Vermont BDR Tips and Tricks?

[nick5446]

Hitting the Vermont BDR with a few buddies next week...Friday-Sunday. Basically planning to follow the route as it's laid out. Doing minimal planning and only have loose daily targets.

Any tips or pointers? Must sees? Must avoids?

Going to be going south to north if that makes a difference.

Thanks!

[jimmycapp]

VT was probably the best part of the nebdr. Nothing crazy hard, but some of the most challenging in the series. Enjoy!

[nick5446]

VT was probably the best part of the nebdr. Nothing crazy hard, but some of the most challenging in the series. Enjoy!

That’s my read on it too. Looking forward to it!

[SRTie4k]

Have good tires, it's still mud season in parts of VT. Expect some really soft spots in areas. I've been dual sporting around southern NH and all the unmaintained roads are still decently squishy, which means the further north you go, the worse it will get. I had a TKC80 front and MotoZ Tractionator Adventure on the rear when I did the NEBDR last year on my Super Adventure, and that was more than adequate.

The first class 4 road (entering VT from MA) and the last class 4 road (approaching the NH border) are the hardest on the route IMO. The first class 4 road is very muddy and boney as it's a snowmobile trail in winter. In any rain it gets very slick, especially the little hill climb halfway through (which someone is turning into a driveway apparently). The last class 4 section is extremely rutted, as long as you stay in the ruts it's relatively easy, but tedious as it goes on and on and on. Then after the rutted part is a decently technical hill climb with a rock shelf at the end. Don't fall. Once past that, it's pretty smooth sailing.

The rest of the class 4 roads aren't all that tough, just mildly technical, but if the weather is wet, they'll turn from mildly technical to difficult quickly.

Also make sure you download the latest track. They removed a quite large section in Putney thanks, in part, to the cranky locals. There were also some mapping problems early on, specifically part of the track went through a walking trail. It's completely understandable why locals would get mad about that.

I'm not sure that a lot of campgrounds are going to be open yet, so if you need primitive camping locations, check out this thread.

Lastly, I'd recommend hitting the section immediately over the border in MA and checking out Raycroft Lookout. It's a really fun road with a great view at the top.

[nick5446]

Perfect, thank you! I'm running Shinko 804/805s which I've never used before but they're seriously meaty, so I'm looking forward to it.

We're staying here Friday night: http://www.petescampvt.com/home

Saturday is TBD, but likely we'll be doing primitive camping in a state forest. If it's rainy and muddy I'll be the first to vote for a cheap motel.

[SRTie4k]

What are you riding?

[nick5446]

$500 Vstrom 1000 with 95k miles on it

[nick5446]

Thanks for the pointers everyone! Great trip, highly recommended.

We basically did sections 3.5 through 5. The mighty Vstrom did it all, but I was very glad I hacked together a skid plate before I left.

Anyone considering the route should definitely do it and shouldn't feel intimidated. We didn't see any other bikes on the route, and barely saw any cars at all. I'd say 90% of what we did could have been ridden by a fairly novice rider on almost any bike, and the other 10% had go-arounds if you weren't on a proper dual sport. My buddy was on a Versys 1000 and had limited off road riding experience and he was ok (the picture of him getting pushed was on the hardest section we saw). The paved riding was amazing too. Great scenery, cool towns, nice people (although you can feel some BDR tension from some). Definitely going to try to hit some other sections this summer.

[capitalcrew]

That's so awesome. Fuck I hate FL. hahaha

[Vovchandr]

Time to put the motard back together Looks awesome

[JettaJayGLS]

Looks amazing! Link to the route?

[jimmycapp]

https://ridebdr.com/nebdr/

[nick5446]

That's so awesome. Fuck I hate FL. hahaha

I was riding all over FL in March, and man it was terrible, haha

- - - Updated - - -

Looks amazing! Link to the route?

I don't have the GPS file, but it's all over the internet: https://ridebdr.com/nebdr/

[JettaJayGLS]

https://ridebdr.com/nebdr/

Thank you