Stories Of Riding, Just In Time For The Bike Show!

With snow blowing by the office window and thoughts of riding being nothing but a bit of a daydream, here's something to warm you up and get you thinking motorcycles, just in time for next week's Calgary Bike show!

Blue Circle clients Michelle and Phil just shared with us some stories and photos of a recent trip they took in Vermont back in the Fall. Of course, the eastern states and our own provinces share that beautiful display of Autumn colours and the scenery was pretty spectacular. Phil and Michelle wanted to do some motorcycle touring and were fortunate to discover Moto-Vermont, where they able to rent some BMW bikes and get set up to ride in comfort and style.

Here's their story, as told to me by Michelle.

Michele and Paul with their rental bikes

I'm a newbie rider and I got my license in late September 2012 (my boyfriend is an experienced rider with about 20 years).  Vermont was my third road trip.  A 1500 mile trip through Idaho and Montana, then a 4000 mile trip to our West coast were the first two.  Vermont was an opportunity to try out BMWs bikes (rented with Moto Vermont), get a last season ride in (went mid-October) and check out Vermont's famous fall colours.  

Riding in Vermont was a lot of fun.  We kept off the main freeways and stuck to the back roads, so the pace was slower, but the roads were winding and the scenery fantastic.  Our tour took us through many old towns,  some of which were established in the late 1700's as evidenced by the the old graveyards on the outskirts.  

However, despite all the history, we wanted to focus on riding winding roads, and enjoying the beautiful fall scenery on the way.  After discussing with the super friendly guys at Moto Vermont, we decided to use Burlington, Vermont as our base and do day trips from there (this significantly lightened up our bikes as there was no need to carry all our gear).  They programmed our GPS with various routes (they have both self-guided and guided tours) and we set off.  The first day we took a ferry across Lake Champlain to Lake Placid, NY.  It was a bit odd seeing the ski jump from the 1980 Olympics in the middle of a forested area, but the first day was just the warm-up.  There are lots of winding road in Vermont and an almost equal amount of little towns.

On the second day we came across this beautiful old covered bridge.  I was keen to ride right across, but my boyfriend thought we should scope out the terrain first and see how well the old bridge was holding up. J As it turns out, it was quite solid, and we rode across with no problems. 

There are several state parks and a few national forests we rode through.  Severe frost heaves in one of the national forests made for an interesting and surprising ride. My boyfriend was enjoying the electronic suspension adjustment settings on his BMW.

None of our pictures did the Vermont fall colours justice.  The leaves seem to dance as we drove over them and we were consistently surprise when we rounded some corners.  I would go back.  The weather in mid-October was still beautiful and tourist season was basically over, so most places were quiet.