Peachem, Vermont

 

I was delighted that my exit route from Vermont took me through the small town of Peachem, less than ten miles from New Hampshire, as it is the present home of Ian Boswell, former Tour de France rider and now one of the premier gravel riders in the world having won Unbound in Emporia, Kansas last year.  He also hosts a podcast, Breakfast with Bos, that I haven’t missed since he launched it during the 2018 Tour with his friend Marshall, who was following The Tour in his car.  

The two of them would record a chat every morning before each stage, recounting their previous day, Ian in the thick of the race and Marshall trying to follow it.  Ian is also a regular on the British podcast The Cycling Podcast and has joined the podcast crew the past two years in France to cover The Tour.  Though I’d never met Ian, I knew him well enough to consider him a friend.  I was hoping I could track him down in Peachem and thank him for the many hours of listening pleasure he had brought me.  Getting to meet him could well be one of the highlights of these travels.

 

I was on target to arrive in Peachem in the middle of the afternoon, but an excessive amount of climbing, some on dirt roads, delayed my arrival until 5:30, less than an hour before dark.  I felt reluctant to intrude on him at the dinner hour and was resigned to just gaining acquaintance with his out-of-the-way small town.  When I arrived at the main intersection across from its library and by a small inn, I paused at a stop sign wondering if I’d see anyone out and about.  There wasn’t a soul to be seen in this quiet town of 700 residents.  

Before I could even consider ducking into the inn to ask if Ian might live nearby an older guy on a mountain bike wearing a bright orange Arc’Teryx jacket appeared beside me as if he had been sent by a higher authority and asked where I was headed.  I told him Nova Scotia, then asked if he might know Ian.  He said he knew him well, and that he lived just down the road.  It was a little more complicated than that, as he needed to show me on my GPS his precise location two miles away on dirt roads in farm country.  He affirmed that Ian was as nice a guy as he comes across on his podcast, and it would be no imposition to drop in on him.  “Just say Greg sent you,” he said.

His isolated house with accompanying barn was just where Greg said it would be.  There was no indication that it was the residence of a world-class cyclist other than a bicycle wheel with a garland of flowers hanging on a wall to the left of the porch.  Ian’s wife Gretchen, who turns up on his podcast from time to time describing their breakfast that day, answered the door.  I apologized for coming by but said I just happened to be biking through and their friend Greg encouraged me to stop by to say hello and tell Ian how much I enjoyed his podcast.  She said he was in office and would get him.  A skinny, much taller, guy than I expected emerged, greeting me with his distinctive gentle voice and offered his hand.  

 

I told him I hadn’t missed a podcast and wondered if he had ever snagged a Tour course marker in the past two years when he’d been covering it as a journalist.  He said he hadn’t, as he was always ahead of the race, and it was, of course, taboo to grab one until the peloton had passed.  I told him I’d followed The Tour a few times as a touring cyclist and always brought home a few markers that I shared with friends and that I’d even given Greg LeMond one a year ago.  Ian said he’d love to have one and that I knew where to send it.

I told him I was from Chicago and had become friends with Christian Vande Velde and had given him a few markers over the years.  I added that I enjoyed his interview of Christian on his podcast this past year.  Ian immediately replied that he made a faux pas when he introduced Christian as having ridden The Tour “five or seven times,” as Christian corrected him to say he’d ridden it eleven times and had been back ten more times covering the race for NBC.   I was actually going to ask Ian about that, and was impressed that it had made such an impression on him, as it was a nagging embarrassment, that he brought it up himself.  Ian only rode it once, as his road career was curtailed due to concussion issues.  Few riders have done it in double figures, not even Eddie Merckx.

Ian had once used the term “Frenched” on one of his podcasts, the only time I’d heard it.  I knew all too well what it meant, as I feel as if I’m Frenched by over-zealous gendarmes prematurely ordering me off The Tour course.  Ian said it is a common term among American racers living in France coming up against the French bureaucracy and restaurants closing early and other inconveniences.  

His latest podcast was with Lucy Charles-Barclay and her husband.  She is one of the premier female triathletes in the world, finishing second four times at the premier event in Hawaii.  Her husband is a former triathlete who now devotes himself to his wife’s career.  They live in London and have to do a lot of training indoors in what they call their “pain cave.”  With the two of them sweating away in there for hours at a time day after day Ian asked the pertinent question that only a fellow athlete with a “pain cave” of his own would ask—what kind of smell did it have.  They said they have wooden floors and their “pain cave” has no detectable odor.  I congratulated Ian on the imaginative question.  He replied that Lucy had just won the triathlon in Hawaii this weekend, which she said would be the highlight of her career.

I could have talked and talked as I once did when I visited Christian at his house delivering a couple of course markers, but I didn’t want Ian to feel obligated to invite me for dinner or to pitch my tent on his property, so I said I needed to get going as I was hoping to make it to New Hampshire before dark.  As he led me back to my bike I asked if he flew in and out of Burlington for his extensive travels.  Usually he does, as it’s just an hour and fifteen minutes away, but he resorts to Boston from time to time as well. As he bid me farewell, he said he’d be looking for me at The Tour next year.  He’s as anxious as I am to see its route, which will be announced in a week or so.  We know it will start in Italy and end in Nice, not in Paris for the first time ever, so as not to conflict with the Olympics.  

Greg, who provided me the directions to Ian, wasn’t the only person to come to my assistance this day.  A couple hours earlier a white-haired lady was awaiting me at the top of a climb with a bottle of water and an orange.  She wanted to tell me about a rails-to-trails path up ahead and query me about my travels.  She was aghast that I had bicycled from Rochester, seven hundred miles away and that I was headed to Nova Scotia. I told her nothing of my previous travels, just that I was seeking out Carnegie libraries and the last one I had visited was in Northfield at Norwich College, though it was now Chaplin Hall housing the art and architecture department.  It faced a large quad surrounded by red brick buildings with none of the ornamentation of the Carnegie.

After a few minutes the woman introduced herself as George and asked my name.  After a few more minutes of conversation beside her car she excused herself and said she wanted to give me something more.  She ducked into the front seat and returned with another tangerine and a banana and several pieces of chocolate and $3.50 for a slice of pizza or something she said, while apologizing that was all she had to offer.  I didn’t know it at the time, but it is money I can earmark for the course marker I’ll be sending Ian. 

Vermont was living up to its reputation for friendliness.  It was no wonder that the roads on Saturday and Sunday were clogged with motorists from neighboring states.  Traffic was backed up for two miles just inching along into Stowe.  More than half the license plates were from out-of-state, one from as far as California and another from Utah, a Backroads van of the bicycle touring company with three bikes atop it.  Fortunately there was a wide shoulder so I could fly by them all. 

Traffic had been equally thick for miles between Burlington and Morristown, where I ventured for its classic Carnegie, complete with a plaque describing its architecture in detail.  

The small town, like most I’d passed through, had small shops catering to tourists.  Besides the signs advertising maple syrup, shops were packed with knickknacks of all sorts.

An Art Park (myearthwork.com) was among the attractions in the area on the road from the north into Stowe, a ski town that was the epicenter of it all.  The Art Park was full of Andy Goldsworthy inspired constructions of rocks.

The town was bulging with people, including a wedding party, despite the cold, dank weather.  A little sunlight would have enhanced the fall foliage, but it was still a pleasure to behold.