Sarah and I try to visit Acadia National Park about once a year and always bring our bikes. There are 45 miles of carriage roads around the park thanks to John D. Rockefeller Jr. You may even see a Rockefeller driving his carriage along the roads today. Most of the carriage roads are open to horses, horse-drawn carriages, bikes, and pedestrians while a few of the roads exclude bike use. The carriage roads are wide, well maintained, and well marked. Because they were designed for horse-drawn carriages, they are not too steep (of course “too steep” is a relative term). I have been on all but a couple miles of the roads walking, biking, snowshoeing, and cross-country skiing.
One of my favorite bike rides is around Witch Hole Pond starting from signpost 5 on Duck Brook Road. This area tends to be quieter than other parts of the park.
For a big multi-hour adventure, you can take the route I did with my cousins 10 years ago. We started at the visitor center, past Witch Hole Pond, down to Eagle Lake, on to Aunt Betty Pond, then climbed much of the way up Sargent Mountain to the highest point on the carriage roads and back to the visitor center. I believe that route took three to four hours including a couple rest stops to take in the views. We saw a young fox on the path that day and I have seen deer along the carriage roads many times.
You can find a map of the carriage roads on the Acadia National Park website at http://www.nps.gov/acad/planyourvisit/upload/CRUMmap.pdf.
