My Debut Ride on Shelter Island

While I had always been an outdoorsy kid, I never really latched onto biking throughout my high school years. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy biking- I loved it the few times I went- but those few times were limited to single-digit mile rides on family vacations. I liked biking when I could, but I never thought to push myself to see how far I could go.

That changed the summer before my first year of college. My family had rented bikes while staying at my grandma’s house on Shelter Island, and I decided to go off on my own on a ride around the entirety of the island. I don’t remember too much about this ride, other than finding a grass airstrip at one point and a seemingly difficult climb to the furthest east points of the island.

I ended up going 30 miles total, more than twice my previous longest ride length, and was very sore afterwards having never biked that far before. I unfortunately didn’t keep up biking immediately after this ride (I think I only touched a bike three or four times between this and the middle of first year spring semester) but it’s sort of interesting for me to look at this ride as the one that started it all.

The route I took, recorded with software I no longer use