Transcription of Wheels #39
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Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast. Show number 39, wheels which is airing for the first time on June 10th, 2012. With me in the studio today, I have Genevieve Morgan, my co-host and the wellness editor for Maine magazine. Hi, Genevieve.
Genevieve: Hi, Lisa. Happy bicycle show day.
Lisa: Happy bicycle show day. Well, couldn’t everyday potentially be a bicycle show day?
Genevieve: Well, I think that’s what we’re trying to get across to everybody.
Lisa: Well, we talked a lot about health and wellness and we’ve had a running show, we’ve talked to the Maine island trails group, we’ve talked talked to the Maine Hut’s & Trails. There’s so much out there and we don’t to get around necessarily by boat or around foot, we can also on wheel.
Genevieve: We’re lucky that way that we live in a state where there are communities where we really can commute back and forth on two wheels, not four.
Lisa: I used to commute back and forth from my house to my office in Yarmouth and it was less than two miles. On a day where it was rush hour which in Yarmouth is not very often, it would be much quicker for me to just go right through on my bicycle, of course following traffic rules. There is that commuting aspect and there is that environmental aspect to being on a bike. There’s also the sort of joy of being outside and the feeling of the wind in your hair.
Genevieve: Well, it’s an interesting idea to think about integrating exercise that the same person who might work all day in an office and go and take a spin class could just be commuting to work on their bike and getting the same benefits as long they’re staying safe and wearing the right safety helmet. It’s funny that we don’t think of it like that.
Lisa: We don’t think of it like that and we don’t think of the joy that it use to bring us when we were younger. People who like to ride bikes, they probably like to ride bikes starting from the age of five or six.
Genevieve: Do you remember that feeling when you first were able to ride a bike, that sense of independence that you actually didn’t have to get your parents to take you somewhere, you could ride your bike?
Lisa: I remember that sense of independence, we already had several children in our family and I was so happy to leave them all behind until … I must admit one day, I decided to take my little sister on my bike with me and at that time, we weren’t wearing helmets and we took a spill and boy did my mom get mad because I chewed up my poor little sister’s leg and … I do, I was so happy to get away from the things, the ties, the bound.
Genevieve: Yeah. I think that that’s something that biking does in particular because you have the sense of speed and you have air and it’s exhilarating. I think when you become a runner that’s as skilled as yourself, you can get that but it’s much easier on a bike. It’s a real gateway to physical fitness and many people who’ve had heart attacks, who’ve had weight problems, who’ve had different kinds of health challenges, find their way back into some level of fitness with biking. Of course with biking, it helps to have outdoor space.
Lisa: Well, I agree and I know that. I personally rehabbed from multiple knee injuries using biking and I recommend it to my patients who can’t run and can’t easily walk. I know that from my health standpoint, of fitness standpoint, that’s true. I also know from getting into the outdoors as you say, standpoint, it’s very important that when we’re outside, we actually appreciate the space around us and we take the time to care for it, bring fresh air into our lungs. There’s so many health benefits of being outside.
Genevieve: A rigorous bike ride burns I think something between 700 and 800 calories per hour. It’s very aerobic, it’s very invigorating and aerobic and it is incredibly healthy cardiovascularly. I think running maybe, and swimming maybe the only two sports that match that and it’s also more, sometimes more fun because you’re changing your venue and your vista the whole time.
Lisa: There are different ways to bike. You can go out on the road, you can go out on a mountain bike, you can go on different terrains and trails and you could go to different places. You could do the trek across Maine. There’s so many different ways that you could integrate biking into your personal situation.
Genevieve: And as a family.
Lisa: Absolutely, as a family. Today, we’ll be talking with Brandon Gillard of the Kennebunkport bicycle company, Tom Bradbury of the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust and also Kevin Thomas, publisher of Maine Magazine, Maine Home Design and author of the two most recent 48 hours posts in which he talks about biking.
Genevieve: He’s also the producer of our radio show.
Lisa: He happens to be the producer of our radio show and Maine Magazine has always been a very general sponsor of our show as well because Maine Magazine recognizes that the best way to get people to love the state of Maine is to get them out there on wheel, on foot, whatever way it works. I’m looking forward to this show, it’s going to be a lot of fun.
The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is pleased to be sponsored by the University of New England. As part of their collaboration with us, we offer weekly, our wellness innovation segment. This week’s wellness innovation is hunter-gatherers and horticultirist lifestyle link to lower blood pressure.
Hunter-gatherers and forager horticulturists who live off the land and grow what they need to survive have lower age-related increases in blood pressure and less risk of Atherosclerosis. According to two new studies in the American Heart Association General Hypertension.
High blood pressure and Atherosclerosis, a disease in which arteries stiffen and fill with plaque, increase with age in the United States and other countries, raising risk for heart attacks, stroke, kidney disease and death. Age related increases in blood pressure have been observed in almost every population except among hunter-gatherers, farmers and pastoralist.
Lifestyle factors specific to hunter-gatherers might explain the minimal increases in blood pressure which include high physical activity, low stress levels and potentially protective diets high in fruits, vegetables and potassium and low in calories, salt and alcohol.
For more information on this wellness innovation, visit doctorlisa.org. For more information on the University of New England, visit une.edu.
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Lisa: Today in the studio, with us today, we have Brandon Gillard of the Kennebunkport Bicycle Company. I first met Brandon on the 48 hours Kennebunkport which is currently available on the Maine Magazine issue for June. Brandon has a lot of interesting stories to tell, not just about Kennebunkport but about biking and how to get into biking. We felt we bring him in for our wheel show. Thanks for coming in.
Brandon: Great. Thanks for having me.
Lisa: Brandon, you took me on a ride along with Kevin Thomas from Maine Magazine out into the woods in Kennebunkport. I think it’s a relatively new development that you put into place because you’re passionate about land preservation. We’re going to talk more about that with our next guest, but just tell me why Kennebunkport? Why did you initially decide that this was an important place to be for you?
Brandon: Well I started working at the bike shop while in college, purchased it as I was graduating college and I’ve been in mountain biking for my whole life. It always bothered me that in such a beautiful area, there was a great network of woods in the area, but there were no trails. I came from western Mass where there are trails everywhere and young people and it was a really vibrant outdoor community.
I moved to Maine and you think Maine is the most wooded state in the nation and we didn’t have trails. Friends and I slowly started to build trails, some legal, some illegal and it ended up forming a partnership with the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust. It’s been a really valuable relationship for both of us ever since.
Genevieve: There are a lot of road bikes in our area.
Brandon: Yeah. There are. There are ton of road bikes, it’s great road biking , we live in a great area for that. Being a mountain biker, I always wanted to expand the mountain bike trails in the area.
Genevieve: Just describe the difference really quickly for our listeners. What is a mountain bike look like compared to a road bike?
Brandon: Even the term “mountain bike” is kind of a misnomer. A lot of mountain bikes never see a mountain, they have more bicycles built for off road so there’s all kinds of different designs that really run the gamut between bikes with kind of a medium size, higher with kind of a semi-aggressive thread to bikes with lots of suspension with really aggressive tires depending on the kind of terrain that you’re going to ride.
In our area, a lot of guys ride hard hill mountain bikes, there’s sub-suspension in the front, they’ve got 29 inch wheels and two and a half inch tires. I see people out in the woods on hybrid bikes, I see kids on kid’s bikes, so the trails have really been created to welcome everybody, not just of that hardcore mountain bike population.
Lisa: What was it about mountain biking specifically that caused you to become interested in that versus road biking?
Brandon: I don’t know. I think it’s maybe the personalities and the focus involved. It’s a very free-spirited bunch, but the guys and women, there’s a lot of women I ride with that are very, very fit, they’re very outdoor oriented. We like to go and have a beer after the ride and it’s really informal. The road biking seems to be a lot more of an aerobic exercise, it’s much more structured and they were really tight clothes, which we don’t wear
Lisa: You went towards the non-tight, clothes fitting guru which is …
Brandon: Yeah. Not that all the guys we ride with couldn’t go on road rides and some of them even do what I have in the past. It just attracts different crowd typically than the road bike group.
Lisa: There’s a different kind of thrill because the road bike is about speed, but the mountain bike is about terrain?
Brandon: Exactly.
Lisa: Because I used to mountain bike in California and then when I first came to Maine, I didn’t think there was mountain biking because there were no mountains, just to your point.
Brandon: Sure. Mountain biking, I kind of describe as a combination of trail running and dancing. It’s really difficult at times, it’s what you make of it because of you’re going down a single track trail, if you’re really fast, obviously it’s going to be very difficult. If you’re just poking along, it can be really recreational exercise that’s just nice to get out in the woods.
Lisa: When I was doing this, I found that I was about balance. There was a lot of balance, there was a lot of sort of agility and having to pay attention and not that road biking wasn’t. There’s rocks, there’s trees, there’s a little path, there’s a bi path. Is that hard for people to get use to?
Brandon: Not necessarily. Again, if you’re moving in a slower rate of speed typically those things aren’t very challenging for folks. The trails that we’ve built to the conservation trust, we’re doing it very strategically in that. We’re building basic, easier trails on the perimeter and off of that, we’re kind of spidering or making lollipop trails off of that that are much more difficult. We’re using those basic roads or double track for our maintenance roads and if somebody gets hurt, they can be extracted via ATV on the roads.
Off of that, there’s much more challenging single track trails. That’s really good too because it allows people to work their way up into the sport and still being in the same area, some of the more advanced folks.
Lisa: You have a very famous guest that you work with, also has a home in that area. Tell us about him and your experience which was profiled in Maine Magazine not too long ago.
Brandon: Several years ago, I was introduced to president George Bush while he was the president through the secret service. He was looking to mountain bike in Kennebunkport, so we …
Genevieve: This is George W. Bush?
Brandon: George W, the young one. Yeah, 43 as we call him. We started mountain biking out in Alfred, Maine because it’s a really large federal piece of land they could kind of curtain off for him to ride on but after he got out of office, he was much more flexible so we’ve traveled around a little bit to mountain bike. His favorite spot is actually in his backyard in Kennebunkport. While he’s here, which is typically four to five weeks a year, we’ll ride about five out of seven days of the week.
Lisa: Does he stick to the core trails? Does he go off in a more challenging terrain?
Brandon: No, he definitely goes on kind of the most difficult trails we have. He’s a really, really advanced mountain biker, he’s extremely competitive and he’s extraordinarily fit. The first time I rode with him, I was blown away that a 60 plus year old man was kicking my butt on a mountain bike. We’re pretty evenly matched now but I really enjoy riding with him.
Lisa: For people who are going down at the Kennebunkport Festival or going down the Kennebunk and want to rent a bike, can they do that from you or …?
Brandon: Yup. They can do from our shop. We have hybrid bikes, road bikes, kid’s bikes, mountain bikes, everything under the sun involved with the mountain bike. I’d suggest them going out to Ocean Avenue in Cape Porpoise by the Bush’s place, really nice road riding out there. If you wanted to take a mountain bike, I can give them a map, a helmet and point them in the right direction which I’d suggest.
Lisa: What is the etiquette of mountain biking?
Brandon: Etiquette? I don’t know. Treat people the way you want to be treated just kind of like in life. There’s all kinds of rules of the trail and stuff but a lot of them are just common sense. You don’t want to fly up behind somebody hiking or somebody with a dog and spook them. You wan to stay out of environmentally sensitiveness areas like swamps or really muddy areas and just be polite and courteous and take any trash you have with you.
Lisa: I know that you move your business from one place to another and there’s … You’ve been expanding and things are going pretty well for you. Has this surprised you that people have embraced the biking type of world that you espouse?
Brandon: Absolutely. For several years, the business grew but it wasn’t by leaps and bounds by any means. I really feel like there’s a grounds swelling in our society, especially at Maine of outdoor oriented, fitness oriented people that just want to get out and have fun with their friends and family. It’s a really good time to be in the bike business and it’s really a good time to be in Kennebunkport as well with all the expansion and growth in development of outdoor activities.
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Lisa: How young and how old do you have people coming in as customers?
Brandon: All ages really. I have a nine year old daughter who loves mountain biking. I mountain bike with the president, he’s 65. There’s a lot of guys that ride with us in their 50’s and I see people out there in their 70’s. That’s the great thing about mountain biking, is that you can really be any age pretty much any fitness level and you can make of it want you want it to be. It doesn’t have to be flying over roots and rocks and crashing, getting bloody.
Road bikers always give us a hard time, they tell you “You guys are crazy,” crazy I say, “I top other about ten miles an hour and you guys are going 30 and there’s cars and pavement and everything else. We tip over, we land in dirt into a tree.” It’s a really fun, family oriented activity that I encourage everybody to try.
Lisa: Aside from a helmet I assume that’s mandatory, right? Is there any other gear beside the bike and a helmet?
Brandon: Yeah. I’d suggest bike shorts, padded bike shorts to keep your bottom comfortable. Wicking clothing, some gloves and maybe cycling shoes and pedals if you get a little bit more advanced. Obviously, hydration is key. nutrition, so probably some hydration pack with some food and water in it as well. Ideally, people should be able to fix their own bikes if they’re in the woods but with this modern day cellphones, people don’t always have to do that so they can go just call somebody if they have to.
Lisa: Talk to us about equipment. I know there’s a broad range of prices on bikes. Do people have to buy very expensive bikes in order to go mountain biking?
Brandon: Absolutely not. I see people out in the woods, having a really good time on old $300 beat-up Marin’s by Stevie Hagar. There’s also really advanced like high-end mountain bikes just like anything else, just like skies or gold clubs. There’s people they get really into it, spend a lot of money. To comfortably enjoy mountain biking, I’d say an initial bicycle investment of about $500 or so and probably another 1 to $200 gear after that.
A lot of the more advanced guys have no problem spending two, three, four, $8,000 on bicycles. Again, that’s their formal recreation, their passion and that’s what they do.
Lisa: The thing I like about mountain biking is that sense of play that you get. I think that when you ride a road bike, it feels a little bit more lie you said like exercise or work or if you’re getting from one destination to another. I feel like when I’m on a mountain bike, it’s more like it was when I was a kid and I would pop up the curve or go across the grass. There’s a joy in it.
Brandon: Yeah. That’s really well said. I guess I don’t really think about that very often but that’s probably what I enjoy about mountain biking the most, being a kid riding around and have absolutely no destination. We often go in circles and have a great time and do a trail, a different direction or at a different speed or hit a different jump. I really enjoy that sense of adventure and the peacefulness you get in the woods and also the camaraderie you get with your friends out in the woods.
Lisa: I would agree with that, that sense of joy. There’s also … and also somewhat of a sense of terror at times, my experience was but it’s fun, it’s very interesting. It kind of pushes your edges especially if you’re a little bit older. How do you deal with people and their sense of terror?
Brandon: That’s a good question. I don’t know. If I take a beginner out mountain biking which I often do as part of our guided tours through the bike shop, I just try to go slow, I try to talk to them, I try help them relax and I would by no means, take them on some of the more difficult terrain or kind of the expert trails. I try to tell them that they need to make of it what they wanted to be, they don’t have to be flying, there’s no expectations and let’s just go out and have fun and ride bikes.
Lisa: I can attest to that because I know I have … I think that I have been out mountain biking, well, exactly zero times before I …
Brandon: You did great though. You did great.
Lisa: Okay. Thank you, but you brought us on a very appropriate trail, it was just challenging enough, so it didn’t feel like you were babying me but it wasn’t so hard that I felt like I was going to die and you stop often. I think that sort of guidance that you have available to your customers is very useful as well as it’s a beautiful trail system, it really is.
Brandon: Thanks.
Lisa: You spent a lot of time working with volunteers on that?
Brandon: Yup. There’s a core group of us of about four or five that get the majority of the work done. We also have trail weekends where we’ll reach out to people via text or e-mail or phone as we need help on bigger projects. To date, there’s about 15 miles of trails out there and about four years ago, there was about two miles of trails and that’s really four or five people doing all that.
Genevieve: One of the things that keeps people from exercising is being overweight. Is that a consideration with the beginner who wants to bike? Because for instance, they might not be able to run because it’s painful in their knees but they might bike which can be a great gateway to physical fitness.
Brandon: Yeah. There’s a tremendous amount of our customers that come in to try either mountain biking or road biking or just around town kind of biking. They’re sent to us by physicians because cycling is such a low impact activity. I had wouldn’t be overly concerned about somebody being over weight in mountain biking. Again, it’s so low impact, it’s easy to do and it doesn’t leave joint pains or anything else.
Genevieve: And you’re not going to break the bike?
Brandon: You’re not going to break the bike. These bikes are rated to handle a lot of pressure, a lot of weight, jumps, etcetera. Obviously, if you go out and buy a $100 big buck store bicycle, it’s probably not going to be the best thing for you, you’re not going to enjoy yourself but I’d go into a local bike shop, establish a relationship with somebody that works there and they’ll pick a bike that is strong enough for your size and is capable of handling what you want to do with that.
Lisa: We talked about the trails in the Kennebunkport, Kennebunk area. What are some of your other favorite trails in Maine or elsewhere?
Brandon: My Stomping Grounds in western Mass are a lot of fun, there’s a lot of places out west that are really nice. Moav, Utah and actually in the Las Vegas area, there’s some great trails as well. They’re very different in New England mountain biking. Mount Agamenticus in York is really nice. Bradbury Mountain in Pownal is really nice, a little crowded but it’s nice. I really don’t leave my backyard all that much, it’s had to when you have such phenomenal trails, two miles from your house and don’t even have to get a car. Those are really my favorite trails.
Lisa: You don’t find … Well, let me rephrase this, so you find enough variety in the trails in your own backyard as seasons change so that you … It’s constantly new for you?
Brandon: Yeah. Also, there’s a sense of pride about riding your own trails and seeing people out there, families, everybody from different walks of life, when they recognize you, they’ll say “Thank you” or just to see them enjoying it. There’s a whole other side of the joy of mountain biking that I get by riding my trails and seeing other people enjoying them.
Lisa: Has your experience with the store, integrated into your personal life? Do you use bikes more to commute?
Brandon: Yeah. Like a lot of small business people, I got into my business because it was my passion, not because I had an MBA or I wanted to make millions of dollars. I like people, I like bicycles and I’m a very family oriented person. My kids and my family help me a lot in my business. Yeah, it’s definitely, I’m like the bike guy in Kennebunkport which is a little hard when you’re trying to go grocery shopping sometimes on a Sunday, but I really enjoy it.
I love our community, it’s very small, it’s very tight-knit , we don’t lock our doors, we don’t lock our cars, it’s a great place to live and to share our love and passion of cycling with the community.
Lisa: It’s a fun contrast because a lot of people think of Kennebunkport as beaches, as water, as ocean and you’re bringing them sort of back into the woods.
Brandon: Absolutely. Yeah. A lot of times we do a ride, Wednesday night so we hit a bunch of different trails. We’ll start at the ramp for a beer or two, take a look a the ocean and head back on the woods again. That variance of having the variety of the terrain in our landscape is what makes our area so special, and I think again the access to outdoors, to be able to go on a mountain bike ride and then in two miles, take a deep in the ocean. It’s a lot of fun too.
Lisa: Any last thoughts for our listeners who might be thinking about taking up whether it’s mountain biking or road biking or …?
Brandon: Yeah. I wouldn’t be intimidated, I wouldn’t be afraid to try it. I’d encourage you to go your local bike shop and support them and ask them where the local trails are and also encourage them if you’re in a mountain biking, to support your local trail or conservation group because they do a lot for outdoor recreation.
Lisa: Thanks for coming in and talking to us. We’ve been speaking with Brandon Gillard of Kennebunkport bicycle company. Where can people learn more about your store?
Brandon: Check us out in Facebook or you can go to kennebunkportbicycle.com. All right guys, thanks for having me.
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Lisa: On today’s Dr. Lisa radio hour and podcast, our theme is wheels and we spent time previously with Brandon Gillard of the Kennebunkport bicycle company who lead us into a conversation that we’re going to have next with Tom Bradbury of the Kennebunkport Conversation Trust. Tom Bradbury is the executive director of the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust and has worked closely with Brandon to develop an extensive series of trails right in the Kennebunkport area. Thanks for coming in.
Tom: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Lisa: Tom, you and I were talking before we got on air about your house in Cape Porpoise and the fact that you’re living in a place where you’re grandfather or maybe a great grandfather, somebody way, way back.
Tom: Way, way back.
Lisa: Way, way back, used to live. Tell me about that.
Tom: Well, we live in the same neighborhood. My mother grew up about 200 yards toward the center of the town then her father grew up 200 yards on the other direction. She migrated right into the middle which was where I was born so we move about at the same pace as continental shift. We figure it’s about one foot per year …
Lisa: Your family should be …
Tom: In the 200 years we’ve been around there, we move about 200 feet.
Lisa: In another few thousand years, maybe you’ll be up to Portland or …?
Tom: If we survive that long, we may or may not because we tend to shift right back to where we started out.
Lisa: Is this the reason why you were interested in developing the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust, the sense of belonging?
Tom: Absolutely. In the late 80’s, a lot of properties started to be threatened and a lot of those properties were places that we really love, places that we played on and a lot of us couldn’t stand to see them being lost for people’s enjoyment. We started purchasing them and a lot of others were donated to us and it was originally going to be one island and then another one came up and well, maybe we should do another island and then the beach. Had some opportunities so we thought we’d hit that.
We went from three properties to now, we’re approaching a hundred transactions in that course of time. Our goal was to set aside those places that were made up of … Those places that made the essential character of our community and places that people could access different recreation opportunities, places where people could play on and scenic vistas.
Lisa: Describe the essential character. What is the essential character of Kennebunkport, Cape Porpoise which is I know the suburb that you sort of live in?
Tom: It’s a rural Maine town and the town that I grew up was even more rural than it is today. It had its islands and it has its lobstering harbor and the harbor still remains, a working lobsterman’s harbor. It has a local beach and it also has a fairly large amount of woodlands that most people don’t associate with the town. What we try to do is take a good representative example of all of those and have them available for the next generation.
Genevieve: Have you found in your purchasing of these lands, a tension between places that people want to remain forever wild and places that people can recreate on? Because I know that with easements and those kinds of transactions, sometimes that is a tension.
Tom: We’ve had a remarkable support. In fact, the property that Brandon talked about in terms of the trails for biking, a good portion of that was given to us by the citizens of Kennebunkport that was known as the town forest. It was taken over by the town for lack of paying taxes after the 1947 fire and maybe ten years ago now, we approach the town and asked them if they would consider giving it to the trust so that we could spend some time trying to enhance it. Improve access and create something special from it. It was an over 80% vote to donate 600 acres of town land to the conservation trust. I think that’s pretty remarkable support.
Lisa: Tell me what types of things your organization does for the community. We talked about land but from what I understand, there are community things that are going on all the time that are promoted by the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust.
Tom: When we started out with, we asked the community to support us in order to purchase properties or to gather properties. We use the community to create a collection of special places and now, we’re trying to use those special places to build the community. We put aside just a vast collection of … vast is too big though. A wide selection of properties that really represent the whole community so that people can go to the islands and picnic their islands that are used for camping. The local beach is a good portion of that. We own wooded lands that both serve as a recreational hiking,-biking type areas but also as wildlife quarters.
Lisa: Our show is about wheels, bicycles and one of the things that biking does is keep urban sprawl to a minimum. Do you find that open space helps contain communities in a good sense and that really localize them? When you are talking about the wildlife corridors, there’s sort of a greenbelt effect that starts to happen, is that correct?
Tom: That’s right. One of it … Early on, in the 80’s, one of the thoughts we were working, there was a development boom going on at that time and there were a lot of initiatives and a lot of different ways that tried to keep the town as close to what it was as we could. Politically, one of the things that was tried was through zoning and often times, the intent or the idea was that maybe if we created larger house slots for properties, that this would keep density down and what it in fact did was spread people out and be counter-productive.
What the trust has tried to do is buy contiguous pieces of properties so they’re kind of common areas for people and places that everyone can enjoy and it has a side effect I think in terms of building community. One of the things that separates people a lot of time is that as new people with new values perhaps move into a place, there’s a tendency for them to reflect values from where they came from and some of these are nobody’s faults or not even ill-will, it’s just the way it is.
You’re apt to get places that were traditional recreational areas all of sudden, have no trespassing signs or this path that was always use is no longer available to people. In one sense, what we’re doing in terms of protecting those common areas, makes it a lot easier to adopt new people to the town because they’re not taking anything away from anybody. They’re just joining us and hopefully, joining us in our efforts to further protect what they thought enough of … to move to.
Genevieve: Which is the essence of conservation.
Tom: Exactly.
Genevieve: Preserving that traditional use.
Tom: Right. It also helps that in building community because if they’re not posing a threat to what is or what will be, then it’s a lot easier for people to adapt into the culture of the town.
Speaker 1: We’ll return to our interview after acknowledging the following general sponsor, Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedic Specialists in Falmouth Maine, makers of Dr. John’s Granola Cereal. Find them on the web at orthopedicspecialistsme.com.
Lisa: I’ve spent time in Kennebunk, Kennebunkport, Cape Porpoise and I do have this sense, it’s a very unique place. It’s a blend of people who have come from away, people who have live there a very long time but there is a sense of caring for one another. Do you think that this sense of caring for one another and actually knowing your neighbors whether they live there for a part of the time, part of the year, part of … or full time, do you think that has helped you with the Kennebunkport conservation project?
Tom: No question. I think those that move there, they love seeing it as a working fishing harbor. They love the access to special places and they love the opportunity to be able to bike or hike or enjoy the community. They come knowing what it is and appreciating what they move to and that makes it that much easier to attract them to what we’re trying to do.
Lisa: Describe some of the changes that you’ve seen in your lifetime to this area. You live there your entire life, correct?
Tom: Yes.
Lisa: Tell me some of the changes, good and bad that you’ve seen.
Tom: The largest changes probably are the wealth has come to the community. When I grew up, it was a small fishing village and it had a busy summer as all of Maine does. There were a lot more people in the summer but at labor day, past noon, the streets were empty. The businesses would close and they’d hold parties, after season parties on labor day and that doesn’t happen anymore because the season continues to extend right through Christmas now and starts up earlier.
The homes were typically of fishermen, working families for the most part in my part of the town. You could tell the difference between a fishing family and a new family, the town because the picture window would be faced over the cove when somebody new to the town came whereas before, it was facing the street. Because when the lobstermen came home, they didn’t need to look out on the water, they’ve been there all day long.
Today, there are a lot more picture windows, overlooking the harbor. The feel of the town surprisingly, even though the native population is few, is still remarkably the same just because of what you talked about. The people that have arrived really care for the community and they care for the way it looks and the feel of it and it is neighborly.
Lisa: What were some of your favorite activities. Did you bike when you were younger or what were some of your Kennebunkport area activities?
Tom: My biking was a Schwinn with baseball cards with close pins attached to the wheels for effect.
Lisa: So they made that noise? Yes.
Tom: Brandon would love it. We were … it was a much different dynamic because when I grew up, our parents would say, “Leave the house and I don’t want to see you until supper time,” so we were on our own all day long. We played a lot of sports and we did a lot of exploring. We were on the islands a lot and we were in the back cove and we were in the woods and we were using our imaginations a lot for all of our activities. That fostered the love of the places that we later tried to protect.
Lisa: Do you feel that love of place is something that you’re now offering to the next generation? The work that you’re doing?
Tom: That’s what we’re trying to do and that’s probably the most important thing we will do now because what’s happening today is really almost the opposite of that. There’s very little free time now, it’s structured play and structured activities and not as much or far less exploration than before.
One of the concerns from the environmental side is that if you don’t love a place and know a place, then there’s no incentive for protecting it later on. We were motivated by the fact that these places might be lost but now that they’re protected and in the trust, they don’t have that threat to face. It’s going to be strictly love of place that will motivate the next generation to take over what we protected and to carry it forward. Getting kids and people in general onto the properties, we think is essential.
Lisa: Have you spent time on the bike trials yourself on a bike?
Tom: Not in a bike but on the trails, significant amount of time I guess. We thought that was just a fabulous partnership because they had a … Everything we do is based on volunteers so we have a staff of two and the rest of it is people that are willing to spend their free time helping us with different projects. The trails are a perfect example of what can be done when people take up an interest in it and chip in. Because it’s nearly ten miles of trails in that one property now that were all constructed by volunteers and they’re over there today.
Typically, they’re four, five days a week working, mostly mornings but having fun creating something that’s very special that’s enjoyed by a lot of people.
Lisa: From what you’re saying, it’s not just about the money that you need to raise by the land, it’s also about creating caretakers, a community of caretakers for the land itself.
Tom: I think the caretakers are apt to be more challenging than the money. Of all of the lots that we’ve protected, I think we might have purchased 15 or 20 of them and the rest were donated because what you’re talking about earlier in terms of sense of community, people love the place that they grew up and they want others to share that love with them. A surprising number of properties were given to us just out of that and obviously, fund raising is a part of the business side of it but that only allows us to protect the property. It doesn’t get us to trails or the access or the involvement with people that brings life to the organization.
Lisa: What you’ve done in your collaboration with Brandon is a great example of how open space preserved can actually serve as a beacon for younger generation to come in, establish a business practice. I’m always interested in Kennebunkport how … even though the fishing community has its challenges now, the ethos, that sort of Maine individual work ethic is very alive and well and people are very independent and entrepreneurial. By creating a community where people want to live, you then have this younger generation, that energy that exists.
Tom: It’s also intercultural energy as well, I think. It’s fun to see the organization attracts the local lobstermen, the local businessmen, the people that have retired here recently and it provide something common that they all going to identify with and enjoy. Again, I think it adds in creating a community.
What we’re trying to do now in addition to that, are children’s programs that bring them to a lot of places that we own, to start them off early, knowing what they’re hometown is all about and giving them a sense of place. Often, kids are kind of … they’re always on the go and too often, they’re a multifamily instances where they might now exactly where home is. What we’re trying to do is foster spirit of knowing that this is your hometown, this is where you’re from and hopefully, the values will flow out of that.
Lisa: Open up a business there someday.
Tom: I hope so.
Lisa: Tom, where can people find out more about the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust?
Tom: You can go on to our website, kporttrust.org and you can e-mail me at [email protected] and we’d be happy to send out materials and any information that we can provide.
Lisa: Well, thank you so much for coming in and talking to us today about the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust and the work you’ve been doing and the work you’ve been doing in collaboration with Brandon Gillard of Kennebunkport bicycle company. We appreciate your time.
Tom: Great. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: This segment of the Dr. Lisa Radio hour and podcast is brought to you by the following general sponsors, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin at RE/MAX Heritage in Yarmouth, Maine. Honestyand integrity can take you home. With RE/MAX Heritage, it’s your move.
Learn more at ourheritage.com and by Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial with offices in Yarmouth, Maine. The Shepard Financial team is there to help you evolve with your money. For more information on Shepard Financial’s Refreshing Perspective on Investing, please e-mail Tom at shepardfinancialmaine.com
Lisa: On today’s show, we’ve been talking about the subject of wheels where you get around in the outside, you get around the state of Maine. The perfect person to talk to on this subject is Kevin Thomas who is the publisher of Maine Magazine and Maine Home Design and author of both of the June and July 48 hours Maine pieces in which he describes is biking around Maine. Thanks for being here, Kevin.
Kevin: Glad to be here. Thank you for asking me.
Lisa: I have with me, Genevieve Morgan who as you know, writes for your magazine.
Kevin: Got to love Gen.
Lisa: Well, I love Gen too and one of the reasons I love Gen is that she’s able to take this really broad view of wellness. I also like the fact that Maine Magazine has taken a very broad view of wellness. 48 hours Maine has done just that, you sort of sent people out into the world to become more well that way.
Kevin: We have. We decided that it would be a great experience for our staff, to get out into the marketplace and experience the time on the room rather than interpret that through a writer.
Lisa: Tell me about your biking experiences in Kennebunkport and in Acadia which is described in the upcoming articles.
Kevin: Well, I’ve been on two of the 48 hour excursions and both of those excursions, I wanted to do something physical that some of the other participants maybe have them in the past. In our first 48 hours for myself, was in Kennebunkport and we teamed up with Brandon Gillard from Kennebunkport Bicycle who took us out to the conservation trust land.
Lisa: Acadia is very mountainous compared to Kennebunkport, so how is that?
Kevin: Acadia was fantastic. We rode the carriage roads in Acadia. We had ride roads, they asked for roads, for ways to get to them but that experience was amazing. It was 12-foot wide graveled, well-maintained roads. It was more mountainous but are also as much wider from the very narrow trails and the boulders that we’re climbing on in Kennebunkport
Lisa: People can read about the Kennebunkport part one in the June issue which is out in the stands now and then the bar harbor 48 hours which will be out on the stands in July.
Kevin: That is correct.
Genevieve: Interestingly, the carriage trails in Acadia were built by the Rockefellers before there were cars allowed on Mount Desert Island. There’s the reason for the wideness and the bike riding has really taken the park by storm. I visit Acadia a lot in the summer and the difference between the hikers and the bikers … Biking is far more popular now than it used to be, so in your article, will people find out where they can bike in Acadia?
Kevin: Well, they will find out one of the places they can bike. There’s so many that I wasn’t able to do in during… all the trails during our trip but there is a route around mountain that we took that was absolutely gorgeous and we saw a lot of Acadia from that.
Genevieve: How arduous was it for you?
Kevin: Well, the terrain was somewhat tough. We drew a ride to northeast harbor which was two and a half hours and stopped and took a break there and then had to get the bikes back by 4:30. They return back, two hours was a sprint and my thighs were burning, but it was a great way to see Acadia.
This all really comes from experience I had a few years ago on Isleboro where I had gone with my kids and wanted to explore the island. I set out to explore via car and realized I really wasn’t seeing all the island, not that I have time to walk it or run it, so I pulled my bike off my car and I biked around the island and was able to get out all these great dirt roads and down toward the beach.
I was able to experience a lot more of the island than I would have ever been able to experience in a car or have time to on foot.
Lisa: For our listeners out there, regardless of their fitness level, going out and grabbing a bike or taking the bike out of the garage or renting one at the local bike shop can be a great alternative to explore their community.
Kevin: Absolutely. I think that for me, it was a return back to my childhood days where we pulled the bike out of the garage to go visit our friends and it was a casual great experience. Sometimes, we all get caught up with needing to take a 50-mile bike ride and get the exercise and we forget about the opportunity to get some great exercise, but also enjoy the scenery and that’s what I encourage everybody regardless of fitness level.
Lisa: Speaking of 50-mile bike ride, you’ve also done a trek across Maine, correct?
Kevin: I did trek across Maine, that was several years ago with a group of friends from Cape Elizabeth. They all trained, I did not but it was really a remarkable experience. We started in Bethel and as you probably are aware that … at least that year, it ended at the Owl’s Head transportation center in Rockland I guess.
Lisa: People are able to get out and sort of ride across the state of Maine if they’re that upper level of fitness or even if they’re not because there’s multiple stops along the way.
Kevin: Lisa … that was another amazing another experience. There were a great number of riders for that trek and they were everywhere from people that bike for OA to kids on banana bikes. Just really a remarkable experience to see families going the road and then a group of expert bikers, biking past.
Lisa: Which is great so you can … What you’ve described to us know is sort of the full gamut of biking, going out in the woods, going out up to Acadia, the woods of Kennebunkport, going up to Acadia and doing Bar Harbor and even going all the way across the state. You think you’re sort of personifying what you’re talking about in your magazine?
Kevin: I’m not sure that I would say personifying, but I’m certainly exploring a lot of Maine via bike and foot.
Lisa: We appreciate you taking the time to come in and talk us today and thanks for all the work you’re doing to bring a positive focus to wellness in the state of Maine.
Kevin: Thank you, Lisa. Thank you, Gen. I really enjoyed this.
Speaker 1: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is available when you are, you can listen at your computer through the Dr. Lisa website, dortorlisa.org or you can enjoy while walking, running, biking or driving by downloading a podcast onto your iPod or smart phone. Here’s an excerpt from one of our past shows featuring an interview with Angus King.
Angus: I’ve come to realized how vulnerable Maine is in terms of energy. To be honest, it wasn’t a big focus when I was governor, gasoline was 90 cents a gallon in my last couple of years in office, so it wasn’t something we really looked at. I’ve come to realized how vulnerable we are because something like 85 or 90% of all the energy use at Maine comes from fossil fuels. Almost 80% from oil of which we have zipped, zero.
That makes us incredibly vulnerable, not only in terms of supply of just playing, running out but also, price. Every time …. Here’s an easy calculation, you drive down, you look at the what gasoline is. Every time gasoline goes up ten cents or home heating oil, ten cents, that’s a hundred million dollars a year out of the Maine economy. 10 cents.
A dollar which is gone up in the past year or so, is a billion dollars a year that just evaporates out of the Maine economy and it’s money that people don’t have to spend at stores, at the mall or going to the movies or anything else, it’s an enormous economic impact. My conclusion from that is we got to do something and if there’s any one characteristic I have, it’s like I like doing things and not talking about things and that’s what lead Rob Gardiner and I, going to wind power.
In power, happens to be something we have. We’re not lucky enough to be over a big pot of oil or natural gas and hydro power and wind power are the indigenous and wood, wood pellets and biomass, that’s what we have. I found a wonderful speech by Joshua Chamberlain when he was governor in 1867. He’s talking to the Maine legislature and he has this … He was an incredible writer and he talks about “There is in Maine power to the millions of horse powers that now passes unfeathered to the sea” and he’s talking the rivers, the hydro power, this was 1867 when they were just figuring how to tap hydro power.
Basically, he was saying, “This is something we have and we should take advantage of it.” To me, wind power is the same idea. We have the biggest wind resource in New England, is it Panacea? Can it supply all our power? Absolutely not, but it’s part of the solution.
We Americans tend to look for one big solution, the silver bullet that’s going to solve everything. My friend, Lori Lachance up in Augusta, the Maine Development Foundation, coined the term “Silver buckshot” which I like much better because that’s how you solve problems. It’s with a lot of smaller answers which added together, get us out of a particular dilemma. This energy thing, the long term and I don’t know whether that’s three years, five years, ten years, but the long term is the definition of unsustainable.
We often don’t think that way, we say ,”Well, we don’t want wind power.” Okay. you don’t want wind power” and you think “Okay, I’m saying no to wind power.” Really, what you’re doing when you say that is we’re saying, “Yes to oil” or “Yes to natural gas” or “Yes to nuclear.” It is a choice and that’s what I say to people. There are lots of opponents of wind power and I say, “Sure. If you don’t like wind power, tell me what you want” because there is no, no impact solution to a problem of this magnitude.
Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle, you have been listening to the Dr. Lisa radio hour and podcast. Show number 39, wheels which aired for the first time on June 10th, 2012 on WLOB radio. For more information on the guest on our show, visit doctorlisa.org. Please take the time to let us know what you think and perhaps next suggestions for future shows. Also, become a podcast subscriber and have our show delivered regularly into your inbox by going to iTunes, Dr. Lisa Belisle and Dr. Lisa radio hour.
Subscribe to our e-news, like us on Facebook and become a part of our community. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle, thank you for being part of our world. May you have a bountiful life.
Speaker 1: The Dr. Lisa radio hour and podcast is made possible with the support of the following general sponsors. Maine magazine, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin at RE/MAX Heritage, Robin Hodgskin at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedic Specialist in Falmouth Maine, Booth, UNE, The University of New England and Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial.
The Dr. Lisa radio hour and podcast is recorded in downtown Portland at the offices of Maine Magazine on 75 Market street. It is produced by Kevin Thomas and Dr. Lisa Belisle, editorial content produced by Genevieve Morgan. Audio Production and original music by John C. McCain. Our assistant producer is Jane Pate.
For more information on our hosts, production team, Maine Magazine or any of the guests featured here today, visit us doctorlisa.org and tune in every Sunday at 11 am for the Dr. Lisa radio hour on WLOB Portland, Maine 13:10 am or streaming, wlobradio.com. Show summaries are available at doctorlisa.org. Download and become a podcast subscriber of Dr. Lisa Belisle through iTunes. See the Dr. Lisa website or Facebook page for details.