# Honeymoon at Millstone 7/14



## yesmandroc (Jul 16, 2011)

Stole away for a day on my honeymoon to meet CT emigre Trev Thorpe for my first ride at Millstone Trails in Barre, Vermont. If you haven't been, I highly recommend. Millstone Trails is locally maintained by the Millstone Trails Association (MTA) and is situated around a bunch of old granite quarries (right near the marble quarry where they get all the headstones for Arlington). Here and there are piles of huge granite rocks which retain the cold overnight and hold it as the don't get much sun. As you approach them the temperature gets noticaebly cooler. Pretty neat, I say.

10 bucks to ride, but Trevor scored a year pass for $40 which is pretty good in my book. You pay in a little gift shop/office type place. Actually we arrived before the guy was there, so we paid him later. He was totally cool. He actually was going to be doing some work about 2 minutes away so he left his phone by the door and his number for people to call if they needed to get a map.

On that note this place is pretty well marked (although for those of us who spent a couple years learning places like Nass with no markings anything is going to seem well marked). There are a few colored loops (red, yellow, blue I think) with numerous side trails to make your ride as long as you want. Some of it is doubletrack, but not much and it's actually pretty fun. Singletrack is tight and rooty, and some sections are super twisty. Surprisingly few rocks, though, and not many natural features (at least that I saw). Of course I don't do that stuff anyway, so maybe Trev deliberately avoided them.

As a sort of warmup route started with a climb up to the Grand Lookout with views over the quarry. Then we hit the Rollercoaster (which seems to start every Millstone video). We bombed down the Screaming Demon which starts off with a rock-ladder-rock-ladder-rock-ladder thing (beyond me so I walked it). Downhill to the road so we headed back towards the parking lot/office. Met the guy, paid our dues, then did that first climb again.

From here we pretty much followed the red loop with a few side trails here and there. Probably pedaled for 2-2 1/2 hours before returning to the Grand Lookout, hitting the Rollercoaster again and taking a different downhill towards the road. Back to the parking lot and we were done.

If you're in the area (or not; I drove an hour and a half from where we were staying) you need to stop here. I'd say you could probably even spend two days here.


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## o3jeff (Jul 16, 2011)

Wait, you married Trev?


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## yesmandroc (Jul 16, 2011)

Nah. Seems he's spoken for.


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## mattm59 (Jul 16, 2011)

yesmandroc said:


> On that note this place is pretty well marked (although for those of us who spent a couple years learning places like Nass with no markings anything is going to seem well marked).



Wow, you LEARNED Nass?? Every time I look up it seems like a "now what" moment:dunce:


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## bvibert (Jul 16, 2011)

Awesome!  I was wondering if you'd get out for a ride while you were up there, I assumed not, but I guess I was wrong.

I hope the rest of the honeymoon is going well too!


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## powhunter (Jul 17, 2011)

Wow ditching your chick ON YOUR HONEYMOON to go MTB with this Trev Thorpe character...That takes a big sack!!!   J/K... Sounds like ya got a great woman there man!!  Millstone sounds like a cool place to roll!!

Steveo


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## WoodCore (Jul 18, 2011)

Good to hear the noose of marriage hasn't fully tightened yet!! Gotta get over there for ride one of these days, maybe over the labor day weekend.


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