It’s spring! It’s spring! … Well, almost. Once the snowy mess from the latest Nor’easter melts. Then it’ll be Mud Season!

While we’re all anxious to ride the trails again, don’t be the mountain biker who does this:

It’s the equivalent of giving the middle finger to local trail builders and managers.

But staying off the trails during Mud Season doesn’t mean spending more time spinning indoors on a Peloton like a hamster in a cage. Four years ago, after the pandemic shut down the world and we feared being near any other human, we discovered gravel riding—on our mountain bikes. And it was actually fun in a I-never-knew-this-road-existed kind of way.

(Why were we on mountain bikes and not gravel bikes? While I believe in proving true the equation N+1 = number of bikes you should own, where N is the current number in your quiver, our garage is simply too full of toys. So no gravel bikes. For now).

Anyway, the other benefit of long dirt-road rides on your mountain bike in the spring? It’s a great way to build up base miles so when trail networks open, you’ll be faster and stronger than ever.

So how to find good gravel rides? 

We started by looking at a local trail network’s website—Slate Valley Trails in Poultney, Vermont. They promote gravel riding too, and we just picked one of their suggested gravel loops—17.8 miles seemed doable (it was), and the “Pond Hill Views” promised “the finest views in the area” (they were). 

To find loops in other parts of central Vermont, we relied on RideWithGPS and Gravel Finder. Many of our rides were gravel routes linked by sections of Class 4 road (which quickly became known as “ass 4”—yes, we may resemble adults, but we’re actually still 12). And these “ass 4” sections, one of which had become an actual stream, made us glad we were on mountain bikes.

Not mud season, but a good example of Peggy's crew pretending to be 12 year olds 😂

Lots of gravel websites exist now, like NEK Gravel (for those in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom—the “Lyndon Full Stack” sounds yummy).

To find gravel loops in your area, just google “gravel routes in [YOUR STATE].” This gravel map site has tons of loops listed by county, then town, and by mileage.

 So don’t get stuck in a rut on your mountain bike. Or worse, create more ruts. Grab your bike, your bottle, and hit the road!