Portland to Wiscasset

June 8, 2015

Another coolish morning and overcast with threats of rain. Yesterday was so beautiful. Chance of rain today (in Portland) was something like 60%. So we dressed, expecting the worst but feeling rested after having yesterday off.

We also started late, leaving the hotel a little after 10:00 AM. Happy needed to stop at a bike shop, and we thought we would visit one in Portland, but he called a shop in Brunswick at 9:30. And they answered! They agreed to take a walk-in. Brunswick was almost 30 miles away, and they told him, "If you have any problems along the way, call us and we'll come get you." Pretty amazing. The one local shop we went to on Sunday morning told us they had a two-week backlog. Not helpful when you're touring!

Brunswick was on the way, plus we had planned this as a shorter than usual day (45 miles), so we knew we had plenty of time.

Today's ride to Wiscasset

Heart

Comment

Link

We took the long way out of town, using the Eastern Promenade Trail around the point and following it to the US-1 bridge north. This trail follows the narrow-gauge railroad we saw yesterday, which apparently crossed the mouth of the Back Cove to an industrial center.

The dilapidated narrow-gauge railroad swing span across Back Cove.

We then followed the trail to US-1 and crossed over Back Cove ourselves. This crossing only has a trail on the west side, so to continue north we had to cross beneath it as we were coming from the east. The trail puts you into a residential neighborhood, but eventually we were back on US-1 and the new Martin's Point Bridge over Casco Bay.

It seems the tide was out while crossing Casco Bay.

But we were only on it for a short distance before turning onto ME-88, which was a pleasant and comfortable road to ride with wide shoulders and little traffic. From there we went to even more local roads all the way to Brunswick, where we arrived just as a small bit of rain was starting to fall. We easily found the bike shop: Center Street Cycles. In spite of its name, Center Street is small and bike-friendly.

And the owners, staff, and customers are friendly as well. All were gracious and curious about our trip. Even posing for photographs!

An interesting recumbent with a left entry "portal."

But the thing we were keen on was Happy's bike. Seems he needed a new chain and rear cassette. He had been noticing slippage, and we suspected this would be required. They went to work on it right away.

Lee of Center Street Cycles hard at work.

A better picture of Lee after the job was done.

It took about an hour between arriving, diagnosing, repairing, test driving, reloading the bike, and getting local advice from Lee on options for heading north to Bath. A pretty good way to spend 60 minutes. Oh, and the rain picked up while we were there and was done by the time we left! So no rain riding today!

So north to Bath, where we grabbed a late lunch opposite the Bath Iron Works and then crossed the US-1 bridge over the Kennebec River.

Crossing the Kennebec River. Adjacent to the new span is the older railroad bridge with a lift span and what looks to be a roadway above.

From Bath, we were only eight miles or so from our hotel. Happy stayed on US-1, and I took an occasional side road. He stopped for ice cream, and I noticed a super-sized jungle gym!

Nice ladies selling ice cream on a cool day . . . but they had customers!

You have to wonder sometimes (if you're an engineer anyway) how these things get permitted.

I also paid more attention to my Garmin today to make sure it faithfully recorded my trip!

Today's ride: 46 miles (74 km)
Total: 2,493 miles (4,012 km)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	0
Comment on this entry	Comment	0