Why is biking in Acadia so popular?

Take your time exploring Acadia National Park with an e-bike adventure. The carriage roads take you off the busy roads and into the quieter, often ore scenic parts of Acadia National Park. Biking gives you the opportunity to pull over when you'd like, picnic with the best views, and even summit a mountain.

Forty-five miles of rustic carriage roads weave around the mountains and through the valleys of Acadia National Park, the gift of philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and family. Rockefeller, a skilled horseman, desired to travel on motor-free byways via horse and carriage into the heart of Mount Desert Island. His construction efforts from 1913 to 1940 resulted in roads with sweeping vistas and close-up views of the landscape.

Rockefeller financed 16 of Acadia’s 17 stone-faced bridges, each unique in design, to span streams, waterfalls, roads, and cliff sides. The bridges are steel-reinforced concrete, but the use of native stone for the facing gives them a natural appearance. Over time, the stone cutters grew very skilled and Rockefeller often requested them not to cut the facing too well lest the rustic look be lost! The result of Rockefeller’s vision and attention to detail is an integrated system of carriage roads that blends harmoniously with the landscape.