Home from Maine 2022 Day 1 - Brunswick to Saco

 Our first day is finished.

We are at the cheap, modest, and spotless Wagon Wheel Motel on Route 1 in Saco. It's a short walk from ice cream to the north, and lobsters to the south.

We wanted to camp, but there were no campgrounds nearby with tent camping. Except one place who advised us not to tent camp due to mosquitos. OK, fine. This motel is a deal and we can walk to lobsters.

The lobsters were in this big red barn-like place. Not glamorous, but pretty tasty.

Because Maine, I had a lobster for lunch, too. This was at the Porthole, on the waterfront in Portland. Note the actual lobster boats and pots in the background.

Max was feeling adventurous, so he ordered fish and chips. (Hated it: "Like chicken strips but slimy inside." and he tried a tiny taste of lobster. (Hated it: "Is it always this rubbery?"). He will find a reason to hate all new foods. He liked the fries.

The front of the Porthole:

 
Pretty nondescript looking, but in the back there is a huge deck, which is where everyone is.

We also spent an hour or so at a bike shop in Portland, Cyclemania. Excellent place, right off the trail. I was having a lot of nervousness about Max's front hub. He has a vintage Schwinn frame, which uses these obscure retention clips to keep the wheel from bouncing out of the fork. 

Modern bikes have tabs on the end of the fork for this purpose. Anyway, the hub is very old school, with loose bearings. It was either wobbly or not spinning freely, no matter how I tweaked it. My plan was to just buy a new front wheel, but there were no front wheels that can accommodate the weird retention clips. So the shop rebuilt the hub for me. It turns out the axle was bent, which was the source of all the problems.

I am so happy not to be worrying about this any more. 

Portland is a really nice small city. I would visit again. 

It was a glorious day of touring, sunny, with temperatures in the low 70s. Our route was very scenic for the most part. 

Did we take the Adventure Cycling route? US Bike Route 1? The East Coast Greenway? Or just ride on US 1? Sometimes you don't even have to choose!

For the most part, we did the Adventure Cycling route, which often overlapped with the others.

At the end, we did about 5 miles of unpaved rail trail, which went straight to the motel.

There was a snake! Max was concerned that he ran over its tail, but the snake seemed fine.

It was a great first day. 53 miles, moderate little up and down hills, nice roads.

Here is the Strava track.