Day 68. Rockland
67 miles, 4262 feet
Maine scenery is even better, but comes at the cost of biking on narrow roads with no shoulder and lots of traffic, including dump trucks, pickups and SUVs. On balance I'd rather see Maine from a train or bus. Traffic, especially US 1, would not be worth the effort.
The day began passing through beautiful towns: Bath and Wiscasset and though it rained hard it was generally cool. The Bath bridge has a pedestrian and bike protected lane and views of the Bath Iron Works and Kennebec River. It was hard for me to tell what was a river, a lake, and salt water in this region.
The graph below of daily elevation gain for my ride tells the story of New England cycling. Elevation gain is higher than any region other than the western passes!
You are perpetually going up and down, and the drops are steep with granny gear climbs out. It is hard! Add to this roads that are not in great shape with no shoulder and traffic and it leads to an exhausting day. So I enjoyed the views when they appeared but was very glad to pull in to Rockland.
At dinner I had to pull out maps to understand where I was. I'm on the edge of Penobscot Bay, a gorgeous section of the Maine coast with ferry-served islands, sailing, seafood, history and incredibly scenic coastline. Most of this escaped me during the day. Amtrak serves Brunswick but no further north. The are lots of ferry trips from Rockland and from Bar Harbor to Nova Scotia. So one can see a lot of this region without the stop-and-go traffic of US 1.
One more full day of biking on my trip, and then a half-day Saturday!
Maine scenery is even better, but comes at the cost of biking on narrow roads with no shoulder and lots of traffic, including dump trucks, pickups and SUVs. On balance I'd rather see Maine from a train or bus. Traffic, especially US 1, would not be worth the effort.
The day began passing through beautiful towns: Bath and Wiscasset and though it rained hard it was generally cool. The Bath bridge has a pedestrian and bike protected lane and views of the Bath Iron Works and Kennebec River. It was hard for me to tell what was a river, a lake, and salt water in this region.
The graph below of daily elevation gain for my ride tells the story of New England cycling. Elevation gain is higher than any region other than the western passes!
You are perpetually going up and down, and the drops are steep with granny gear climbs out. It is hard! Add to this roads that are not in great shape with no shoulder and traffic and it leads to an exhausting day. So I enjoyed the views when they appeared but was very glad to pull in to Rockland.
At dinner I had to pull out maps to understand where I was. I'm on the edge of Penobscot Bay, a gorgeous section of the Maine coast with ferry-served islands, sailing, seafood, history and incredibly scenic coastline. Most of this escaped me during the day. Amtrak serves Brunswick but no further north. The are lots of ferry trips from Rockland and from Bar Harbor to Nova Scotia. So one can see a lot of this region without the stop-and-go traffic of US 1.
One more full day of biking on my trip, and then a half-day Saturday!
Leaving Brunswick you follow a beautiful trail. On the far right, just feet away, you can see the freeway that is US 1.
Scenes from Bath and the bridge over the Kennebec River.
View from my hotel room in Rockland with Penobscot Bay.
