Stewart's Shops an Upstate New York (and now Vermont) Staple of Bikepacking Resupply

Final resupply at Stewart's in Arlington, Vermont

Stewart's Shops, an upstate NY staple of bikepacking resupply that has expanded into Vermont. Final resupply of the trip. 22 miles and 2500ft gain ahead of us in the rain.

I ate a terrible hamburger (I crave protein and sodium on these trips) and downed a coffee for the caffeine. Bought 2 bananas, a 20oz root beer for the sugar which I dumped into a 20oz water bottle, a snickers bar, a Reese Peanut butter protein bar and gallon of water.

I refilled my 20oz electrolyte/carb bottle with a Mango Chili LMNT and dumped my last 4oz of maple syrup into it. I also still had two gluten free honey stinger cookies.

Besides maple syrup and hamburgers I never eat any of this crap in real life (not even bananas which are filled with sugar, unless you eat them green, in which case they are filled with healthy resistant starch).

I ate all but one of the honey stingers and 6oz of root beer on the final 22 miles.

Bikepacking isn't the time to lose weight or count calories or eat super clean (though you can meet your nutrition without going entirely off the tails). Any single day ride you can limp home bonked out, but multi-day trips the damage is cumulative for nutrition and hydration. Eating and drinking constantly is best to avoid starting out with zero energy. A lesson I learned riding the Moose River Plains loop in 2022 where I totally bonked out midway into day two on no sleep and horrendous fueling.

Maple syrup isn't cheap, but unlike expensive gels (or homemade simple syrups) my GI tract seems to have unlimited capacity to consume the stuff. It's possible I'm part Elf. I drank 22oz of it over 4 days (2 water bottles had 3oz each to start and I brought 16oz in flexible flask). Adding it to my electrolytes should speed up water absorption and help top off my glycogen stores.

I was tired at times but never felt under fueled. Oh, and I lost about 3lbs of actual weight (my fleece cycling jacket was noticeably roommier to end the trip and that isn't water weight). No matter how much you eat, you'll end up in a deficit over multiple days so don't stress.

Stewart's Shops, Poultney, Vermont

Rounadabout Manchester Route- Gravel bikepacking in Vermont and Eastern New York

Just a quick, this is what we did, it was fun, and go have at it post. 

The road to IP Road

I call it the Roundabout Manchester. I've had it on paper (or pixels) for about 4 years and it was pretty awesome to finally do it. I only live about 40 miles (an hour) from the start so it was sort of inexcusable to not do it. However, it wasn't a dog friendly route (even if I had a trailer those Cat 2 climbs would absolutely suck). It's a gravel bike tour with some abandoned Vermont Class 4 roads. 

Lots of good camping, resupply at good intervals. You can do this as an epic day ride, challenging overnight, or a 3 or 4 day trip. We did 4 not so equal days (day 1 only had 22mi and 550ft of 11000ft elevation total) but it worked out great. At camp almost every day with plenty of light. 

D&H in Granville, NY

Camping in Green Mountain National Forest

Exploring the Adirondacks by Bicycle - Bikepacking Wilcox Lake Wild Forest

With ~2 million acres of public land open to bicycles within and adjoining the Adirondack Forest Preserve, the Adirondacks are a blank canvas for exploration by bicycle. Just don't expect to ride your bike the whole time while finding which trails are rideable and which are not.

His Name is Marshall Church

His name, Marshall Church, loosely translated means American Wilderness. Read on for a little history lesson on why there was a continuity to my naming scheme.

Bob and George Marshall built the American wilderness movement in part based on the adventures of their youth in New York's Adirondack Forest Preserve; Senator Frank Church turned that movement into federal law protecting millions of acres with the Wilderness Act of 1964, which was heavily based on Article 14 of the New York State constitution -the Forever Wild clause.

If we peel away one more layer: It was Verplanck Colvin's surveys and lobbying for creation of the Adirondack Forest Preserve and Forever Wild that allowed the Marshall's to adventure in the Adirondacks in their formative years. The Adirondacks were in essence the birthplace of the federally conserved American wilderness and the modern conservation movement.

In total the Marshall and Church names have 3.4M federally protected wilderness acres including my favorite place that isn't the Adirondacks, the 2.3M acre Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. However, the scope of land preserved thanks to my trail dogs namesakes (Colvin Harrison and Marshall Church) is in the millions of acres and a good part of why the US has 12% of the world's IUCN protected wild lands but only covers 6% of the earths surface.