12.5 mi / 10.5 mph / 399 ft. climbing
Home: Montauk County Park Bike Hostel

We cleared out of our AirBNB at 10am (and reported the wine glass that I broke), leaving seven hours until our ferry departure. So unlike our last few island-exploration days, this one we would do with all of our bags strapped to our bikes. Which in some ways is easier; carrying everything with us that we need to live is our natural state, so riding “light” requires an annoying amount of thought about what “essentials” to bring.

Today we would do a loop of the south side of the island, which would leave us with nearly every through-road of the island covered (except for a bit of the west end).

Our first stop was a hike at Rodman Hollow, which brought us through fields of wildflowers to the island’s southern cliffs. It was a significant improvement over yesterday’s trail, and brought us scenes that would not have been embarrassed to share an exhibition with New Zealand.

The next stop was the Southeast Lighthouse, a building even grander than the North Lighthouse, and probably the most-elegant lighthouse we’ve ever seen. In the 1990s they moved the entire thing back 300 feet (due to that inexorable erosion), and I have no idea how.

We set up our chairs, ate lunch, and spent a couple hours moving between hot sun and cool shade, since it was a comfortable place to kill time.

While hanging out at the lighthouse I noticed my yellow REI water bottle laying on the ground 20 feet from where we were sitting. “Uh, that’s weird, since the bottle I brought with me is in my hand, and I left the yellow one on my bike 100 yards away at the entrance.” But I quickly noticed it was cleaner than mine, so either this water-bottle thief is a neat-freak, or, more than one copy of my bottle exists!

We later talked with its owner back at the bike racks, and it turns out he’d done a fair bit of bike touring (but was now just doing one of his regular visits to Block Island, whose continued development since his childhood visits  he lamented, even though to us it feels like the less-developed Martha’s Vineyard we were promised). Then we talked with a woman (also exploring the island on a rented bike) who had a family friend who was a long-term world-wide bike tourer like us. And finally I saw the WarmShowers host we met yesterday riding by for the third time (earlier we met them at the trailhead for the second day in a row!)

Cycling on Block Island’s roads is definitely chiller than Martha’s Vineyard, but I was still kind of amazed how many inexperienced civilians felt comfortable doing it. All these conversations make me realize that maybe none of them are inexperienced civilians, they’re all bike tourers in day-riding disguises! Later on a conversation with the clerk in a clothing shop helped confirm this theory; she was one of those civilians, and said she was terrified to ride or walk the roads here.

More seriously, this place seems like a great advertisement for bike touring. It’s the nature of island-access via the ferries that leads to so many civilians renting bikes to ride around (or more frightening, Vespa-style scooters that they learn to operate as they go). But once the logistics put them in the saddle rather than a car, they clearly enjoy the experience, the ability to slow-explore, to stop wherever they feel like. So I want to say to them “guess what, all this fun you’re having, you can actually do it anywhere in the world!” and see how many minds I blow.

Our loop brought us back into the town of New Shoreham, where we made another quick stop at the petting zoo and then checked out the jewelry and clothing shops. With the Friday afternoon ferries arriving, the sleepy island we had come to know during our mid-week stay was definitely waking up, so it was a good reminder how our timing may have affected our impressions.

In contrast, few people are like us and leaving the island at the start of the weekend. So there were barely a dozen people on our boat to Montauk, which could have easily fit over 100. I don’t know if it was due to the low passenger count, but it’s the first ferry we’ve been on where they made no announcements or safety briefings. None were necessary, and we returned to Rett’s home state of New York without incident just as the sun was setting (we had a hummus, vegetable, and breadstick dinner that we’d been hoping to augment with extras purchased on the ferry, but no such luck).

That left four miles of twilight riding, south and east around the harbor, to the “Third House” unit of Montauk County Park. Separate from the main unit, there is no camping at the Third House unit, except for…a “bike hostel”! This is Suffolk County Park’s under-publicized name for what other parts of the country call “hiker/biker sites” (though these are biker-only). And they’re free!

There was no gate, entrance station, or anyone to talk to. We just followed the “bike hostel” signs that led to a mowed path through dense bushes and low trees, opening to a hidden clearing with a picnic table, wooden bench and chair (“murder chair” according to Rett), and space for 2 or 3 tents. There was a bathroom building nearby, but no showers, so while Rett did a sink clean-up, I did a rare near-dark camp setup.

Under the pavilion there was a wheeled cart and cooking supplies and a pair of Crocs, so I wasn’t sure if there was a walker spending the night as well, or if it was something the museum had done earlier in the day. A non-touring cycling couple pulled in under full darkness to use the facilities and then continue on, and later we could hear a group of late-night miscreants gather. When we emerged from our hidden spot for our final bathroom trip, I was surprised to see that it was actually some kind of Scouting group, with chaperones. They were camping out across the field somewhere, and so the pavilion stuff was theirs. Then at 10:30pm, a truck arrived and slowly moved around the property, intermittently operating hedge trimmers (at least that’s what it sounded like; maybe a big sprayer?)

All this is to say that the no-approval, no-cost campsite felt a bit like wild camping, which comes with more “is this safe and allowed?” paranoias than a standard campground. But we were sure grateful to Suffolk County for the option, because the nearby state park would have been $70, if it even had availability!