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Four-year trip around the world passes through Riverhead

Jason Tang leads the Times/Review office following an interview on his way to Glen Head. (Credit: Joe Werkmeister)
Jason Tang leaves the Times/Review office in Mattituck on his way to Glen Head last Thursday. (Credit: Joe Werkmeister)

Cycling through the pounding rain and gusting wind of a nor’easter was just one of the hazards Jason Tang signed up for when he embarked on an unprecedented journey to round the globe on two wheels. 

By the time Mr. Tang arrived on the North Fork, he had already logged nearly 10,000 miles on his bicycle. He was one year into a trip that, in many ways, has just begun.

“Still a ways to go,” he said.

If not for that storm on the night of Oct. 22, Mr. Tang might very well have passed through on his journey unnoticed, attracting nothing more than a cursory glance from a motorist whisking by him on Main Road.

At 45 years old, Mr. Tang — whose birth name is Kaiyu — possesses a boyish face and a youthful enthusiasm for the world and its people. One year ago, he boarded a plane with a one-way ticket from his native Taiwan for Australia. He biked for three months, circling the continent before flying to New Zealand. From there, he flew to Vancouver, where he began a sixth-month trip across the Canadian frontier. He recently landed in the United States for the first time after a 10-hour ferry ride from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, to Portland, Maine. Now, he’s headed south, having stopped in Boston, where he enjoyed the local lobster, and New York City, where he visited the Statue of Liberty, on his way to Florida.

• Visit his Facebook page to follow along with his journey

He’s done it with essentially no monetary investment. He spends close to nothing on accommodations, relying on a tent packed amid more than 70 pounds of gear piled atop his bike.

“My ceiling is the sky, my bed is the grass,” Mr. Tang said.