Every once in a while the spirit of adventure and wander-lust invades the heart of man. I'm no exception to that rule. A hunger in the soul demands a journey that will test the limits of my physical and mental endurance. This quest will not be one of ease and luxury. But rather a tough journey to explore the physical, social, and spiritual world around me. While the desire to go off the beaten path burns strongly within me, I will not be pitting myself against
large tusked animals as in my
earlier quests.
For this trip, I will embark upon a solo bicycle journey to circumscribe the entirety of long island. Through the trip, I am going to explore the feasibility of long range personal transport without the use of non-renewable fossil fuels. It is my belief that such sustainable transport systems will be critical to us in this age of depleting fossil fuels and natural resources. And as such, understanding the nature of sustainable transport paradigms is a core goal of
Grown UP Permaculture. Thus, relying on muscle power, fueled by locally grown organic foodstuffs, I will be attempting a 300 mile journey from the heart of New York City to the Eastern shores of Montauk and back in 4 days. I will be riding through urban boroughs, suburban districts, farms, gated communities, shoreline towns, forested state parks, and rugged hillsides. My hope is to stop at the small towns and communities dotting long island and gain an understanding of people's grassroots responses to the global food, energy, and environmental crisis that is hitting our society.
A solitary bike journey of such distance requires a meticulous degree of planning and preparation. Going by muscle power alone, even a minor accident could have very serious consequences. Thus I'm leaving little to chance by factoring in a high margin of safety. Firstly, I have replaced my used mountain bike with a new hybrid road/mountain bike. The old bike has served me well, however, I fear that it's braking system and gear train will not survive such a long distance journey without a major failure. Furthermore, the bicycle's sub-optimal height and off-road wheels served as a huge drag on performance. The less than ideal height causes user fatigue, while the wheels reduced the cruising speed. The new bike will enable a comfortable cruising speed of 20 miles per hour.
I'm integrating the idea of redundancy into every level of my preparations. I have enhanced the vehicle's reflector plates with mounted back-up LED lights for night time riding. If those lights fail, there is a portable LED flashlight that I can mount onto the bike. For the bicycle itself, I have assembled a compact repair kit in case of minor failures. For navigation, I'm relying on GPS feeds and streaming Google Earth Satellite maps from my smartphone. But in case this fails, I have backup paper road maps and a compass. In case of minor accidents, a compact first aid kit will suffice. In case of serious accidents, I have cached pre-recorded voice and text distress messages and added them to a list of emergency phone numbers and email addresses in my smartphone. If worse comes to worse, I can notify half a dozen emergency contacts of my situation with the touch of a button or a single voice command. Lastly, I'm taking along a multi-purpose swiss-army knife. It has been by my side on a every major adventure that I have gone on.
I have planned my bike route in such a way that at no point would I ever be more than 7 miles away from a town and it's train station. I will be hugging the coast of Long Island for the entire journey. The terrain will be relatively flat along the coast lines. Nevertheless, I have acquired a bicycle train pass from the Long Island Rail System, just in case my body fails due to fatigue at some point. In any case, tomorrow, I will be gathering local food stuffs and additional supplies for the trip. So stay tuned!!! :D
For this trip, I will embark upon a solo bicycle journey to circumscribe the entirety of long island. Through the trip, I am going to explore the feasibility of long range personal transport without the use of non-renewable fossil fuels. It is my belief that such sustainable transport systems will be critical to us in this age of depleting fossil fuels and natural resources. And as such, understanding the nature of sustainable transport paradigms is a core goal of Grown UP Permaculture. Thus, relying on muscle power, fueled by locally grown organic foodstuffs, I will be attempting a 300 mile journey from the heart of New York City to the Eastern shores of Montauk and back in 4 days. I will be riding through urban boroughs, suburban districts, farms, gated communities, shoreline towns, forested state parks, and rugged hillsides. My hope is to stop at the small towns and communities dotting long island and gain an understanding of people's grassroots responses to the global food, energy, and environmental crisis that is hitting our society.
A solitary bike journey of such distance requires a meticulous degree of planning and preparation. Going by muscle power alone, even a minor accident could have very serious consequences. Thus I'm leaving little to chance by factoring in a high margin of safety. Firstly, I have replaced my used mountain bike with a new hybrid road/mountain bike. The old bike has served me well, however, I fear that it's braking system and gear train will not survive such a long distance journey without a major failure. Furthermore, the bicycle's sub-optimal height and off-road wheels served as a huge drag on performance. The less than ideal height causes user fatigue, while the wheels reduced the cruising speed. The new bike will enable a comfortable cruising speed of 20 miles per hour.
I'm integrating the idea of redundancy into every level of my preparations. I have enhanced the vehicle's reflector plates with mounted back-up LED lights for night time riding. If those lights fail, there is a portable LED flashlight that I can mount onto the bike. For the bicycle itself, I have assembled a compact repair kit in case of minor failures. For navigation, I'm relying on GPS feeds and streaming Google Earth Satellite maps from my smartphone. But in case this fails, I have backup paper road maps and a compass. In case of minor accidents, a compact first aid kit will suffice. In case of serious accidents, I have cached pre-recorded voice and text distress messages and added them to a list of emergency phone numbers and email addresses in my smartphone. If worse comes to worse, I can notify half a dozen emergency contacts of my situation with the touch of a button or a single voice command. Lastly, I'm taking along a multi-purpose swiss-army knife. It has been by my side on a every major adventure that I have gone on.
I have planned my bike route in such a way that at no point would I ever be more than 7 miles away from a town and it's train station. I will be hugging the coast of Long Island for the entire journey. The terrain will be relatively flat along the coast lines. Nevertheless, I have acquired a bicycle train pass from the Long Island Rail System, just in case my body fails due to fatigue at some point. In any case, tomorrow, I will be gathering local food stuffs and additional supplies for the trip. So stay tuned!!! :D
2 comments:
You Go Ku!!!!
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