Vermont cycling in numbers
50%
Bike ownership
1,000+
Miles of trails
55
State parks
72
Bike friendliness score
Vermont from a cyclist's perspective
Vermont is one of the great cycling states on the East Coast, and it earns the title with terrain rather than marketing. In barely 160 miles north to south, the Green Mountains stack climb after climb, more than half of the state's roads are still unpaved, and the Northeast Kingdom hides some of the best mountain biking in the country. For a visiting rider, the appeal is variety packed into short distances: you can climb a brutal gap road in the morning and roll a rail trail past covered bridges in the afternoon.
Road cyclists gravitate to the Mad River Valley, home of the Appalachian Gap and the rest of Vermont's legendary Six Gaps. These are honest climbs that ramp to 12 percent and reward you with views west to the Champlain Valley and the Adirondacks. Smugglers Notch above Stowe is the showpiece, a narrow rock gateway on VT-108 that closes to cars every winter and reopens to silence in late spring. The classic loops link villages, general stores, and church-spire town greens, so the riding never feels far from a refill.
Gravel is where Vermont separates itself. The state's network of Class 4 roads, the unmaintained dirt arteries that towns let revert to dirt and mud, gives riders a near-endless supply of remote, traffic-free miles. The Northeast Kingdom is the heartland, the country that gave rise to Rasputitsa and Vermont Overland and the punishing spring grit they are built on. Wide tires, low gears, and a tolerance for mud season are the price of admission, and the payoff is the kind of riding that has made Vermont a gravel destination on par with anywhere in the East.
Mountain bikers make their own pilgrimage to East Burke, where Kingdom Trails links more than 100 miles of flowing, loamy singletrack across private farmland from a single day pass. It is the marquee, but it is not alone: local chapters of the Vermont Mountain Bike Association maintain networks in Stowe, Waterbury, Rochester, and beyond, and the in-progress Velomont Trail aims to stitch a backcountry corridor the length of the state. The dirt here is famously fast and rarely cruel, which is why riders book return trips before they leave.
Not every month works. Mud season can swallow April, the foliage crowds arrive in October, and a cloudy, lake-effect winter shuts the high passes for half the year. But from late spring through the first hard frost, Vermont offers cool, green, low-traffic riding that is hard to match. The Lamoille Valley Rail Trail and Burlington's Island Line make the state genuinely welcoming to families and new riders, while the gaps and the Kingdom keep the serious ones honest.
Vermont E-bike Laws
Vermont treats a compliant e-bike like any other bicycle. Here is where the three classes stand on licenses, helmets, and trail access.
Vermont adopted the three-class e-bike framework in 2021, and it treats a compliant e-bike exactly like a regular bicycle: no license, no registration, no insurance, no title. Compliant means fully operable pedals and a motor of less than 750 watts; go bigger and you fall into Vermont's separate motor-assisted bicycle category instead.
The motor assists only while you pedal and cuts off at 20 mph; legal for all ages.
A throttle can propel the bike without pedaling, but assistance still ends at 20 mph; legal for all ages.
Pedal assist runs up to 28 mph; Vermont requires a speedometer and a classification label (23 V.S.A. 1136a).
Riders carry the rights and duties of bicyclists, not motorists (23 V.S.A. 1136).
Compliant e-bikes are not motor vehicles, so there is no title, plate, or DMV visit.
Vermont mandates no coverage for any e-bike class, which leaves the financial risk on you.
No one under 16 may operate a Class 3, though they may ride as a passenger; no age floor for Class 1 or Class 2 (23 V.S.A. 1136a).
Riders under 16 wear a helmet on any bicycle or e-bike (23 V.S.A. 1139); adults face no statewide helmet mandate on any class.
Where You Can Ride
- Roads & bike lanesAll three classes ride wherever bicycles ride, with the same rights and duties (23 V.S.A. 1136a).
- Shared-use pathsAll three classes are allowed on multiuse paths, but a town may bar Class 1, Class 2, or Class 3 from a specific path after a public hearing.
- Rail trailsVermont's rail trails, including the 93-mile Lamoille Valley Rail Trail, permit e-bikes under official state rail-trail policy.
- State parks & forestsForests, Parks & Recreation policy allows Class 1 on natural-surface trails designated for bicycles, and all three classes on multi-use trails and forest highways.
- Out-of-class e-motosOver 750 watts means it is not an e-bike; it becomes a motor-assisted bicycle (under 1,000 watts and 20 mph) or, beyond that, a motor vehicle with the rules to match.
Effective May 20, 2021 under Vermont S.66 (Act 40). Statutes: 23 V.S.A. 4(45) and 4(46), 1136, 1136a, 1139. Cities and park districts can add their own path and trail restrictions — check signage where you ride. Last reviewed June 2026.
Vermont Cycling Weather
Vermont's season runs late spring through foliage. Plan around mud season and a cloudy, lake-effect winter, and the payoff is cool, green summer riding.
Sunny days a year
Riding season
May - Oct
Vermont Cycling Destinations
Kingdom Trails
Kingdom Trails is the best lift-free mountain biking on the East Coast, and it isn't close. From a single day pass, the Kingdom Trails Association links more than 100 miles of buttery singletrack across private farmland and hillsides around East Burke. You graduate from mellow valley loops near the Welcome Center to Burke Mountain's lift-served descents and the legendary flow of Kitchel and Sidewinder. The dirt is famous: loamy, fast, rarely technical, and endlessly connected, so you can ride for hours without repeating a trail. Base in town, rent at an East Burke shop, and plan to stay a few days, because the network rewards riders who keep coming back.
Lamoille Valley Rail Trail
The Lamoille Valley Rail Trail is the longest rail trail in New England, and it runs nearly the full width of Vermont on a former railbed. Ninety-three miles of hard-packed stone dust connect 18 towns from St. Johnsbury in the Northeast Kingdom to Swanton near the Canadian border, and the grade never tops 3 percent. That makes it a gravel or e-bike tour almost anyone can finish, rolling past covered bridges, the Lamoille River, and the cafes of Morrisville and Cambridge. Break it into day rides or commit to a two-to-three-day point-to-point with bag drops between towns. It is the rare long-distance ride that families and serious gravel cyclists both love.
Island Line Trail & Colchester Causeway
The Island Line Trail is the most scenic flat ride in the Northeast, a former railroad bed that runs straight out into Lake Champlain. From Burlington's Oakledge Park you follow eight paved miles of waterfront greenway to Colchester, then the trail narrows to gravel and shoots three miles across open water on the Colchester Causeway, marble breakwater on both sides and the Adirondacks dead ahead. At the Cut, Local Motion's seasonal bike ferry shuttles you across a 200-foot gap to the Champlain Islands. There is no climbing and no traffic, just water, wind, and one of the best sunset rides in America. Time it for a summer weekend when the ferry runs daily.
Appalachian Gap (VT-17)
App Gap is the Mad River Valley's rite of passage and the crown of Vermont's Six Gaps ride. From Waitsfield you tilt up VT-17 past Mad River Glen, and the road bites hardest exactly where you are most tired: the final stretch holds 8 to 12 percent and pitches toward a wall near the 2,375-foot summit. The payoff is a sweeping view west toward the Champlain Valley and the Adirondacks before a fast, technical descent toward Bristol. It anchors the brutal Six Gaps loop and the annual Allen Clark Hill Climb time trial. Pack your climbing legs and good brakes, because there is no easing into the top.
Smugglers Notch (VT-108)
Smugglers Notch is the most dramatic stretch of pavement in Vermont, and you have to earn it. From Stowe, VT-108 climbs past the resort at a friendly 5 percent through dense forest, lulling you until the last half mile, where the road kinks into tight switchbacks and slams to 20 percent beneath house-sized boulders. The Notch itself is a narrow rock gateway, car-free and silent in the shoulder seasons before the gate opens. Descend the north side toward Jeffersonville or turn it into a 60-mile Stowe loop. Check the calendar first, because VT-108 through the Notch closes every winter and reopens in late spring.
Rasputitsa Gravel Country
The Northeast Kingdom's dirt roads put Vermont gravel on the national map, and the country Rasputitsa runs through is rideable all year. The spring classic throws roughly 50 miles and 5,000-plus feet of climbing at riders, including the infamous snow-and-mud hike-a-bike of Cyberia. Even without a number plate, the terrain is the draw: hard-packed Class 4 roads, punchy climbs, and remote unpaved miles that gravel riders chase. Bring 40-millimeter tires and respect mud season, when the roads turn to the namesake Russian rasputitsa. Base in East Burke and you can ride gravel and Kingdom Trails singletrack on the same trip.
Vermont Cycling Events
From the mud-season grit of Rasputitsa to the Labor Day drama of the Green Mountain Stage Race, Vermont's calendar runs on dirt roads, gap climbs, and Northeast Kingdom singletrack.
Rasputitsa
Rasputitsa is the Northeast's spring gravel rite, and a decade in it still draws the deepest fields east of the Mississippi. The 46-mile course runs on Vermont Class 4 roads, the unmaintained dirt-and-mud arteries of the Kingdom, with the infamous Cyberia sector where the day is usually won or lost. It is self-supported with no aid, so you carry your own nutrition and fix your own flats. The 2026 edition marks the tenth anniversary, and proceeds back a youth cycling mentorship program. Wave starts and a rider cap mean it sells out, so watch the registration window.
Event website
Vermont Overland
Vermont Overland is the dirt-road classic that helped define American gravel, and the 55-mile route is as hard as its reputation. You climb close to 7,000 feet and cross eight sectors of Class 4 roads, the ancient unmaintained throughways that turn a fast group ride into a battle of attrition. Two sag stops and a serious post-ride party keep it humane, but the climbing does not. The field caps at 1,000 and registration opens January 1, so the start list fills fast. Lock in the date and route early.
Event website
Green Mountain Stage Race
The Green Mountain Stage Race is the largest Pro/Am road stage race in North America, and for four days over Labor Day weekend the Mad River Valley becomes the center of American amateur racing. The format is a proper stage race: an opening time trial, two demanding road races over Vermont's gap roads, and a fast closing criterium on the streets of Burlington. The Appalachian Gap climb is the signature selection, the place where general-classification dreams end. For 2026 the race joins the USA Junior Cup calendar, adding national-series weight to an already stacked field.
Event website
Vermont 50
The Vermont 50 has been a New England endurance institution since 1993, a 50-mile mountain bike race threaded through private land, singletrack, and dirt roads around Mount Ascutney. It runs the last weekend of September, so you race over rolling foliage with the Green Mountains turning behind you. The course is relentless rather than technical, a grinder that rewards fitness and pacing over raw skill. Every dollar benefits an adaptive sports nonprofit, which makes the suffering feel purposeful. Registration opens in late May and the field is coveted, so plan ahead.
Event website
Bike the Kingdom
Kingdom Games runs the Northeast Kingdom's most charming gravel events, and they lean into Vermont character over World Tour pretension. The Dandy sends you 26.2 miles through the dandelion fields of Derby, Holland, and Morgan in late May, when the hills go yellow. Fly to Pie does it again in October, a dirt-road marathon from Coventry through the Gut of the Kingdom that finishes, fittingly, at Parker Pie in West Glover. These are timed but unpretentious, the kind of ride you do for the roads and the food at the end. Both dates are set early, so sign up well ahead.
Event website
Kelly Brush Ride
The Kelly Brush Ride is Vermont's flagship charity bike day, a Champlain Valley classic that turns Middlebury College into a staging ground for a thousand riders with a shared purpose. You pick your distance, from a flat 10-mile family spin to a full 100-mile road century or a 30-mile gravel loop through Addison County farmland. Every dollar funds adaptive sports equipment and programming for people with spinal cord injuries, and handcyclists ride free, which tells you exactly who this day is for. The ride lands in mid-September, with a remote option for anyone who cannot make the date.
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| Racing Coverage | Yes | No |
| E-bikes | Yes | No |
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