Down East Sunrise Trail – Exploring by bicycle

A second look at Maine’s Down East Sunrise Trail

I’m reassessing my view of the Down East Sunrise Trail.

Perhaps I was a little harsh yesterday.

The group that rode the Down East Sunrise Trail on Day 1 loved it. They took their time, seemingly stopping on every bridge to take photos. And the surface, while not consistent, isn’t as rough once you get more than a few feet away from a road crossing, they said.

While the trail is the longest trail segment on the East Coast Greenway, the big users are ATVs and, in the winter, snowmobiles, not cyclists. While the machines kick up some rocks, they also pack down the surface.

So we took a walk along the trail in Machias. It still felt too sandy for our skinny, slick tires, but it certainly looked better than what we saw on Sunday:

Taking the trail today cut off about 8 miles and all those hills. There’s barely a grade on on this trail Still, the surface seems to have beaten up our riders. Those who made it the whole way arrived much later than all of us who took the road.

Here’s a sign by the crossing in Machias that I liked. Can’t ignore the economic impact of trail tourism!

Day 1 — 49 miles from Calais to Machias

A wonderful first day of our East Coast Greenway ride in Maine.

This was a wonderful first day of our East Coast Greenway ride in Maine — comfortable temperatures (perhaps it topped 80) and low humidity (especially compared to the heat dome we left behind). The hills were generally undulating and the uphill looked worse from the top of the previous hill than they actually were. They also seemed shorter than the ones at home and only rarely did we have to work hard in our lowest gear. The “official” estimate is we climbed 1,874 feet.

We started with a gathering of local and regional U.S. and Canadian officials near the border (more on that in another post), then headed closer for our own shot of the border. I’m glad we walked over last night because there was no way we were going to convince part of the group to wait for the others to go over and back. As it was, the American border agents didn’t take too kindly to a few of us going halfway across the bridge for a photo and then walking back — and not crossing over to go through U.S. customs. Thankfully, they said that since they had seen us, it was all OK … just don’t do it again!

Apparently they don’t take it easy during the international festival the two towns have. The parade from one side to the other? Get pre-approved if you want to do the whole thing.

This is most of the group well away from the bridge crossing, with Canada across the river. Notice the day’s uniform?

We found our welcome to Maine sign a few miles later, after we’d passed the turn-off for the last of the local crossings. The waves are to the friendly motorcyclists passing by who had also spent the night at the Calais Motor Inn.

Can someone photoshop “and bikes” to the bottom of that “open for business” slogan?

Signage was generally great — both for the East Coast Greenway and Adventure Cycling’s U.S. Bike Route 1. Our cue sheets really were more of a backup than anything else. Maine DOT has done a fabulous job!

We crossed the Down East Sunrise Trail quite a few times.

But we made the right choice — the surface is great for ATVs and snowmobilers but awfully bumpy for a cyclist. One of our Mainers told us it’s also plagued with black flies — and our few encounters with them were bad enough.

This was supposed to be a 46-mile day. Where did the other 3 come from? Two are the ride to the border and back. The third is a math mistake on the cue sheets — somehow it added just 0.2 instead of 1.2 miles for one stretch of roadway. Stuff happens. And it was no big deal.

Ready to ride!

We’ve made it to Calais. Now the biking starts.

We’ve made it to Maine — and taken the five-hour(!) ride in a school bus to Calais from Portland. I was last on a long ride in a school bus in Alaska — and before that to corn detassle as a teenager in Indiana.

But it gave us lots of time to get to know each other. One rider is from Maine (another Maine rider joined us at dinner), and another is from Florida, and the rest of us are from Pennsylvania north. There are quite a few who are on their first East Coast Greenway ride.

As we went up and down the hills on Highway 9 between Bangor and Calais, the group started wondering about Sunday’s route. We knew it would be hilly — but this hilly? Should we have come with fatter tires after all and taken the Down East Sunrise Trail, with its imperceptible 1% grade? Maybe a third of the group has planned to take the trail. One person even brought a second set of tires, so she could swap out for something more road-friendly after two days. Why didn’t we do that?

At least it’s only a 46-mile day.

The Down East Trail is the longest trail on the East Coast Greenway, at around 85 miles. The nonprofit that runs it is now finishing up an extension into Ellsworth, the gateway to Acadia National Park, and is envisioning an extension in the other direction, into the Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge. Pull out and sell the rails to build the trail seems to be the way it’s done.

And just how isolated is this eastern part of Maine? Our bus driver said you wouldn’t take this highway in the winter because of the snow — you’d stick to the coast. He pointed out signs with the letters TWP and a number. That’s how areas of forest and or other “town without people” get identified in rural Maine. We went through an area where there used to be a lot of logging and paper mills, but there’s much less of that here. A few homes, small — small — grocery stores (think the size of a trailer), one little elementary school and lots and lots of forest and not much else, until we finally saw a sign for a proper supermarket … 7 miles away. That would be in Calais, a town of about 3,000.

And between Calais and Machias? We’re heading out with boxed lunches because there’s nowhere to buy food.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: