Friday, January 16 we held our first Vermont Bicycle Shop and Trek Ride Club Awards. It was a time to celebrate all the amazing things folks did on their bicycles over the last year. Trek provided some amazing medals to folks who had signed up for challenges via the Trek Ride Club app. And we were able to use rider information from that app to create a few more awards worthy of recognition.

We’ve put a good deal of work into loading routes into the app, and we’ve organized those routes on our Route Page that can be found here. Another wild feature on the app is the completel free Trek Help Line. At he push of a button you’ll be connected live with someone who is ready to help with all kinds of bicycle related things. You can sign up for all kinds of challenges and win awards and more. The whole thing is free. You don’t have to be a Trek customer, you don’t have to be a Vermont Bicycle Shop customer. You can link Ride Club with your Garmin and Strava accounts so once you’ve signed up for a challenge, you don’t have to worry about using the app. As long as your accounts are connected you are good to go!

2026 Vermont Bicycle Club Meet Ups Start in March!

Tuesday in March (March 3) at 5:30pm we’ll be gathering at Vermont Bicycle Shop will be our first meet up of 2026.
We will meet once a month to discuss and plan monthly Adventure Society rides which will happen at the end of that month! If you have an idea let us know! We’ll have snacks, drinks, and we’ll plan a fun bicycle adventure. These Adventure Society rides will happen alongside our regularly scheduled group rides and adventures.

What types of rides?

We’re looking for rides that are unique in some nature. We’ve come up with a few categories below to give you an idea of what we’re thinking.

Categories of rides

• Hidden Places – Places you know that are off the beaten track.
• Favorite Rides – Rides you want to share (you may have ridden this a thousand times solo and now you want to share with others).
• Amazing Places – A ride to, or from, or at a significantly unique location, like our Supergun Bike Packing Trip.
• New Places – Places you’ve never been or the group has never been that you want to explore.
• Field Trip – It’s February in Vermont. You want to ride your mountain bike.  Let’s go somewhere! Connecticut, Mass? Where to?
• Not Up For Sale Rides – In the event we consider participating in an organized ride, like Ride the Ridges, that ride will only be considered if 100% of the dollars raised go directly to a Vermont nonprofit organization. All proceeds from the ride must be directed to the nonprofit. No portion of the funds raised may be used to pay, reimburse, or otherwise compensate any individual or business involved in organizing the ride.

If you are submitting or bringing an idea for a ride to the meet up, you should be sure to know some other details about the ride. We’ve come up with a few ways to help with the definitions below. The first to consider is what experience level would a rider need in order to participate:

Rider Experience Levels:

Casual riders are interested in:

• Ride times of 1-3 hours and/or 10-30 miles
• Rides with less than 100 ft. elevation gain per mile (average)
• Rides with minimal to no challenging terrain (Class 4 or single track trail)

Enthusiastic riders are interested in:

• Ride times of 2-6 hours and/or 20-60 miles
• Rides with around 100 ft. elevation gain per mile (average)
• Rides with 30 percent or less of the ride is Class 4 or single track

Determined riders are interested in rides that are:

• Ride Time of 3+ hours 
• Ride would elevation gain would have no limitations
• Ride would have no limitations to challenging terrain

The routes for these rides will also be categorized based on the existing rides definitions used by Vermont Bicycle Club. That information can be found on this page.

Our Vermont Bicycle Club Awards Ceremony was the first qualifying event for people to gain their Vermont Bicycle Club Adventure Society Journals! We’re super excited about this effort to get more people together and to get more people on bicycles having fun. The Vermont Bicycle Club Adventure Society of People Doing Cool S#!+ on Bicycles journal is a part of a season long contest, January through September, where riders will be awarded stickers for their accomplishments. Some challenges will be provided by Adventure Society Ride Leaders and Administrators in the form of Adventure Visas, while other challenges can be of your very own design!

You can find all the details here.

We’ll talk about that and more Tuesday, March 3 at 5:30pm. If we don’t see you sooner, we look forward to seeing you then!