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Maine Trip: Cycling

Cycling was one of the things that we were really looking forward to on our trip. We had read about the carriage roads in Acadia National Park and, truth be told, half the reason we chose to drive rather than fly the 700+ miles to Maine was so we could bring our bikes - in particular, Valeries' recumbent trike, which is something you can't easily find as a rental. So, on our first full day in Maine we decided to hit the Eagle Lake trail, which had been recommended to us as being both pretty and fairly flat. We drove into the park just after breakfast (the parking lots fill quickly in summer) and headed for the trail head.

Recumbent trikes are pretty unusual, so when we crossed from the parking lot to the trail head we were surprised to spot a park bike volunteer on a Catrike recumbent trike very similar to Valerie's. This turned out to be Greenburg the bike volunteer. Remember Arnold Horshak from Welcome Back Kotter? Well picture him in his late 60's, bearded, and turned into a Maine outdoorsy type, and you'll be in the right ballpark for Greenburg the bike volunteer. 

We spoke for quite a while with Greenburg, who, it turns out, is originally from Brooklyn (Sheepshead Bay HS alum), is a paddler, cyclist, and is one of Maine's three Jews (kidding! - there are at least four). I assume that being a park bike guy is his retirement gig. He said that he too only recently started riding a recumbent - I assume because he could no longer ride a regular bike with his bony, aging tuchas. 

Oh, I'm a little ambivalent about Greenburg the bike volunteer. On the one hand, he was very helpful and friendly enough. But there was something a little condescending about him. Perhaps it was the way he sized us up as soon as we came into view and recommended that we start on the scenic east side of the lake, in case we didn't make it all the way around. Certainly, he rubbed me the wrong way when we were talking kayaking. When I told him I normally paddled a Tempest, his response was, "oh, that's a cute boat." 


Anyway, after a bit we said our farewells to Greenburg the bike volunteer and headed out, taking his suggestion and heading around the east side of the lake. The views were quite lovely. The ride was a slow climb, moderately undulating as you might expect in a natural setting. At one point Valerie took a break while I explored a side trail up to Bubble Pond - she was happy to have a break, finding riding on gravel a little tougher than the same distance on the road. As we came around the bottom of the lake and started up the west side it turned into a steady climb. We took some breaks, as did a lot of other riders. All that climbing did yield a nice reward at the end - a long, fast, downhill cruise to the finish.  
Eagle Lake

When we got back the start Greenburg the bike volunteer was still there. We thought it would be fun to get a picture of Valerie and Greenburg standing next to the two recumbents, but when Valerie went to get off her bike her right shoe wouldn't unclip - she was stuck to the bike! We fiddled with it with the tools we had with us, but we couldn't get the darn shoe off the pedal! This no doubt further lowered Greenburg the bike volunteer's opinion of us as cyclists (though at least we *had* confounded his expectations and had made it all the way around the lake), and because Valerie couldn't get up the two of them wound up posing seated on their bikes. It turned out that one of the screws holding Valerie's cleat had come out (probably while we were walking around at one of our stops). Back at the car, where I had a real screwdriver, I was able to pop the shoe off the bike and the next day we got a replacement screw at a bike shop in town.
Valerie and Greenburg the bike volunteer

After our ride we had lunch at Jordan Pond house. It was a very nice lunch, but something didn't agree with me. We headed back to the room and I rested for a while until my stomach felt better. By this point Valerie was napping and so I decided to head back to the park for more riding. It was my intention to do the longest, most climbing carriage trail route, called "Around Mountain". Unfortunately, I still wasn't feeling 100% and in addition, not long into my ride storms started to move in - I started to hear thunder. So, I cut my ride short. I think I did about four miles, which did include 300 ft. of climbing out of Around Mountain's total 560 ft. climb, so I got some elevation in.

A good day of riding!
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Location: Acadia National Park, Mt Desert, ME 04660, USA

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