Northeast - Road Bike Rental in Maine

I'm an avid road cyclist from California heading out to Belfast, ME at the end of the month and am looking for somewhere I can rent a nice, higher-end road bike while I'm out there. Will be driving up from Boston so can pick up something along the way.

Also, if there is anyone in that area that wants to do some riding (assuming I can find a bike), would love to meet some locals.

Thanks for any input.

Mitchell

Papa Wheelies (papa-wheelies.com) in Portsmouth NH rents road bikes. I do business with the shop, but don't have any experience with their rentals. There's nice riding along the coast of NH out of Portsmouth, so you might want to spend a half day (or more) on your way up to enjoy it.

Shops in Portland, ME advertise rentals as well. You'll find a lot of rentals in Bar Harbor, but that's a bit further up the coast.

Most of the rentals are entry level road bikes, where you can find them at all.

You're going to have to call some shops.

Are you planning on visiting Acadia? There is a shop
on the corner going into town that rents road bikes.
It's a nice place.

There is also a good bike shop in Camden, they do rentals, but
I never asked.

You can also try Bath Cycle and Ski (bikeman.com) and Allspeed in Portland.

I like the bike shops in Portsmouth, but I've never done business down there.

I like the Blue Hill area and the Schoodic Peninsula for riding.

http://www.exploremaine.org/bike/midcoast/index.shtml

Do you love hills? If you do, you can ride up to Monroe, take a left to Brooks,
and then another left. There are loong glacial hills coming out of Brooks that
slowly get steeper. They're cruel. They trick you into maintaining speed and cadence,
but they're longer than they look and slowly get steeper. So your legs burn,
and then they burn a lot.

There are few stores (or anything) so bring lots of water and snacks and get more in Brooks.

You might want to stop at the Maine welcome center (on 95 a few miles over the border from NH) and pick up a copy of the book published by the state. It's also available on line, and late's link is to the mid-coast section.

http://www.bikemaine.org/ might be helpful as well.

Give these shops a call. You'll likely be coming up the turnpike then getting on route 3 in Augusta to head to Belfast. These are 2 good Augusta shops:
http://www.auclaircycle.com/

http://mathieuscycleandfitness.com/tag/augusta-maine-bike-shops/