mile 98 Oakdale

The town of Oakdale seem to be quite shabby. I didn't see much of anything besides residential houses there. The weather had heated up to 100 degrees and I was gulping down water like mad. I had started the day with 3 litters of water, by the time I reached this town, I had less than a liter left.

mile 87 Starting out on Day 2

On day 2, I left the inn at 8:30am. I had eaten 2 waffles for breakfast, and took 6 huge blueberry muffins along with me. The sky was pure blue...like sapphire. Within a few miles of riding, my calves started to hurt again. My buttocks felt really painful from the get go. I was initially able to ignore the discomfort.

mile 86 Bay Shore

I had made it to the Bay Shore inn for the night. My body was hurting so much that every step I took made me wince, but I was happy that I was still breathing. In any case, I had dinner that night at Happy Buffet, a near-by Chinese restaurant. The food there was in truth very plain, but in my euphoric state of mind, every morsel there tasted like ambrosia! I wolfed down 4 platters of food and like 7 ice cream cones. One waitress, Jin, came over and asked me if everything was ok? I told her of the purpose of my journey, and inquired about her experiences. Jin, like many Chinese immigrants, was working as a waitress and commuting to NYC every weekend. I asked her if she would consider just living up in Bay Shore someday on a permanent basis. She told me that the boredom of the town would drive her insane.

So later that night I looked over my bike. The earlier accident had damaged my frontal reflector and bell beyond all hopes of repair. The bike's rear gear-driller had been skewed out of alignment, that I was able to fix. Then I proceeded to check my own body for damages. The nether regions of my buttocks were bruised to the point of being blue and purple. My left butt-cheek had sustained a 2 inch wide scraping. Basically, when my bike crashed in the forest road, the friction of the seat mount had torn off a couple of inches of the skin on my behind. I applied antibiotic cream and band aid from my first aid kit, and went promptly to sleep.

mile 80 Battle with the God of Thunder

I was just several miles from bay shore as the thunderstorm descended with full fury. Riding alone through forested lands by the sea, I was hit by everything at once. The heavy rains caused a sudden drop in temperature from 100 degrees to around 60 degrees. I had been riding for 10 hours straight, and the sudden temperature drop caused my leg muscles to spasm uncontrollably. The darkened heavens sent bolts of lightening down all around me. It was a vision of fierce and untamed beauty. The winds of the thunderstorm were quite strong, and they somehow transformed the sound of the nearby sea waves. The sound of the wind and sea in concert was haunting, like the agonized wailing of hundreds of people.

Suddenly, a bolt of lightening struck a massive oak tree 30 yards to my right. At the edge of my vision, I saw the darkened silhouette of the tree's canopy as it was sheared off by the bolt from the heavens. The flash of lightening blinded me, the thunder was like a thousand rifles going off at once. An earth-shattering crack followed by the ringing deafness of my own ear drums. Something came a split second after the thunder, it was a blast of air. The air pressure was very strong and hot to the point of being painful. The air bubble enveloped the right side of my body and knocked me off balance. I fought for control as my bicycle skidded to a crash landing in a clearing by the side of the road. I took the picture then.

I admit now that I was probably hallucinating from fatigue, pain, and shock. But what transpired in my mind then seemed just as real to me as anything. I thought that I was fated to die just then. I thought that Thor, the god of thunder had wanted me dead. I imagined that the howling winds were the souls of countless Massapequa Indians calling me into the underworld. I got onto my bicycle and began pedalling hard. Pretty soon, both of my legs began cramping. The pain was savage and unrelenting, but I kept pushing onwards. In my disoriented state, I felt strangely disconnected from the pain, almost as if I was a spectator on my own plight.

A man should not be forced to contemplate his own mortality. Death, if it comes , should be swift and hopefully sudden. But there I was, on my bike, in the middle of nowhere, contemplating my own death. For one thing, life certainly did not flash before my eyes, that must be a Hollywood gimmick. But I did feel quite a bit of regret then, regret at not being able to keep some of the promises that I had made to myself and others. I would not be able to teach my kid cousin how to make arrows out of ash wood, obsidian, and turkey feathers. I promised him that two winters ago, when we crafted his first red-oak longbow together, but other things always took priority. I thought that I would not be able to give my mother a grandson as she wanted. I had promised her that last year when she was (falsely) diagnosed with cancer. I was greatly saddened by that thought. But most of all, I regretted never finding a woman who could love me in return. It was something that I had always wanted but apparently never had. The sadness soon turned into anger and anger became rage. I didn't want to die just then, and I pedalled even harder. Harder than I have ever pedalled in my life. I wanted life. I remember cursing aloud at Thor and Odin in the pouring rain, daring them to strike me down, promising revenge if they did.

It seemed like an eternity, but the worst of the storm passed as I came out of the woods in sight of the town of Bay Shore. To the Western Horizon, I can see the last rays of sunlight coming out of the edge of the storm clouds. I felt as if I had defied the will of the gods and wrested back my own life. It felt awesome!!!!!

mile 70 Babylon

As I rode through the place, I understood why most Montauk Century bike competitions began in the Town of Babylon. This place looked extremely prosperous! The buildings were as beautifully decorated as they were architecturally ornate. The roads were in superb condition, far better than what I had seen so far. Alongside of the town center, there were parks with a series of small ponds and walking paths through the pond. By this point, my leg muscles felt like pistons of blistering pain as I kept pedalling along. Storm clouds were converging overhead, and I saw a Free Mason's lodge by the roadside. I thought about just staying there for the night or to at least ride out the storm. But then I remembered that I had not yet passed the 2nd of 3 mysterious of the Masonic Guild. In any case, I rode on, ever mindful of the time and the approaching storm.

mile 65 Lindenhurst

There seems to be very little to the village of Lindenhurst. Basically just 2 rolls of houses on the sides of Montauk Highway. The roads were very poorly maintained, and my body was becoming unstable. Every pot hole in the road sent jolts of pain through my buttocks and up my back. I was riding in the forward control position. This position increases pedalling efficiency at the cost of back muscle fatigue. I knew I only had 15 miles to go before I reach my 1st night's resting place at Bay shore. So I really put my heart into it, I wanted to reach bay shore before night fall.

mile 60 Massapequa

My legs and buttocks were hurting intensely as I glided through down town Massapequa. Moreover, I REALLY needed to relieve myself at that moment. So I did what any reasonable person would've done in the situation. I went to the Massapequa Chamber of Commerce building and proceeded to find a restroom. While there, I grabbed a few brochures with local maps on them. Once in the restroom, I took much longer than usual to get the job done. I had been eating non stop for the entire day and thus had a lot of waste materials to purge. So I was quite bored sitting there and started flipping through the brochures. One caught my eye, it was something from the bureau of Indian affairs. Basically, the native American Massapequa tribe used to control a large portion of the Southern long island coast. At some point in the 1690s, European colonists basically passed on small pox to the natives and largely wiped that tribe off the map. The modern town was built on top of the old Massapequa main village. The brochure goes on to mention that the surrounding areas used to be Massapequa corn fields and settlements. The colonists basically just took over the Indian villages and fields that were cleared of Indians through the power of epidemic diseases. In any case, I was much intrigued with the story, but had to be on my way.

mile 50 Wantagh

When I made it to the village of Wantagh, my buttocks was hurting like a can of smashed assholes. Furthermore, my legs were getting a bit sore from a day of peddling. It started raining lightly, and I asked a nearby cyclist if there was a place to stop and eat. Greg, the cyclist asked me where I was going, and I said Montauk. At that, he told me that I was insane and that I was going to get myself killed. He said that the best thing I should do is peddle my way to the Massapequa train station and go home or to Montauk on the LIRR. I politely thanked him for his opinion and was on my way. A few miles of riding brought me to Marinelli's, a small family owned pizzashop. The owner Lou was working there along with his two sons and daughter. I got two bottles of spring water and a slice of pizza(which was fantastic by the way :D). As I sat out the rain, we talked about what I was doing on the trip and the pizza business in general. With Marinelli's the situation is much the same, Lou mentioned that the prices of everything seems to be inflating. With that, Lou asked his son Charlie to stop wasting electricity and gas, in the normal way that a father communicates to his son.

So I finished the pizza and was about to go on my way. I asked for the bill, and was surprised to find that the pizza was on the house. It was really good pizza made by a very decent bunch of people. As I was leaving, Charlie asked me to post this on my blog so here goes: "Buy more pizza less gas!" So seriously...if you guys are ever in Wantagh, give Merinelli's pizza a try!

mile 40 Merrick

I couldn't help but notice that the town of Merrick had a lot of shiny office parks filled with shiny cars as I rode through there. As I biked along the road, I noticed that a woman from the post office was staring at me from alongside the road. So I stopped and said "hi!" Now Karen who worked at the post office asked me where I was going and why I was riding a bicycle in a road filled with cars. I mentioned to her that I was riding to Montauk. She said that I was out of my mind, that I was going to be killed. I just smiled, told her why I was doing this, and mentioned that I had already ridden 40 miles and received not a scratch(not entirely true as my buttocks was scratched a bit then). At that Karen smiled and mentioned that she thought about biking to work sometimes but was too afraid of the car traffic. I told her that the greatest danger of riding in car traffic was the bicyclist's FEAR of being hit by a car. A person's fear of auto accidents creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. That made her laugh. She mentioned that I was crazy for doing this, but it was a good cause, and she thinks I can make it to Montauk alive! I thanked her for the compliment and was on my way!

mile 35 Between Oceanside and Baldwin

Riding into the sea side resort town of Baldwin was a hassle. The roads were not of high quality, and my buttocks were itchy and sore as hell in the heat. In the town center, I met Kevin and Marybeth. They were hardcore amateur bikers who had already done 47 miles that day. They mentioned that the weather was too hot and that I needed to take salt and potassium tablets to keep my muscles from cramping. I went with them into this nearby Italian restaurant called Seven Brothers to get some food. The people there were super nice and allowed me to keep my bike inside their store. Additionally, they let me recharge my smart phone in their kitchens. I talked with the restaurant owner about food prices, and he mentioned that his business was taking a beating from the cost of meats, pasta, and gas. More expensive food and gas means less tourists to the resort town. I told the store owner about my blog and thanked him for letting me use his kitchen's power outlet. He asked me to mention his restaurant on my blog. So here goes: Seven Brothers Italian Restaurant makes an absolutely awesome Clam Rigatoni, it was so good that it literally melted in my mouth as I downed the entire plate!!!

mile 30 Rockville Center

After several miles, I was literally burning up in the high temperatures of the noon day, and I was a bit lost. So I did what any self-respecting person would do in such circumstances, I went to a 7/11 by the road. There, I met Charlie. Now Charlie had just bought a new bike to commute to work with. He was really decent and gave me a detailed map of long island to follow. I was finally able to ditch my outdated bikely route instructions. After studying the map a bit, I decided to follow Merrick Road on to Merrick and then switch to the Montauk Highway all the way to the Eastern tip of Long Island.

mile 28 Valley Stream

The sun was heating up my black bike helmet to dangerous temperatures as I biked through Valley Stream. The traffic on Grand Ave was quite heavy and as I biked I noticed a trend. If you bike closer to the edge of the road(to feel safer), the car drivers will almost instinctively come closer to you, forcing you even further to the edge. This is a potentially very dangerous trend, so I biked far from the right hand edge of Grand, forcing the cars to go around me a bit. While this seems more dangerous in theory, it worked out real well for me.

In any case, the blazing sunlight was killing me and I was forced to stop at a watermelon stand. There I met Ezra. He's a produce farmer from Georgia trying to offload some of his watermelons near NYC. The man gave me a gallon of ice water for free. After I drank my fill and loaded my water bottles, I paid him 2 dollars for a quarter of a melon, which we then shared. Ezra told me about how the high gas prices were killing small farmers across the land. He mentioned that it now costs him 1300 dollars to ship a single truckload of produce to NYC as compared to under 1000 dollars just 4 months ago. He was wondering when the government will start rationing gas...since small truck suppliers like him can't take much more of this high fuel cost. I had no answer for him. In any case, I thanked Ezra for the ice water and went on my way.

mile 25 Parson Center

I arrived at Parson's center, on the edge of Queens. The sun was terribly bright and hot, and I scrambled to find a place of shade. I reached a shady bus stop and started guzzling water. There, I met Joe, a social worker. Joe had a car in queens but had to sell it since gas prices made it difficult for him to keep the vehicle. Now he is relying on buses and his feet to get around the area. Joe, in the picture, was asking me why we are sending troops and food to other countries when there are people without enough food and gas in queens? That is a damned good question, since I have seen quite a few of what appears to be homeless people in this area already.

mile 20 Near Jamaica Queens

I was lost in queens! I was trying to get to Jamaica ave, but apparently my pre-planned route had streets from 2006! In any case, I decided to ask for directions. The first person I asked was Simon, a fellow biker. Simon had biked to here from Staten Island(taking the ferry to Manhattan) his directions got me to the Interborough parkway, which is now named something else. And then I bumped into Rich and Flora. Rich was showing me his new bicycle seat in the picture. Rich is trying to switch to bicycling as his main mode of urban transport. That couple was really nice and pointed me along to Jamaica avenue!

mile 15 Central Queens

As I rode through Queens, I noticed that the landscape became successively more degraded the further east one rides. Williamsburg was replete with hipsters. But as I rode onwards, I noticed that entire districts seems to be in a semi-abandoned state with broken windows, collapsing roofs, and of course graffiti. Furthermore, the quality of the roads were going down. The roads here had way more pot holes and cracked pavement sections than in Manhattan.

mile 9 Williamsburg Bridge

Riding on the Williamsburg bridge was not as impressive in person. For one thing, you're constantly surrounded by these huge metal screen walls. The screens constricted the views of both Manhattan and Queens. At the apex of the bridge, I stopped for some water and beef jerky. On the down slope, the bridge was an absolute thrill to glide cross. I was able to glide to a speed of 25 mph or so before leaving the bridge and entering queens.

mile 2 Midtown Manhattan

It was 8:30 am on Sunday Morning, I had overslept the 7am starting time. Before heading out, I had slapped on some sunblock. Riding the bicycle through mid-town was quite pleasant. There weren't too many cars on Sunday morning, and the view of the city scape was magnificent to behold.

Long Island Bicycle Quest....Supply Gathering

It has been a long day. I have been running across the city gathering supplies for the trip tomorrow. I have mounted 2 side saddles to the hybrid bike to carry the supplies. After searching several farmer's markets and the local Chinatown, the following set of food supplies have been gathered.


1. 1 lb of concord grape raisins
2. 1 lb of beef jerky
3. 1 lb of smoked fish
4. 10 oatmeal bars
5. 10 vitamin supplement tablets
6. 10 potassium supplement tablets

As for equipment I'm bringing the following:

1. 1 Multi-purpose Swiss army knife
2. 1 Compact bike tire repair kit
3. 1 Compact First aid kit
4. 1 Bottle of Sun block
3. 1 Compact bike pump
4. 1 Liter rail mounted plastic water bottle
5. 2 Liter back mounted plastic water bottle
6. 1 LED flashlight
7. 1 miniature compass
8. 1 rain poncho
9. 1 Kryptonite U-Lock
10. 1 Smartphone+charger
11. 1 box of matches
12. Maps of Long Island

Fully loaded, I'll be hauling 25 lbs of gear on this journey. If truth be told, I'm a little bit nervous. This could be a dangerous journey. Still, it's something that I have committed myself to doing.

Long Island Bicycle Quest....Initial Planning

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

Suburban Garden Update

My father has been kind enough to send over some photos of our garden in PA. Things seem to be going rather well there. The peas are now having sending forth beautiful white blossoms as they climb up the bamboo poles that I set up a couple of months back. This is the essence of vertical farming as every cubic inch of a space is utilized by the food producing plants.

The summer squash plants are doing very well, they are at the stage where they can cover much of the ground area of the garden bed. The pole beans have so far been unmolested by beetles, the lord be praised for that!!! The peppers have not been growing as fast as the squash, but hopefully it'll get enough height to tower over the ground cover that the squash plants will eventually create. The lone European eggplant seems to still be hanging on to life, though clearly the mould from last year seems to be striking the plant's leaves yet again. It appears that 2 of the 3 transplanted Bok Choi greens have survived so far.

The onions and garlic are doing much the same as before. They have been continuously producing lush green stalks that can be periodically harvested for the kitchen. It'll be a couple more months before we can dig up the delicious onion bulbs and garlic cloves that are as yet still growing under ground.


The bio-intensive garden bed looks like it's going crazy! The 4 tomatoes have matured very quickly and 2 of them are already bearing small green tomatoes. The cucumber plant has been growing rapidly as well but has so far fallen short of providing full ground cover. If the bio-intensive methodology espoused by Jeavons prove to be effective, this single bed could produce hundreds of pounds of tomatoes and cucumber this year. But we'll just have to wait and see!


The potatoes in both the garden bed and the containers have grown to their peak size. They have as of yet not flowered, but we're expecting it within the next couple of weeks. The container potatoes have grown especially vibrant. The plants tower over the containers, straining to absorb every last photon of sunlight around them. Life in the garden is such a beautiful thing.