Since we’re planning a four day bike ride on Prince Edward Island next week. We figured we better get our butts in shape. So we set off on one of Maine’s rail-to-trail projects, the Down East Sunrise trail. Although it runs 88 miles from Ellsworth to the Canadian border, we only rode a short 18 mile section of it to Machias, having started at our campground, Sunset Point.
Now that I think about it, if it was built for trains, there’s a good chance there won’t be much flashy terrain, just really gradual climbs followed by barely detectable descents. Curves with giant radii (for those of you who didn’t suffer eight years of Catholic grammar school backed up by a strict grammarian lawyer father, yes, that’s how you write the plural of radius – deal with it) also don’t do much to stimulate mountain-biking adrenaline. In fact, this trail was down right boring, but not for the ATVs that came dusting by. I could imagine what the snowmobile traffic was like in winter. I noticed it’s signs had the same misleading moniker, “multi-use,” which for anyone hiking, bicycling or skiing, means get the ———— out of the way and pardon the fumes.
Yet we saved the day with a tasty lunch at Machias as we sat next to an elderly couple with a perfect Down East accent, and learned from our server of a return route via back roads through the hills, bays and blueberry pastures – wonderful. Nearing our campground, our GPS pointed to rough dirt roads much more fun than the old rail trail. So we stretched out the ride, cranking the batteries to full assist on the hills, and finally completed a 54 mile day.
The full showers (luxuriously longer than our usual Navy showers in the fifth wheel) at the campground were glorious.
