For American kids who came of age in the Eighties, The Jam were a slightly off-kilter band. Not as iconically punk as the Sex Pistols, not as commercially successful as the Clash (my first true love), and not as sonically original as Gang of Four.

Nevertheless, one spin of This Is the Modern World and I was hooked. Line and sinker.

In fact, I was so enamored of the band’s neo-soul, Mod-revival aesthetic that back in my college days in Vermont, I had the album’s title track stenciled onto the rear engine cowl of my Honda Aero 80. Between the Wayfarers, ersatz Mackintosh, pegged pants and penny loafers, you could say I was enamored of the look, too.

But back to the Jam: besides Paul Weller’s soulful voice and thick British delivery, I always loved how they were able to convey musical beauty—and even intense joy—within the confines of otherwise bittersweet or sad songs. Take, for example, this sunny ditty:

Despite its upbeat, even cheery sound, Town Called Malice doesn’t exactly paint a picture of workaday suburban happiness…

Better stop dreaming of the quiet life
‘Cos it’s the one we’ll never know
And quit running for that runaway bus
‘Cos those rosey days are few
And…stop apologising for the things you’ve never done
‘Cos time is short and life is cruel
But it’s up to us to change
This town called Malice

Paul Weller penned that when he was (as the Scots would say) “just a wee bairn.” Only in his twenties, he was preternaturally young to be wistful about the passing of time, and already possessed by an urgency to make good use of it.

Well, last year (four decades later) the venerable and talented Mr. Weller turned 65, and I hope his time is long and his rosy days are yet plentiful. Inspired by that song, and after yet another year of the damned Covid plague, I decided to quit running for that runaway bus, to stop apologizing for the things I’ve never done, and take a motocamping trip up to a town called Allis.

I hope you’ll forgive the poetic license here. It’s actually not a town, but a Vermont State Park called Allis, named after Wallace Allis, who willed his Bear Mountain Farm and property to the Green Mountain State back in the nineteen-twenties. Allis State Park is actually within a town called Randolph—but that didn’t have the same allusive ring to it.

And I hope you can see (without any malice for my wordplay) why Allis stuck in my brain, like the driving bass line and sparkling organ from Malice. After writing all this, I actually found an interview with Paul Weller which not only confirmed my appraisal of the song as simultaneously cheery and depressing, but that it was also in fact inspired by an Alice, if not an Allis:

“I’d never read the Nevil Shute novel, A Town Like Alice, but I must have seen the title. The music came from us jamming, which we were always doing … Then I added the middle eight and sorted the song out, adding the organ. It was all done pretty quickly. I remember feeling good about it, and when we played it to friends in the studio, everyone went ‘wow.’ The song’s a strange contradiction. It’s got an uplifting feel, almost like a gospel song, but it’s also got a very hard realism about it.” —Paul Weller

Thus with that song ringing in my ears, I set out for another of my spoke-n-word adventures. This would be the first on my relatively new 2020 Triumph Scrambler, an appropriately British bike for this kind of homage-ride.

I picked it up (actually, had it delivered) during the first Winter of Covid from the good folks at National Powersports in Pembroke, NH. It was my first experience buying a new bike entirely online, and it was a seamless delight. I even traded-in my lovely (but underpowered) Triumph T100 Bonneville as part of the deal.

Just based on internet pictures (isn’t that how all love blossoms now?) I’d fallen hard for the bike. The oak-green-and-white striped tank…the old school flat bench seat…the neo/retro Great Escape styling…

…and the upgrade to 1200 ccs of parallel-twin Triumph oomph all had me swooning. And even though I was a little leery about the bike’s aggressively vertical stance (it is T-A-L-L), I went for the XE over the shorter XC variant for the advanced electronics and all-important integrated hand-warmers.

I’ve farkled her to my heart’s content, adding a Unit Garage windscreen and tail rack, and hardwiring a Garmin Zumo. Basically, and depending how you look at it, she’s either a ginormous overlanding dualsport, or a modern ADV-bike in retro-scrambler clothing. Throw on the the Triumph “sturdy pannier,” my Giant Loop duffel, load it up with camping kit, and we’re off to a Town (okay, a Park) called Allis.

Having made the trek up to Vermont a half-dozen times already via motorbike, I opted for my most favorite route. Fast slab from CT up through Greenfield, MA, then onto the Vermont Puppy Dog Route along the lovely Green River.

It is the perfect summer ride.

You pass the kind of houses that leave you dreaming of the quiet life on a dirt road in Southern Vermont, or Northern Mass—hard to tell where the state line is.

I got to cross one of my favorite spans in all of New England, the Green River Covered Bridge in Guilford, Vermont.

I have a small catalogue of my bikes posing in front of this bridge, going back to my OG ADV ride, a 2010 BMW F800GS. Here she is over a decade ago…

Then there’s my 2013 Super Ténéré, which has crossed this and many other covered bridges in Vermont (and throughout New England)…

And finally back to the present, here’s me and my 2020 Scrambler 1200 XE. I’m proud to say that we’ve never been assessed the $2.00 fine for crossing faster than a walk.

There is nothing—I mean nothing—quite like scrambling across these delicious dirt and gravel roads in Vermont in the summertime. They wend their way up and down the hills, through sleepy dairy farms and sun-dappled maple groves, the sweet, sweet summer smell of cut grass and cow manure wafting through your helmet. It’s enough to make you high. It is my happy place. My brappy place. My smiley face.

On the way up to Allis I used the old Vermont Puppy Dog Route waypoints I had stored on the Garmin. It’s an excellent ride, but just as in times past, the route sent me deep into the woods until the road/trail evaporated, and my northern progress was temporarily stymied.

Along one particular instance of this I was about a mile into thick forest on overgrown two-track, when the route dead-ended at a gate with a “Private Property—No Trespassing” sign.

Being the law-abiding citizen rider that I am, I decided to execute a U-turn and double back. But the turn-around involved riding the Scrambler up a slight berm in front of the gate…where I promptly tipped over. For a brief moment, I was lying downhill in soft Vermont grass, my left leg pinned under the bike. It was not altogether uncomfortable, and I was slightly bemused at the gentle ease of the fall.

That’s when I noticed something smoking, and panicked.

With adrenalin now coursing, I managed to wriggle out from under the 500 pound beast, and saw that my riding pants had charred and melted from contact with the header.

I hit the kill switch and tried to lift the bike. Nothing doing. My failed U-ey had resulted in the bike’s wheels being uphill on the berm and well above the tank, with me lying down below. I tugged and grunted, and couldn’t lift the bike an inch.

This produced a momentary “Into the Woods” panic, wondering how the heck I was going to get out of this, and suspecting that an inverted bike couldn’t possibly be good for engine oil, gas, or anything else that physics would encourage to flow downhill.

Instinct kicked in, and I set about pulling and dragging the front tire downwards to rotate and reorient the bike. When I got it roughly perpendicular to the slope, I was able to use my remaining adrenalin reserve to upright the bike, like one of those moms who manage to lift a car to save a child.

Other than some grass and dirt sprouting from the barkbuster, and several new custom-melted ventilation holes in my pants and jacket, the bike and I were unscathed. Just soaked in panic sweat.

All this effort also made me fiercely hangry. And as luck would have it, my tip-over turned out to be a short backtrack and ride to a beloved Vermont roadside institution…

Curtis’s All American Barbecue in Putney, VT.

Dubbed “The 9th Wonder of the World” and housed in an iconic blue school bus, Curtis’s has been a must-visit pit stop for me (pun intended) every since I started roadtripping to Burlington in the late eighties to attend college at UVM.

A much younger version of me used to pull off in Putney to wolf down a pulled pork sandwich, or fall-off-the-bone ribs and chicken, and revel in the incongruity of what was essentially a very Southern roadside barbecue stand in a very northern clime, the delicious meat smoke often co-mingling with the aroma of fresh snow and pine.

Plus, it was all housed in a repurposed school bus. Painted blue. In Vermont.

This pit stop was as good as I’d remembered. I dove into a plate of pulled pork with a side of cornbread and beans. I needed a shower after eating, as I was so glazed and sticky from adrenalin sweat and meat smoke.

I learned later that Curtis’ eponymous chef, Curtis Tuff, apparently died a few years back, so I was glad I’d made the pilgrimage. Thank you Mr. Tuff. You filled some very hungry bellies with some very tender meats.

Back on the road for a few more hours winding north, until I arrived at the inspiration-destination for this little trip.

Hello, Allis.

Unlike the desperate and hard-bit Malice-town in Paul Weller’s song, Allis State Park is more like, well, Pretty Green.

Spread over 625 hilltop acres, it has a mere 26 campsites, along with a fire tower, pavilion, and hiking trails.

Here’s my site.

First I hung out for a bit…

Stretched my legs…

And then pitched camp. As you can see from the guy who pops up mid-video, the staff at Allis are super helpful, even hauling firewood straight to your site.

Voila. Like the Scrambler, my tent was new for this season. It’s a Mountain Hard Wear Mineral King 3 that I picked up on sale from Moosejaw. I can attest that it rocks. A snap to pitch or break down, spacious and well ventilated, and a hell of a lot more comfortable than my 1-man Eureka.

At the recommendation of the Park Rangers, I headed down to Norwich—home of the oldest private military college in the country—to find some early chow. They recommended this.

It was a great call. Good Measure Brewing Company is superb—excellent beer, great pub food, and delightful people.

As a good safety measure, I limited myself to just one tasty pint.

Back at Allis, I decided to burn off my burger-and-beer-belly by exploring the grounds and taking in a modest hike.

While I was well fed, the skeeters were just getting started. All I can say is thank God for Amazon oddities like this mosquito-net bucket hat. It saved my mosquito-bacon.

But there was apparently more than one way of being eaten alive here…

I didn’t linger to see how that hat would hold up to a Mama Bear, and hightailed it back to camp…

Then a little fire, a little R and R, and early to bed for a good night’s sleep.

The next day, after some cowboy coffee by the campfire, I embarked on a scrambler tour of my personal “best-of” central Vermont. One of my favorite destinations is always the floating bridge in Brookfield. It crosses Sunset Lake, which is apparently too deep for regular bridge pilings. So engineers created this delightful wooden span buoyed by fiberglass pontoons.

The bridge is actually several linked segments, so as you cross it by care or motorbike, it dips and rebounds gently as you roll across.

As a bonus, there’s a raised wooden footpath and railing, which locals climb up onto to jump into the cool, dark water. Which on a hot summer day is about as delicious as you can get. I stripped out of my riding kit to take a dunk, and then dried off and saddled up for more exploring.

Back in my college days I had a season’s ski pass to Sugarbush, and came to know the Waitsfield/Warren/Mad River area pretty well. So I decided to venture west, up and over the Roxbury Gap (a great scrambling road), to revisit the area.

One of my all-time favorite roads in all of America is here: the Common Road in Waitsfield. It is the absolute archetype of a Vermont country road: a gentle ribbon of manure-speckled dirt threading its way through copses of gnarled old oaks and maples, which—when they part—yield rolling vistas of dairy pasture and roaming Holsteins and hillocks and the lush Green Mountains beyond.

I rode it in bucolic bliss.

I rode

From the Common Road, as you venture down into the Waitsfield, you first pass the venerable Inn at the Round Barn Farm (I used to casually know the original owners, the Simkos and their lovely innkeeper-daugher Anne Marie DeFreest, having stayed there many times over the years) before crossing the Great Eddy Covered Bridge. It’s an iconic, metal-roofed span across the meandering Mad River, which in summer become’s Vermont’s answer to New York’s Jones Beach.

The river is wading-shallow in some parts, deep in others, and altogether luscious.

The actual beach part? Not so much. But hey, you’re in the Green Mountains, hundred of miles from anything resembling the sea shore.

It’s an annual rite for local kids to climb up onto the roof and jump into the river, aiming for the deep water and avoiding the perilous rocks and concrete buttress near the shore. I suppose that’s why in 2016, the town erected a “No diving, jumping off the bridge, injury or death are possible!” sign. It certainly appears so.

But it does little to deter this…

And this.

I lounged, watched the bridge jumpers, waded, and floated to my heart’s content, surrounded by families and a few other riders. Route 100, also known as “The Skier’s Highway” is almost like a New England version of the Tail of the Dragon, and plenty of Canadian and Northeast riders carve it up during the summer months, stopping at swimming holes like this one here to cool off. Kinda like me.

After the beach, time for some eats, so I bimbled down to the Waitsfield Farmer’s Market to groove on some delicious homemade enchiladas and tunes. It’s open every Saturday from mid-May through mid-October, and it’s the perfect spot to pick up a bite, some straight-from-the-farm produce, or cannabis-infused healing crystals (if that’s your sort of thing). Very, very Vermonty.

Then, with my core cooled off, my belly filled, and a wet towel and bathing suit strapped to my tail-rack, I motored back up and over the Gap, down into the Northfield Valley, and waved to these locals on my way back to a Town Called Allis.

Camp-sweet-camp.

Later that afternoon, I actually made an encore trip down to Good Measure for some beer and dinner…it was so satisfying the first time that it called for a reprise gastro-trip. Then, back to camp for a solid night’s sleep, followed by camp break at dawn, packing up my Scram, and hitting the road. 

Into the early morning Episcopal light…

Ever since I left Vermont in the late 1980s, I’ve been drawn back, time-and-again, by its rambling green goodness, by its ramshackle farms and “unimproved” country lanes, its lazy rivers and undulating green peaks—Mansfield and Camel’s Hump and Equinox and all the others. By its sadly beautiful, now-boarded-up Main Street towns, empty storefronts and collapsing porches with dreamcatchers and Pride flags and rusty, dusty Adirondack chairs made from cut-up old pencil skis. By its oddly charming, defiantly independent people, the techno-crunch transplants and earth-first eco-warriors, the shoe-wearing pebble beach-goers (ergo, “shoobs”) and the homesteaders and gun-toting trailer park Trumpists, the Covid-escapists and Bean-clad college crowd. By its endlessly exquisite State Parks and eternally unevolved ski “resorts,” its Ben & Jerry cows, its quirks and quarries and cornfields.

Vermont, as a state—as a place—really does embody the vibe of A Town Called Malice: optimistically heartbreaking, or heartbreakingly optimistic; simultaneously sad, luscious, bitter and joyous.

Time is short and life is cruel and it’s up to us to ride. Even if it is to a State Park not called Malice.