Restaurant parking lot- located directly on RT 4 in Mendon. We parked in front of a beautiful memorial park – for Doug Casella, see picture.
This ride starts right up going south on RT 4. Even though you’re riding on RT 4, one of the busiest roadways in the state of Vermont, on your right the whole way you see beautiful rivers of water rushing across the rocks, very close to the road. Great water show! Granted it’s spring- so the water was flowing particularly well, but it would be beautiful any season (though spring is when I recommend someone take this ride).
After just a few miles of climbing very gradually up RT 4, (alongside gorgeous water, remember), you turn onto some really splendid roads, with cool, deep pristine pine forest with lots of mossy rocks and piney needles.
on either side for miles, except the few, small, grandfathered-in cabins on these watershed lands. These early long gravel roads are fun. They climb a little, then they go down a little, then they climb a little – and then they go down a little. Really nice stuff.
You eventually turn right onto a Notch Road and then you continue going through even more really remote gravel roads, crossing many rivers along the way. As I said, there is water, water everywhere on this ride!
After about 7 miles of these beautiful, gravel roads, you find that you are suddenly biking through the lush lawns and large landscaped neighborhoods of Rutland Town and Mendon.
There is still water everywhere, but it is small creeks, swimming pools and hot tubs. You ride quite a ways on a road called Townline Road, with houses on Rutland town side all facing the right, and the houses on the Mendon side all facing left. It makes for interesting neighborhood dynamics, I bet!
You come to RT 4 again, and immediately need to turn left and then carefully cross the road. The ride goes a very short way on RT 4 before you need to turn off and to the right. Very quickly, you are suddenly plunged into more well established neighborhoods on the north side of RT 4. The yards are larger and more varied, with rolling hills and homestead house lots, some with great 360 views of the surrounding Green Mountains.
These roads took us the back way to Chittenden, famous for its Chittenden Reservoir (which is really quite spectacular, but you don’t see it on this ride, sorry.) It seemed that every house on this road was hawking their own homemade maple syrup, too.
This bike ride ultimately takes you to the statue in Chittenden’s Fallen Heroes Square – a four corners up from the school and water plant. Chittenden has a surprising number of fallen heroes for one little town, btw. So sad.
After a picture break, you ride through gentle rolling hills again for another 5-7 miles, to ultimately wind up at the Sugar and Spice Restaurant once again.
We celebrated by eating at Sugar and Spice Restaurant afterwards. It was fun. The ambiance is really good because it is housed in a well preserved, older mill building. There is lots of woodwork inside with interesting architectural features. They even have a toy shop in the basement for kids. Our only disappointment was that there was almost nothing on the menu that was vegetarian, let alone, vegan. The only salad on the menu even came with meat! Luckily we are pescatarian, and could eat the tuna, but it was slim pickings for the veggie set for sure.
SIDE NOTE: We were disappointment that the side of the road on RT 4 was so full of trash. All the other roads were pristine and clean with green bags piled everywhere on the side of the roads. Yesterday was VT Green Up Day, where the locals get green bags from the state, pick a road and walk it to pick up trash. Then they’ll take the green bags to their local town landfill or transfer station. Chris and I picked up a road too, yesterday, in our neck of the woods in Barnard, VT. But on RT 4 today, I found myself thinking “Where was the Green-Up crew on this road yesterday? Maybe Chris and I will clean it next year, who knows?
Beautiful ride on a beautiful day at a beautiful time of year. I would highly recommend it!