Maine
These friends are bicycling their way across Maine’s frozen ponds and rivers
When the ice on Toddy Pond is thick and clear, the skaters and fishermen come out. Sometimes, so do people on bicycles.
They’re part of a group of friends who started riding across the ice several years ago using studded titanium tires on the mountain bikes they enjoy in the other three seasons.
It’s a fun, practical and unusual way to stay active outside and spend time together during the winter months. But it also gives them opportunities to explore Hancock County’s ponds, lakes and rivers from a new point of view.
“It was like we were 10 years old again, just goofing off and pure enjoyment,” Greg Forrest said of his first ice bike ride with friend Mike Zboray. “We went from feeling nervous to feeling invincible.”
Their group of friends met years ago through school activities for their children, now in their late teens and early 20s. Forrest and Zboray often went mountain biking and canoeing together in warmer weather; they started to wonder how they could keep going year-round.
Spiked tires were the answer. They can be ridden on ice that’s too rough for skating, can be added to regular mountain bikes and give enough traction to make cycling over ice feel like riding on pavement.
Ice biking has scattered fans in other cold states, including Wisconsin and Minnesota, where some replace their front wheels with ice skates. It’s not so widespread in Maine.
Once Forrest and Zboray tried them, there was no going back. Their friend Paul Markosian borrowed a bike and was “hooked,” he said, using his bike to commute to work.
Soon more friends and their spouses joined the outings, and for the last several years, a fluctuating group of up to 10 have hit the ice around the county every weekend when conditions allow. Sometimes, skaters join them too.
They’ve traveled often on their “home pond,” Toddy Pond, nearby Craig Pond, Hothole Pond and Alamoosook Lake. They’ve explored water bodies in Acadia National Park including Bubble Pond, Jordan Pond, Long Pond and Eagle Lake. They’ve ridden a tidal swamp stream down to the ocean and explored the meandering whaleback of the Union River’s east branch.
With the ability to travel farther and faster across the water, bikers can have new adventures. Markosian recalled exploring behind beaver dams. Forrest described tracking coyote prints across the snow and discovering eagles eating a carcass.
“I’m more confident, and can cover a lot more ground” than on skates, said Markosian. “I like being able to explore these bodies of water from that vantage point.”
On sunny days, the bikers can head into the wind, then turn around and let it push them back, gliding over the ice with almost no effort. Sometimes they joust with cattails. If snow is followed by rain and a hard freeze, Zboray can take his bike out in the forest, cruising on top of the snow.
They can’t ride when the ice is covered in snow or slush, as it has been this February, and changing ice-out dates can shorten the season. But it’s worth the wait.
“Nobody can put a finger on what’s addicting about it,” Forrest said. “Some days you’re out there and you’re like, ‘This is boring.’ But it’s not.”
For some, it’s a source of camaraderie with friends, a chance for adventure or a fun source of exercise, Zboray said. It can also be a way to feel in touch with nature and get “in the zone” while riding.
“It’s just really wonderful to have a group of friends who like to do some similar things and adventuring together,” he said. “Everybody gets something a little different from the experience.”
KENNEBUNK (WGME) — A national wildlife refuge in Maine has a new center for its visitors.
At a ribbon cutting in Kennebunk Wednesday, Maine leaders celebrated the grand opening of the Rachel Carson Center for People and Nature.
The new center offers exhibits and programs for the nearly 300,000 visitors that stop by the refuge each year.
The center’s grand opening coincides with the late author Rachel Carson’s birthday.
Carson’s research helped to spur conservation efforts and environmental policy changes in the 1960s, something Congresswoman Chellie Pingree says she’s now fighting for decades later.
“We’ve actually come 180 degrees, we think science is wrong and we shouldn’t believe in it and climate change doesn’t exist,” Pingree said. “We’re battling an anti-science battle, and we have to continue to take it on, but one of the best ways to do that is to bring people right here in touch with nature.”
The refuge in total spans more than 6,000 acres across several cities and towns in southern Maine.
The typical home in Maine’s largest city costs nearly $300,000 more than it would have a decade ago, a new study revealed.
Median home prices in Portland surged from $263,000 to $558,000 over the past 10 years, according to an analysis of nationwide real estate data from Construction Coverage. That’s a 112% spike in the last decade, earning the city the 85th spot among all small U.S. cities ranked by housing price growth.
Meanwhile, the median Maine home cost about $193,000 in 2016 and $407,000 in 2026. That 111% growth makes Maine the state with the third highest real estate price jump over the last decade.
The report reveals that Maine’s housing has not only become unaffordable to most people in the state, but that Mainers are feeling the pressure of rising home prices more than almost every other state while wages have struggled to keep up. Nationwide, home values jumped more than 81% in the last decade.
The report includes data from Zillow, the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
While median housing prices across the state rose 110% over the last 10 years, median household income rose by 53%. It shows that many Mainers aren’t able to afford the rising costs.
The Maine Housing Outlook Report, released in January by MaineHousing, noted housing prices outpacing wages as an “ongoing concern.”
“In 2015, the median income in Maine exceeded by 21% what was needed to afford the median home price in the state. In other words, an average earner could afford an average home,” the report stated. “This is no longer the case.”
Only Idaho and New Hampshire have seen housing prices grow more than Maine, according to the analysis.
Idaho saw the highest jump, as median property values rose 137% to surpass $473,000 this year when the same home there would’ve cost just under $200,000 in 2016.
In New Hampshire, median home prices rose more than $270,000 over the last 10 years to $507,000 this year — a 114% spike.
Meanwhile, median household income in Idaho and New Hampshire climbed by 64% and 50%, respectively, during the same period.
PORTLAND (WGME) — A legal battle between the University of New England and the City of Biddeford is now headed to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.
UNE is suing the city after leaders approved a 180-day moratorium on university development earlier this year.
“Litigation wasn’t our first choice,” UNE VP for Legal Affairs Ron Schneider said.
UNE is suing the city for disrupting approved projects through a development moratorium the city established in January.
Schneider says while they believe there is no straightforward reason for the moratoria, they think it was sparked by the university’s push to replace an existing pier with a new one along the Saco River.
“The full year-round permanent pier will allow students to engage in research and work on the water year-round,” Schneider said.
A legal battle between the University of New England and the City of Biddeford is now headed to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. (WGME)
The project first initiated in 2009 is still being debated by city leaders. According to the city’s website, the project violates a long-standing permit that requires new developments to “retain and maintain a 250-foot-wide vegetative buffer along the entire shoreline,” the pier’s proposed access road would violate that permit.
However, the project has already been approved by the city planning board.
“Now politics seems to have taken over,” Schneider said.
The city held a meeting just for public comment on the pier in October, with many opposed to the location of it, and at least one other saying it could affect boat moorings.
“There are at least seven that have to move so UNE can even use this pier,” Sean Tibbets, who has a mooring near the UNE pier, said.
A legal battle between the University of New England and the City of Biddeford is now headed to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. (WGME)
Meanwhile, the university disagrees.
“In many respects, it’s a false narrative,” Schneider said. “A narrative that says, ‘This pier is going to go out into the federal channel, into the middle of the river,’ and it’s not.”
The City of Biddeford says it does not comment on ongoing litigation. When CBS13 asked UNE if they think this has affected their relationship with the city, they said with city leaders, but not the city itself.
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