On a day that felt like some rare combination of summer and fall — leaves gold and orange against a powder-blue sky, cool mountain breeze slicing through a muggy heat that rose to 84 degrees — spectators gathered around the finish line last Sunday to cheer on each mountain biker who turned the last corner of the winding course on Mount Ascutney and rode under the taut Vermont 50 banner. On this second day of the weekend event, which began with set-up and kids’ races on Saturday, the morning crowd of a few hundred — numbers that would swell to 3,400 by afternoon — was exuberant in T-shirts, shorts, sunhats, and official event swag, eager to talk to the bikers who had finished the race, once they caught their breath.
The annual bike and running event organized by Vermont 50 benefits Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports, an organization that supports youth and adults of all abilities through participation in sports, training philosophies, and wellness programs. Both programs were created by Laura Farrell: Vermont Adaptive (under a different name) in 1987, which was then linked to her newly formed Vermont 50 in 1993. Each year, contestants in the Vermont 50 raise money from sponsors for Vermont Adaptive. According to Mike Silverman, race director for Vermont 50, the 2025 event raised $135,000.
Will Crissman, of Wellesley, Mass., finished the 50-mile mountain bike race with a flat tire. Nancy Nutile-McMenemy Photo
Though rallied in the purpose and energy of the event, each mountain biker seemed to have a different story to share. Will Crissman, 49, of Wellesley, Mass., somehow placed 15th — despite a flat tire for the last three-quarters of a mile. When asked by the Standard what it felt like to ride that tough final stretch, Crissman — legs below his biker shorts caked with dirt and face still flushed from his effort — said, “There were two 14-year-olds I was racing with when I flatted, and I was hoping I [would] not be beaten by three kids under 15 (one 14-year-old, Levi Hughes, had already finished), but the future of mountain biking is very strong here in Vermont, and they got me.”
While not directly competing in the races, Misha Pemble-Belkin — coordinator of the Vermont Adaptive Veteran Ventures Program, and who served as a U.S. Army Paratrooper from 2006-2015 until a war injury led to his medical retirement in 2016 — completed a ten-hour, five-minute walk on Sunday in order to honor his fallen comrades. The day after the event, Pemble-Belkin was recovering at home, and told the Standard by phone what makes Vermont Adaptive unique: “We’re definitely the largest adaptive sports program in the state of Vermont. Just this fiscal year, we’ve been able to get over 205 veterans out with us. We’ve been able to do between 1,500 and 1,600 individual activities and seven multi-day retreats for the veteran population. And that’s 100% free to all of them.”
For more on this, please see our October 2 edition of the Vermont Standard.
