Ride 251

Weston, Mount Tabor and

the Andover Hills

5/21/23

This is a really good route – which is really two short rides with a very short drive in between them.  If you are the kind who loves climbing, you can even bike between them for a total of a 40 mile ride with about 5000 vertical.  We said “no” to that today, and had a picnic lunch at the green in Weston in between the two rides- for a total of 17 miles and over 2,000 vertical.

Parking at the start is a bit tricky – you turn onto Jaquith Road and look for an easy place to park. We had to go up the road a ways, past the farm a bit, to find it.

The first ride starts on a forest service road right away.  We eventually saw a few no-trespassing signs on some of the route, which meant that it was on apparently private roads. We were committed, though, since Chris had seen a lot of heat on the roads (on Strava – indicating a lot of usage), so we kept going.  

That road was in good condition going up, but it eventually turned into mucky track at times or rocky, loose gravel at others. Big erosion climbing! It was tough riding at times, but do-able. 

We had to walk up and through some deep mud at times, until we got to the top of the ridge and started heading down again.  Here as well there were were a lot of wet, muddy holes that required walking on the way down.

My front wheel got stuck coming down, and I did a head over “endo” into the mud, getting my leg stuck between the pedal and frame.  It was good that Chris was there and able to help me out, otherwise I would be stuck there with my hands in the mud still. 

 Once we did that small section of class four, however, we crossed a metal culvert and  ended up in turnaround. 

This brought us to some really fine Forest Service roads, with smooth wide gravel, and going on for miles and miles.  I guess we just had to take a muddy shortcut to get there.  That great forest road eventually came out on the road that brought us back to our car.

This was a chilly but sunny ride, with the climbs making you hot and the downhills freezing you cold. Grateful for layers on such an indecisive day.

After the first ride, we loaded the bikes and climbed back in the car.  We took a short picnic on the Weston Green, drove by the Vermont Country Store, got coffee at the Weston General Store, and headed to the second ride on this route.

The second ride, Andover Hills, was a single town ride. 

This is a short 9 mile route, and was simple and straight forward. The route went like this: climb up and ride down North Hill about 2-3 miles, then climb up and ride down East Hill Road about 4 miles, turn right onto Andover Road, and ride back a rolling 3 miles to your parking spot.

East Hill was challenging, with a very steep climb for a very long time. For every ounce of effort you put into going up it, though, you got it back screeching down the other side.

There was even a fun historical marker about Finnish sauna’s along the way.

You see some excellent farmsteads, lots of long distance mountain views on this ride, as well as plenty of cultivated Forget-Me-Not flowers gone wild throughout the forest road ditches. The person who planted them is now, ironically, probably forgotten, but the flowers will keep living on into the future.