New Grant Will Help Connect Mountain Bike Trails In Vermont

RUTLAND, Vt. (AP) — A new plan to link the Vermont towns of Pittsfield and Rochester is the latest step to help connect mountain bike trails across Vermont.

The Velomont Trail Collective has received a $526,375 grant from the Northern Border Regional Commission to build 10 miles of trails. The grant will be matched with a total of $283,500 from the town of Killington and a number of other organizations.

One of the trail sections will link Pittsfield and Rochester by way of Chittenden.

Velomont Executive Director Angus McCusker, the executive director of the Velomont Trail Collective, which is working on the project, said the concept of linking trails in Vermont has already been tried with hiking and snowmobiling trails.

"It just hadn't been applied to mountain biking," McCusker told the Rutland Herald.

The collective of 21 trail associations hopes to eventually have a continuous mountain bike trail running the length of Vermont. McCusker said he expected the project to take about a decade to complete.