A Touch of Winooski
5/26/24
At less than 2 miles, this ride is our absolute shortest.
Most of our 251 rides take up the whole morning, and then afterwards we often look for a quick lunch. This ride flips that model on its head. We started with the lunch place, followed by our very short ride.
Surrounded by urban areas, Winooski is a difficult town to get, and especially to get gravel in. So we just biked across the Winooski River into town, rode a quick loop through the Winooski Falls Park, and back across the river again. Done.
Most of our rides take us several hours to complete. This one literally took us less than 10 minutes to do, and yet still offered up some beautiful views and experiences.
We started at the Pingala Cafe, a vegan indoor/outdoor “food truck” that is technically in Burlington but overlooking Winooski. The place is funky and fun, and the food is excellent. There is plenty of parking, and you can sit on the deck and eat your order while overlooking the beautiful Winooski River.
The first part of this ride is across the Winooski River Bridge into Winooski. We got half way across the bridge before we had to stop and take some pictures of the Winooski Falls creating cascades upriver.
Once across the bridge, you take a quick right hand turn onto Winooski Falls Way, and into the Riverside Walkway. This is a board walkway that overlooks the river and leads to the Casavant Nature Trails. These trails are short but unpaved, so we did a quick loop to get us a little bit of gravel.
Even though I don’t have pictures, the Casavant Trails (that you can bike / walk on) are lovely, a with hidden benches and a big open field to the left.
We took a quick swing around, headed back across the the bridge, and this ride was done.
If you are looking to add to the experience, just a quick climb up the hill back to Burlington brings you to a Cemetery where Ethan Allen is buried.
It was a super fun adventure, and I highly recommend all of it.