Since a sick Charlie McCarthy decided to check out of the Lake Sunapee Road Race a little early just the day before, he decided to go flog himself out on the open roads of the Green Mountain Stage Race road course back on his home turf of central Vermont. Sensibly, he opted for the abridged version, a mere 63 miles with the two major gap climbs of Middlebury and Appalachian. Charlie finally clipped into his pedals around 11:30 and set out on a beautiful Sunday morning.

Spirits were high as he entered Granville, home to one of the state’s most infamous moose crossings and a really nice wooden bowl factory. Charlie won at the sprint line just south of the Gulf, barely outsprinting a group of neon-clad 50 year old women, out for a Sunday cruise on flag-bearing recumbents.

A convoy of tricked out sports cars – some nice, some not so nice – passed Charlie a couple of times. After zooming by once, they stopped at the Moss Glen Falls to admire the waterfall and probably talk about mufflers or something. Charlie blew by and wasn’t overtaken by them again until a flat stretch just beyond Granville which was suitable for reaching into his back pocket and grabbing his camera.

10 miles and 1500 vertical feet later, Charlie reached the top of Middlebury Gap. Vermont is all about green and brown. The blue of the Trek Madone looks really great here, too.

After descending Middlebury Gap and turning north onto Rte 116, he hit a tailwind which propelled him all the way back to route 17 where Appalachian Gap waited. Sick, exhausted and cold and with one of the toughest climbs in the country looming just ahead, things were looking bleak. Climbing this twisty, turning, gravity-defying road is a bit of a puzzle: Some days you climb it and other days it climbs you, or, it climbs all over and into you, like a virus, eating away at you until you just feel like getting off and walking. Despite the mumblings in his head, Charlie did scale this Gap, though it very much climbed him the entire way up. Here’s a cyclist’s-eye view and a tire’s-eye view of the last 450m of this asphalt brute.

And this is what every cycling feels like before grinding it up the last 450m.

Things get kind of boring up here in Vermont. But nothing cures boredom like a day of sign shootin’. Seriously, who drives up App. Gap with a loaded gun at the ready and shoots signs at the top?

Vermonters, that’s who.