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MAGNIFICENT Story by Warren Cornwall SEVEN Photos by Caleb Kenna A SEVEN-WHEELED ‘SUPER-DUPER BIKE’ ADVENTURE IN VERMONT EDALING UP LOOMIS STREET tale seemed too on our way out of Burlington, extreme, a textbook PVermont, I passed a friend case of misguided standing in front of her house. She parental aspirations looked at me, pointed an index finger walking the fine line at her temple, and slowly turned it in of pushing too hard. a circle — the international symbol for In the coming crazy. At the moment, I suspected she months, however, the might be right. book’s bike-centric The epic family vacation is an family vision took archetypal feature of Americana. My hold. My kids were own brainchild on display that June outgrowing the trailer morning had all the trappings of a for trips around town. candidate for that genre. Take two On Craigslist I found kids under the age of 10; a tandem, an old, handmade tag-along, and bike trailer rigged steel-tubed Ibis together into a five-wheeled, 100-pound tandem. I adjusted behemoth; a willing if slightly bemused the stoker position spouse; and a plan to cross the state on with a crankset that 120 miles of roads through the heart of clamped to the seat the Green Mountains. Add me in the tube, a conversion role of a lycra-clad Clark Griswold, the kit that brought the hapless but well-meaning dad of the pedals within reach National Lampoon’s Vacation movies. of my nine-year-old Maybe I was nuts, but it would be a daughter Maya’s feet. family vacation to remember. Her brother pulled Shortly before we chugged past the up the rear on a Trek friend’s house, just 20 yards from our tag-along attached front door, my six-year-old son, Lev, had to her seatpost. The already tapped into the potential humor “Super Bike,” as we of the affair. From his position at the dubbed it, became Checking the map during an ice cream stop at one of Vermont’s many small-town general stores. back of our three-person bike train, he our chief mode of announced in a joking tone, “My butt transportation around idea of a more adventurous way of getting hurts.” Just wait, buddy. town. On trips to the grocery store, I to PapaJ and GrandDori’s house. They The seed for this trip was planted hitched the trailer to the back. The would remember this one. two years earlier when I picked up a “Super-Duper Bike” was born. After waving farewell to our friends copy of Mud, Sweat, and Gears, the 2010 It was only a matter of time before my on Loomis Street, we pointed our book by Joe Kurmaskie recounting his aspirations ran beyond the city limits. contraption south just before noon on transcontinental bike trip with his wife By spring of 2012, the kids had proved the first day of summer vacation. The and kids. He had patched together a themselves on multiday backpacking early miles led along a gently rolling ridge MAGNIFICENT Frankenstein of a bike to carry him and trips, and Lev was old enough that he speckled by subdivisions interspersed his three sons, ages nine, seven, and had the stamina to go a little farther. with green pastures. The hazy blue of one. Not across the country, but what about Lake Champlain on our right mirrored I was a dedicated cyclist, racing to my in-laws’ house on the other side the blue sky. A gentle wind pushed at our road and mountain bikes as a teenager, of the state? We usually made the trip backs. With a full load tipping the scales working at bike shops, and later in 90 forgettable minutes, gunning the at over 400 pounds, including riders, competing in triathlons and bike car down Interstate 89 and watching we sped down the descents, slowed only commuting. I had already started the state whip by from inside our glass by my daughter’s pleas to not go so fast. SEVEN proselytizing to the next generation, and metal bubble. I set about tracing an At the bottom of the next hill, all that seating my kids on scoot bikes by the alternate route along backroads and small mass came back with a vengeance. I time they turned three. But Kurmaskie’s state highways. I pitched the kids on the downshifted to the lowest gear and began ADVENTURECYCLING.ORG 11 the slow, methodical chug up. L a We quickly settled into a kind of k e do-si-do with my wife, Shala. Riding on C A h D a A her own bike, she would trail behind on m N A p the downhills, then gleefully spin by on l Burlington C a MAINE i the way up, loaded down with just rear n panniers. VT Twelve miles in, we encountered NEW YORK NH the first chance to try one of our chief S MA Monkton strategies for keeping little legs inspired K CT RI R N T to pedal. Every general store we passed, O I Y N Starksboro O we told the kids, we would stop for an ice A W M E R cream bar. Vermont has a lot of general T 0 5 10 N E r e stores. V v N 89 i Miles R After fueling up, we left the last traces t U u ic of suburban sprawl and entered the Middlebury t O c e true Vermont countryside. Manicured n n Ripton M lawns gave way to long stretches of fields o C decorated with tidy rows of hay drying Hancock E in the sun. McMansions ceded the way T R Royalton N I to white clapboard houses, some bearing MIDDLEBURY GAPRochester O H S M P signs dating their vintage to the 1700s. R E M Bethel A sweeping descent led to a covered V A ROCHESTER GAP Sharon H wooden bridge. Cars were virtually N W absent. The pastoral quiet was broken E E N only by my labored breathing and my E West Hartford kids’ carefree chatter. As we climbed a R Quechee particularly steep hill outside the little G “PapaJ and burg of Monkton, my daughter delivered a dissertation on cattail fluff while my GrandDori’s” House son sang “America the Beautiful.” “Pedal (huff) harder,” I gasped. For LIPPUS AMY MAP: a minute, the climb eased as two pairs a new song that would soon become our day’s destination. Camp Common of legs strained against the gears. Then, the anthem for the trip. Inspired by Ground, a retreat where we had taken the gradually, the boost faded away and the confusion over the identity of some family for a weeklong family camp the talk resumed. The extra strain was eased livestock, the kids composed a ditty: “I previous summer, lay dormant. But the by having the kids in such cheery moods see a donkey and a ponkey and some owners let us pitch a tent at the edge of a after 16 miles on the road. cowsies, too. And an ow-ow-owooo!” Up sprawling lawn dotted by cabins. We spent By the time we traded a quiet country ahead, a general store in little Starksboro the late afternoon lolling in the grass and road for State Highway 116, energy beckoned. Time for more ice cream. strolling to the swimming pond to wash levels were waning and talk of soreness A final short dash through town and off the day’s grime. The tension of getting began in earnest. But we had acquired down a half-mile dirt road brought us to on the road dissolved in the sun. 12 ADVENTURE CYCLIST JULY 2017 That evening, after s’mores around a joined by the Red Streak, modeled on my needed to freshen up for the two days campfire, Maya discovered a luna moth wife, who sailed past us up every hill, her ahead, which included crossing the struggling in the grass. We marveled at red jersey matched by the red panniers Green Mountains. its enormous furry body, tattered jade- and red frame of her bike. By western U.S. standards, Middlebury green wings, and fringed antennae. We When we arrived at our inn at Gap doesn’t sound so bad, climbing 1,600 finally left it clinging to a blade of grass. the edge of downtown Middlebury, feet in eight and a half miles. But coming Its journey was almost over. Ours had I was ready for a little pampering. out of East Middlebury, six miles into just begun. Before the trip, we had decided to Day Three, the first slope came like a The next morning, we pulled out alternate between camping and more slap in the face. Within 50 yards, Shala with an entire day to ride just 21 miles luxurious accommodations to give the was walking her bike. I kept chuffing to our motel room in the college town kids a chance to recharge. Though I along, knowing walking would be even of Middlebury. The short distance, usually played the role of family drill slower — but not by much. coupled with a tinge of soreness, was an sergeant, even I didn’t mind a little air We had turned east into the invitation for frequent breaks. Our minds conditioning followed by pizza and a mountains. The tame landscape of farm were easing into the unhurried pace of a showing of Madagascar 3. Besides, we country gave way to the wildness of kid-driven bike tour.

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