Sports

Staff report So, you bought a mountain bike. Well done! You’ve now got a few epic rides under your belt. Excellent. But now you wonder how to best protect your investment and keep it rolling like new.  While there are many expert bike mechanics around locally that can help, here are a few basic things…

The Vermont Agency of Transportation (AOT) announced Sept. 12 the awards of approximately $7.19 million in grants to municipalities for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure improvement projects. The combination of construction projects and planning grants will benefit cities and towns statewide with improved transportation connectivity and safety, tangible economic benefits, and additional transportation options for commuters,…

By Shelley Lutz, Pine Hill Partnership board member  Pine Hill Park in Rutland City is one of the original trail networks in Central Vermont and is a must-stop on any mountain biker’s itinerary. The wooded park is 275 acres with 18 miles of mostly singletrack trails dotted with seven unique bridges. If you are an aerobic…

By Ada Mahood, Woodstock Mountain Bike Team Peninsula is a trail that is perfect for beginners and intermediates riding in Woodstock. The scenery is quite amazing, especially in the fall. It starts up a short hill, then over some roots and up a short technical part before ending in the mossy lands of the Peninsula…

By Jason Mikula The Sherburner is a trail not to miss when coming to this area. It’s a new trail, debuting in 2023, and was built by L&D Trail Works. It’s a perfect adventure that takes under an hour (depending on your skill level and choice of route). The trailhead is about a 3 minute…

By Luca Morris, Woodstock Mountain Bike Team Captain Cabot is just one of the many fantastic trails in the Aqueduct trail system. The Aqueduct, with its main trailhead located on Cox District Road, is conveniently located close to downtown Woodstock — and its middle/high school. The main trailhead is accompanied by a parking lot with room to fit all…

By Quinn Uva, Woodstock Mountain Bike Team Captain This is the quintessential run to do when visiting Woodstock. This run is one of the oldest in Woodstock making it a classic and has been heavily revamped in recent years. The easiest way to access “Cloud Drop” to “Sir Bermsalot” is from the Knox Meadow parking…

How did you get into Mountain Biking? Do you remember your first  time  on a single track? What were you riding? When I was in college in the early 1990s my childhood friend began riding and I was intrigued. Shortly after, I purchased my first mountain bike, a GT Tequesta. Modern mountain bike design was in…

Quinn Uva, 18, is an accomplished mountain bike racer who's competed in race circuits across the northeast throughout his teenage years —often besting riders with many more years under their belts! He's no stranger to the podium either, having won the 2023 Maxxis ESC Stan's Enduro in Woodstock, Oct. 1, 2023 as a U-20 rider…

Woodstock Middle/High is the first public school in the state to field a varsity team  By Katy Savage and Polly Mikula Mountain biking has been such a popular club sport at Woodstock Union High School that this fall it became a varsity sport. And it made history as the first public school in the state…

By Polly Mikula Mountain biking in Vermont is now the state’s fastest-growing form of outdoor recreation, according to the Vermont Mountain Bike Association (VMBA) a non-profit that provides advocacy, education, and community-driven stewardship statewide and to local chapters.  “The growth of the sport has been exponential in the past — call it five years,” Mark…

Improvements in equipment and trails over the past decade have made the sport more fun for more people By Polly Mikula Mountain biking even just a few decades ago was a very different sport than it has evolved to be today. Mountain bikes “back in the day” were only slightly different than their road counterparts…

Vermont Adaptive produces the event at the Fox U.S. Open at Killington Resort. This will be its fourth year. The race is the only adaptive downhill race held East of the Mississippi River, according to Vermont Adaptive's blog.  Trail accessibility for mountain bikers of all abilities, including adaptive riders, got a big boost this year…

By Katy Savage Mazie Hayden, a 23-year-old Killington Mountain School graduate from Pittsfield, has become a regular presence on mountain bike race podiums. This will be her fourth time at the Fox U.S. Open of Mountain Biking. She got third place in Dual Slalom in 2022 and fifth last year, while she got 15th in…

By Katy Savage Sarah Hamlin was 11 when she first started mountain bike racing. She competed in the U-12 category with boys because there weren’t enough girls for them to have their own team. Now, 15, Hamlin is a sophomore at Killington Mountain School and she just became a professional rider for the first time…