Places to Ride and Group Rides
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Vermont Bicycle Club is a great social group where you can meet new people, join group rides, find new routes, and generally have fun with bicycles! Vermont Bicycle Club is focused on creating a community of people to help boost confidence and diversity in cycling.
Places to Ride
There are great routes published with ride descriptions, printable maps, and downloadable GPS files at the Vermont Bicycle Club Routes page, and we've also got tons of routes posted to the Trek Ride Club app as well!
You can check out our routes page, which is carefully organized by ride type and ride difficulty.
https://vermontbicycleclub.com/rideclub/rideclubroutes/
It's important that you be familiar enough with your route so that you could ride it without guidance, and that you be familiar with any up to date road closures and changes. Also be certain you are intimately familiar with the terrain before choosing a route to ride. Many routes in our part of Vermont are very rural and can mean rougher gravel roads in some cases even abandoned roads. If you aren't sure, then it's best not to ride that route.
Group Rides
We also have an active community with all types of group ride options.
The Pizza Ride.
From April through October join us for an easy-as-it-gets-in-Barre 30 minute bike ride that ends with pizza! Learn more at www.vermontbicycleclub.com/pizzaride
The Bridget and Kelsey Hour
We also host a women led beginner friendly weekly mountain bike ride series during mountain biking season. Like all our rides, we post each ride to www.vermontbicycleclub.com and to our instagram.
Darren Trains for Ride the Ridges
There's two things you should know about Darren: He will find a way to include some kind of wackadoo terrain into the simplest of bicycle ride, and he is obsessed with Ride the Ridges. These rides usually start off closer to the beginning of Summer and happen on a weekly basis as well. You'll see us announce and post each ride to www.vermontbicycleclub.com and to our instagram.
"There are fewer and fewer organized rides in Vermont that are 100% non-profit and 100% volunteer run. They are the purist form of community at work. Now, more than ever, it is important to make sure to support them. There are a lot of amazing rides that are for profit, and as long as they don't occupy a space where a non-profit ride exists, folks should definitely feel good about doing those rides, at the same time, I hope folks center these community efforts as they plan their riding season."
-Darren Ohl, Shop Owner
Pride Rides
Pride Rides is a non-profit with a focus on creating safe space bicycle rides and other outdoor activities for the LGBTQIA++ community. This is our favorite non-profit organization and we often cross promote rides with each other. Check them out: www.prideridesvt.org
All of our rides are intended to build a similar safe space for riders:
We aim to shift away from the established social systems within the cycling world. There are no exclusions; participants are asked to create space for individuals, especially black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC), women, queer folks, and those from marginalized or underrepresented backgrounds, to feel safe, supported, and confident, ensuring the best possible experience for all.
Important things to know before joining us:
We’re a group of cyclists from all disciplines who live in Barre, Vermont. With the support of Vermont Bicycle Shop we’ve created a casual and loosely formed “club” to organize bikes rides within our community. With the help of Vermont Bicycle Shop we’ve got this great webpage and a dedicated group to help facilitate friendly and comfortable access to bicycling in Vermont.
Is there a membership sign up?
Not really, we do ask that you sign a yearly rider waiver, and if you want, you can subscribe to our rides email list. You can also check back to vermontbicycleclub.com periodically and you can also keep an eye on our instagram as we will always post there as well.
Are there any requirements to ride with the group? Yes! We do have a few rules, and we also have a few things we strongly encourage:
Some rules for joining us:
- Anyone under 18 needs to be accompanied by a responsible adult.
- Everyone must wear a helmet.
- Everyone must follow safe riding guidelines and the laws of the road for bicycles. (If you aren’t sure you can always ask).
- Everyone must be able to self sustain the safe working order of their bicycle. We’re friendly and glad to help with many things. We may not have the right tube if you get a flat, we also don’t want to hold the group up and spend an hour in the parking lot fidgeting with some part either.
- Sometimes lights are required, be sure to check, we’ll make sure we mention it. If you aren’t sure, always bring lights, most of us use lights no matter the conditions.
- A cautious respect for riding with motorized traffic. We love to find routes with no cars whenever possible, we also love to exercise an abundance of caution when sharing the road with cars. Interacting with motorized vehicle users in any way other than very friendly and positive is strictly prohibited. Obstructing any other users of the road in anyway is strictly prohibited.
- Leave no trace. Take anything you brought with you home with you, snack wrappers and old tubes and more should all come home with you.
Some good ideas and strong encouragements:
- A flashing rear light and a flashing front light.
- Snacks!
- Some kind of simple fix it tools. There is usually an experienced cyclist or bicycle mechanic on the ride, if you’re bike needs any kind of special tool to adjust things like the seatpost, or the brakes or take a wheel off, be sure you have it with you.
- A flat kit is always a good idea and should include a spare tube, at least two tire levers, a frame pump or CO2 pump and cartridges and a patch kit.
- A cell phone and a card with emergency contact info on your persons or bicycle.
- A cautious respect for riding with traffic. We love to find routes with no cars whenever possible, we also love to exercise an abundance of caution when sharing the road with cars.
- Familiarize yourself with the route and bring a cue sheet or a map with you.