Because Biking Over 300 Miles to Eilat Just Once Wasn’t Enough…

At a rest stop along the 4th day of riding from Mitzpe Ramon to Ketura

In the sample fundraising letter provided to us by Hazon and the Arava Institute, it is suggested that we could each write that “I am about to set out on the adventure of a lifetime”, referring to the bike ride from Jerusalem to Eilat.  Can one have the adventure of a lifetime twice?  Back in August, I requested for a week off work to do my second Israel Ride, this time from Jerusalem to Eilat.  I have told many people that my 2009 ride has been the highlight of my time here in Israel, and I’ve done many exciting things in the past two and a half years.  Needless to say, I was quite excited once I was approved for the vacation (yes, I consider riding over 300 miles on a bike in a week to be vacation).  Read on to see how this second Israel ride compared to the first one.

Having signed up to ride, my Fridays were spent riding to Yad Kennedy, Mevaseret, Bar Giyora, and one Friday was spent riding 50 miles from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv.  I also occasionally managed to get up early enough to go for rides before work a few times each week, possibly the hardest part of training.  Riding in Jerusalem is challenging since it is all hills, yet the routes on the Israel Ride tend to be more rolling hills and have relatively flat sections.  I felt at times I wasn’t getting enough miles in, but also knew that I ride very often for exercise, I had done this type of ride once before, and if I trained about the same as I did two years ago, I should be good to go this time around as well.  On my longest training ride, a 50 mile ride to Tel Aviv in mid-October, I made it from my apartment in Jerusalem to the beach in Yafo in 4 hours (with a stop) and felt great.  A week after that ride, I stopped training so I could refresh before the ride, having to settle for being able to do what I could and just taking the rest as it came.

November 7-8: Pre Ride

The days leading up to this year’s ride were a bit different for me than two years ago.  Since we were starting from Jerusalem instead of Tzfat, and because I was using my own bike and not a rental, I didn’t really have to travel to the start point in advance to get my bike in order and such prior to the start of the ride.  On Monday night, groups of riders who had already arrived came into Jerusalem for dinner; I met one of these groups at Te’enim, a restaurant in the Artists’ Colony behind the King David Hotel.  There were two people there who I already knew and plenty of others who I got to meet for the first time.  Although I wasn’t yet staying with the riders at the hotel and such, it was nice to start getting to know the riding community for this year.

Setting out from Kibbutz Ketura on the last day of riding

The next day, I finished my packing and then began the two-step process to get my things out to the Regency Hotel near Mount Scopus.  First, I rode my bike about 5 miles from my apartment to the Regency, which took about 20 minutes.  It was then lunchtime, so I joined the group to eat and met even more of the group.  This year, there were about 80 riders, as opposed to two years ago when there were only 40.  Additionally, there were more younger riders (probably on account of the larger group, but proportionally I think we only accounted for about 10-15% of the entire group).  About 30 riders had done the ride once before, I was probably the youngest by far among the alumni.  At lunch, one of the other riders told me he worked for the New York City Transit Authority, and since he and his wife were about to take the light rail into town, I joined them and pointed out some of the features of the line to him.  I then went home to collect my suitcase and daybag, and then returned to the hotel.  Due to afternoon rush hour congestion further compounded by the funeral of the Mir Yeshiva Rosh Yeshiva, the trip by bus to the hotel took more than twice as long as biking.  Too badJerusalemisn’t a more bikeable city.

Once back at the hotel, it was time for orientation and our daily route briefing.  We had this daily briefing each night to go over the route for each day, the schedule, and safety issues that were likely to come up over the day’s riding.  After that, it was dinner and then early to bed, since we had the first of our many early wakeup calls the next morning.

November 9 (Day 1):  Neve Shalom to Ashkelon

Click here to see route and elevation profile

Mileage:  68.174 miles

Average Speed:  12.8 MPH

Time Pedaling: 5:18:44

View towards the Old City from the Regency as seen after Shacharit before the first morning of riding

Before breakfast, I found myself on the balcony of the hotel looking south towards the Old City as the sun was rising.  They needed one more for Shacharit, so I joined them and watched the day brighten over the Jerusalem skyline as we davened, a very inspirational place to say Shacharit to say the least.  After that, it was time for breakfast before boarding a bus to the actual start point for this year’s ride.  Apparently, the police don’t allow any large bike groups in Jerusalem anymore, so riding out of the city (on a route that I trained on) was not an option.  Instead, we started at Neve Shalom, near Latrun and the only village in Israel where Israelis and Palestinians voluntarily live together.  We had a brief opening ceremony, including some remarks from one of the village residents and the recitation of the traveler’s prayer in Hebrew, English, and Arabic.  Then a shofar was sounded, and we set off.  The first part of the route was mostly on busy highway shoulders and not so scenic, but after passing through Beit Shemesh, we turned off the busier roads and headed up towards Aderet on back roads.  From there, it was on to Beit Guvrin for lunch, where we had a chance to explore the Bell Caves after eating.  After lunch, we got back on our bikes and pedaled west towards the coast, but into a strong headwind.  Realizing I had 4 more days of riding to go after this, I tried not to overdo it on this first day.  Fortunately, as the sun was setting, the winds died down, and the last few miles were a bit easier.  There were still some traces of sunlight when we reached the beach in Ashkelon, a city I had never been to by any mode of transit prior to this ride and can add to the list of places inIsrael that I came to for the first time by bicycle.

Bell Caves, Beit Guvrin

After a shower, dinner, and the route briefing, my third cousin once removed, Rachel, came to our hotel to visit me.  She lives in Askhelon and had not seen anyone from our family in about 30 years.  She brought with her a diagram drawn out by my grandfather when he last visited her showing the relationship between us, however only two of my cousins weren’t born yet and my father and one of my aunts were still not yet married.  I updated her on the family news and what I was doing in Jerusalem, and she told me about her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren (her second great-grandchild had his brit mila that afternoon), and with that information updated the master copy of the family tree that I keep.  She invited me to come to Ashkelon for Shabbat sometime when her children and grandchildren would be visiting; hopefully I’ll have the chance to do so, even if I don’t bike there next time.

Sunset on the beach in Ashkelon

November 10 (Day 2):  Ashkelon to Mashabe Sadeh

Click here to see route and elevation profile

Mileage:  94.347 miles

Average Speed:  13.4 MPH

Time Pedaling: 7:00:41

Getting into the routine of riding many miles for consecutive days is one of the more challenging parts of doing a ride like this in my opinion.  I think I was more ready for it psychologically this time than two years ago since I was already familiar with the routine developed over the days of the ride, but my work schedule effectively prevented me from being able to do back to back long rides in training.  I’m not sure it was an issue however, despite some of the difficulties that would come up over the course of the second day of the ride.

View of Gaza City from an overlook near Nir Am

We started riding together in one large group through the streets of Ashkelon, and only once we were on the city outskirts did we split into separate riding groups.  Most of the time, we had three riding groups.  Two years ago, I rode with the chalutzim (pioneers) the entire ride; they usually have extra mileage and ride a bit faster than the other groups each day.  I also rode with the chalutzim on the first day of this year’s ride, but it already seemed as if the group was a faster moving one than the 2009 group.  I started out with them on the second day, too, not sure of whether I’d be able to keep up.  However, over the course of the first 18 miles of riding, I felt as if I was keeping up well enough to stay with them.  This first rest stop was at an overlook that gives a good view of Gaza City, I had been to a different lookout a few years ago but it is still hard to grasp how close the cities of Ashkelon and Sderot are to Gaza, even when the landscape is spread out in front of you.

We've made it to the Negev

The extra riding for the chalutzim on this day was a 24-mile loop over rolling hills and through farmland, scenery that certainly wasn’t the most exhilarating out of all the riding I’ve done in Israel over the past 2.5 years.  After completing this loop, which included riding on the outskirts of two of Israel’s development cities, Sderot and Netivot, we turned south towards the desert.  As we biked further south, eventually, the vegetation began to give way to the sands of the Negev.  It is actually a fairly sudden transition, and one that I had never really experienced in this way since two years ago, we bussed from Sdot Yam in the north to Mashabe Sadeh, so on the third morning of the ride we all of a sudden found ourselves in the desert when we had been in the north at the end of the previous day’s ride.

Although this day’s ride was not my longest ride ever, biking 94 miles (or 103 as I did in 2008) in a single day is very demanding physically.  After about 80 miles or so both times, the riding becomes a bit of a long slog, muscles are aching and the knowledge that it is nearly over is providing most of the push to get to the end of the ride.  I was near the end, about a mile from our ending point from the day, when trying to begin pedaling after a stop sign, that I did something that caused more pain in my knee (in addition to my already sore legs, justifiably so having already completed 90something miles of riding at that point).  I managed to make it the rest of the way to the kibbutz where we were staying, and hoped that a night’s rest would leave me in good enough condition to make it through the next day of riding, knowing that I was just one day of riding from Shabbat.

Sunrise as we set out on the third day of riding from Mashabe Sade

November 11 (Day 3):  Mashabe Sadeh to Mitzpe Ramon

Click here to see route and elevation profile

Mileage:  71.788 miles

Average Speed:  12.0 MPH

Time Pedaling: 5:58:10

Colored Sands, Machtesh Hagadol

The morning came without my knee feeling 100 percent.  Normally, I’d pass up on a day of riding if I felt this way, but when actually on the ride, the limits for nagging injuries get pushed further than they would otherwise; you don’t really want to miss riding on the ride itself if you don’t have to.  I took a spin in the kibbutz driveway to see if I thought I could keep up with the chalutzim for one more day, falling back a group on Sunday morning wouldn’t be a big issue but today was the last day of significant difference between the groups’ routes.  I was still unsure of what I should do, but another rider encouraged me to give chalutzim a shot, because in a worse case scenario, I could at least see the scenery from the SAG van (SAG stands for Support and Gear, it is the sweep vehicle for each group and has a mechanic and can be used by riders who need to be driven ahead for any reason).  There were two big climbs in the 23 miles before breakfast, and while I was slower than I would have liked, I wasn’t too far behind most of the riders either.  However, in walking around at our breakfast rest stop in Yerucham (another development city), I think I may have landed awkwardly on my left leg again.  It felt a bit better by the time we set out again, but charging up hills and keeping with the group continued to be difficult (I was also falling back from the group on the hills the previous day, too).  At this point, the sweep rider said he thought my bike seat might be a bit too low, and suggested that might have been why I was having trouble.  Given a choice between riding to the next stop and fixing it there (and somehow trying to keep up with the group in the process) or fixing it then and using the SAG van to jump ahead of the group, I opted for the latter.  I’m not sure when or how the seat got to be too low, or if it had always been that way and I just never realized, but once it was raised, I felt that I had more power in my legs to get up hills.  Unfortunately, my knee was going to prevent me from using that power to its full potential, but I did feel as if the seat adjustment did allow for some improvement.

Mamshit

Our next stop was at Mamshit, the ruins of a Nabatean city on the ancient trading route between Petra and Gaza.  We didn’t really get to see anything up close, but it still reminded me of Petra a bit.  It was then back on our bikes to continue to the Machtesh HaGadol, one of several erosion craters in Israel.  I biked through Machtesh Ramon, the most well known of these geological formations two years ago (and it was part of this year’s route, too) but I had never been here before.  We had a pit stop at an area where the colors of the sands gave off several different colors, something truly unique that I had never seen before.  There, I got on the SAG van again for the next 10 miles, since the very short but very steep climb out of the machtesh, while something I could make it up on a normal day, would probably have ended my ride for the day, if not the week, with my nagging injury.  The ride in the SAG van also gave me some time to rest my leg.  I remounted my bike again in Yerucham and maintained a good pace most of the way (downhill) to Sde Boker, the site of former Prime Minister David Ben Gurion’s grave and where we had lunch.  This was my second visit to Sde Boker; I have yet to arrive there by any means of transport other than a bicycle.

Heading up from Sde Boker to Mitzpe Ramon

The rest of the day’s ride from Sde Boker to Mitzpe Ramon was identical to the route we used two years ago.  The ride is mostly uphill, and it was probably hotter on this afternoon than any other day of the ride this year (the weather was cooler than usual, perfect for riding).  My injury essentially had me only biking on one good leg, which is certainly a challenge, and while flats and downhills were manageable, uphills were proving to be difficult.  When riding, there is a technique called “charging” or “attacking” the hill, in which you pedal hard and fast and don’t shift gears until you have to, ideally so that you can maintain the same cadence in terms of how often you pedal.  I was unable to maintain a steady rhythm on the bike with my knee acting up, so the hills were slow.  With Shabbat coming in just after 4 PM, there was a chance that I would need to be driven the last few miles of the route, but I kept at it, and with the encouragement of the sweep rider, we decided to keep at it for as long as I could manage.  As my odometer reached 70 miles, my knee was starting to show signs of reaching its limit for the day.  On the last uphill, I said to the sweep rider that I could find the energy to make it the rest of the way provided this was in fact the last hill.  With the assurance that once I reached the top of this hill I would be done for the day, I was able to make it to the top, and rolled into Mitzpe Ramon about an hour before Shabbat.  Once in the hotel, after a snack and replenishing fluids, I took a quick shower and made arrangements with my relatives to visit me in the hotel the next morning before Shabbat came in, marking the start of a very necessary day of rest.

November 11-12:  Shabbat in Mitzpe Ramon

(no riding)

Ibex at the Mitzpe Ramon overlook

Two years ago, I was feeling great after the first three days of riding, and on Friday afternoon, saw Shabbat as a break that would throw off the routine that I was in for the previous days.  This year, I was looking forward to having a day off from riding as early as Friday morning.  I had envisioned that this week would be a vacation of sorts from my usual load of davening and leyning, but things didn’t work out that way, since I ended up leading parts of the service both on Friday night and Saturday morning, in addition to reading an aliyah of the Torah reading.  (Admittedly, I had volunteered for that specific Torah Reading and wanted to do a dramatic reading of the Akedah, or binding of Isaac, though the regular Shabbat trope doesn’t lend itself nearly as well to such a reading as the High Holiday trope that my father uses.  Even so, people picked up on what I was doing and liked it.)  I got a kick out of being asked if I was a rabbi, rabbinical student, or if I had plans to become one (the answer to all three questions is still “no”).

After services on Saturday morning, I went for a walk to the overlook of the machtesh at the edge of town with another rider with whom I have many mutual friends through the CY/Kedem circle.  Two years ago, I was only at the lookout after dark.  A machtesh is a unique geological formation created by erosion.  Although many translate the Hebrew word machtesh to crater, it isn’t actually one.  No photos from the lookout unfortunately (or of the ibex in the park next to our hotel) but it is a magnificent site to say the least.  After lunch, another third cousin once removed of mine, Shaul, and his wife Maris visited me in the hotel.  I wasn’t informed or wasn’t aware that I had family in Mitzpe Ramon two years ago, so we didn’t get in touch, although it turns out they were visited by another rider and are friends with the director of the Arava Institute, one of the charities I was raising money for.  We caught up on family matters and the like, until it was time for the next scheduled event being put on by the ride, a presentation by students at the Arava Institute about their experiences there.  As always, listening to the stories of how the Jordanian and Palestinian students found out about the program and the difficulties they had in getting the visas or traveling to get to Ketura is very challenging.  While I think Israel is justified in ensuring the safety of its citizens and protecting its borders, I have to question whether all of the government policies need to be implemented in the way that they are sometimes.  After the panel concluded, we had Mincha (writing about this service in detail doesn’t help my gabbaing resume, sorry) and then went out to the overlook next to the machtesh for Havdalah to watch the very tail end of sunset and mark the end of Shabbat.  The transition from Shabbat to the regular workweek can often be abrupt, and it certainly is on the Israel Ride.  We went straight from the overlook to our briefing for the next day’s ride.  As great as our day of rest was, we did have two more days of riding to complete.

November 13 (Day 4):  Mitzpe Ramon to Ketura

Click here to see route and elevation profile

Mileage:  63.100 miles

Average Speed:  14.0 MPH

Time Pedaling: 4:29:17

Group Photo at the Mitzpe Ramon Overlook on the 4th Morning of Riding

People who have done the Israel Ride multiple times often say that the day of riding that starts in Mitzpe Ramonis among the highlights of the ride, and I’d have to agree.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take full advantage of the many downhills, both steep and gentle, since my knee was not significantly better despite not riding on Shabbat, but it was nice to only have a few major uphills.  The route for this day was identical to two years ago.  We started out by riding to an overlook next to the machtesh where we took a group photo.  We then proceeded to bike one by one down the switchbacks and into the machtesh itself, which is possibly the closest experience any of us will have to biking on the moon.  The scenery is just remarkable.

Biking through Machtesh Ramon

The next highlight of the day’s route is the downhill into Wadi Paran, which is straight enough that one can go very fast down the incline at high speed and still do so safely.  I got up to about 38 MPH (the ride staff doesn’t make a point of telling us which hill it is in advance so people don’t try going as fast as they possibly can).  The climb out of the wadi is obviously a bit slower, but the crewmembers beating drums at the top of the hill that can be heard for the duration of the whole climb to cheer us on and spraying us with water before arriving at the next rest stop is another memorable moment of each ride (click here for another rider’s video made during this climb).  Unlike two years ago, we had no headwind after lunch, which meant that the 10 miles from Shittim (the lunch stop) to Tzomet Shizafon (the next rest stop) that took about 90 minutes two years ago took about 40 this year.  At Tzomet Shizafon, we stopped at the Pundak Neot Smadar operated by the nearby Neot Smadar Kibbutz to buy their organic ice cream, a nice treat before finishing the day’s riding.  From there, it is just 4 miles to the top of Har Ayit, a drop of nearly 1,250 feet in elevation over about 3 miles of riding, and Kibbutz Ketura, the home of the Arava Institute is essentially at the bottom of the hill (click here for another rider’s video made during this descent).

This was my third time staying at Ketura, and while I did go on the tour of the kibbutz for the third time, not much had changed.  We did get to see the new solar panels being tested by the Arava Power Company, including one set of panels that is being used to test a system to clean dust off the panels automatically.  After dinner, we met with students currently studying at the Arava Institute (in addition, the ride crew is made up of Arava Institute alumni, so we have lots of chances over the course of the ride to talk to current and former students about their experiences studying there).

Sunset at Kibbutz Ketura

November 14 (Day 5):  Ketura to Eilat

Click here to see route and elevation profile

Mileage:  45.833 miles

Average Speed:  13.7 MPH

Time Pedaling: 3:19:29

Solomon's Pillars, Timna

Historically, the Israel Ride has biked from Ketura to Eilat via Ovda and along the Egyptian Border.  However, since the terror attacks that took place along the Ovda road in August, that road has been closed to civilian traffic, bicycle groups included.  As a result, our route had to be modified.  I didn’t mind this change too much, especially since the last morning two years ago was probably my most difficult day of riding on the first ride, and the new route included a stop at Timna, where I had not been before.  Chalutzim had the option to bike up Har Ayit (the same steep hill we came down the afternoon before); I passed on account of my knee, and I did make the climb two years ago and found that a hill that steep first thing in the morning didn’t do much in the way of getting into a rhythm for the rest of the day.  We rode the first 5.5 miles from Ketura to Yotvata in three large groups because we were biking on the busy Arava Highway (Route 90).  At Yotvata, after getting a chance to buy shoko (chocolate milk, which the Yotvata Kibbutz is known for) while waiting for the last group of riders to arrive, we were joined by police officers to give us an escort the rest of the way to Timna.  Timna is the site of the world’s first copper mine, established by the Egyptians in the fifth millennium BCE.  Today, the site features several remarkable rock formations, remains of hieroglyphics etched into the rocks, and the remains of an Egyptian temple dedicated to the goddess Hathor.  We were given about 90 minutes or so to bike to a formation called Solomon’s Pillars, which is next to the Egyptian Temple, before returning to the park entrance.  I felt as if the site was a cross between Petra and some of the archeological sites near Luxor in Egypt (I visited both two years ago).

Spiral Mountain, Timna

On the ride out of Timna, we had an amazing view looking towards the mountains on the Jordanian side of the Arava Valley, before continuing south down the Arava Highway towards Eilat.  Unfortunately, the route into Eilat from the Arava Highway is not nearly as exciting as the Ovda Road, which features a steep, curvy downhill from the Eilat Mountains into the city, providing a very dramatic end to the ride.  Meanwhile, the Arava Highway just enters the town without any sort of elevation change or special scenic view.  We stopped at a gas station near Kibbutz Eilot on the outskirts of town to regroup one last time, before our police escort led us into Eilat.  Some people cheered us as we biked by, and shortly thereafter, we reached the beach across from our hotel where we had drinks and went swimming in the Red Sea to celebrate our accomplishments.

On the beach in Eilat after 343 miles and 5 days of riding

Final stats:

Total Mileage:  343.242 miles

Average Speed:  13.2 MPH

Time Pedaling: 26:06:51

Unlike two years ago when I extended my trip to Petra for a day and then spent a day in Eilat, I had to be back at work in Jerusalem by Wednesday morning.  Therefore, after our final banquet and a cash bar on the beach on Monday night, I went to bed so that I could be on the 10 AM bus back to Jerusalem.  The bus covered the entire distance in under 5 hours (taking a route far more direct than the one we biked), and covered the section of the Arava Highway that we rode on the last day of riding in about 30 minutes.  As much as I like to travel by bus, biking between Jerusalem and Eilat is probably much more fun.  (My bike was driven back to Jerusalem by one of the crewmembers, and has since been returned to me.)

Relaxing by the beach

I went into this ride hoping for a strong ride, but also ready to accept that if things weren’t perfect this time around, I had a great first ride and this was a bonus of sorts.  Therefore, while my knee did hold me back a bit (but not too much, I only sagged about 10 miles and still maintained very good paces for most of the ride), I still am very pleased with what I accomplished.  In addition, as it was pointed out to me by one friend, a ride like this shouldn’t be perfect; there should be some sort of unexpected challenge or difficulty to overcome.  If I could have done something differently in hindsight, the extra 24 miles on the second day with the Chalutzim weren’t so interesting from a scenery perspective, and I knew I could ride over 100 miles in a day, so I’m not sure I really had anything to prove to myself by doing those extra miles that day.  Not doing them might have not burned me out towards the end of the day and if my knee hadn’t been tweaked, I could have probably managed the climb out of the Machtesh HaGadol and tried for slightly faster paces.  However, I never would have thought two years ago that I would have had a second chance to do this ride, so even though I wasn’t ever at 100% any day of the ride this time around, I consider myself very fortunate to have had this experience a second time.  (For those of you wondering, my knee was completely better about two days after the ride, as I suspected, a day or two of complete rest and minimal physical activity was all it needed, but that wasn’t exactly a viable option at the time.)

Enjoying the organic ice cream at Neot Smadar

Israel is an amazing country no matter how it is seen, but a bicycle provides a unique perspective that I would encourage anyone to try if they get the chance.  You simply have far more time to take in what you are seeing from a bicycle seat than if you are in a bus or a car.  I never would have guessed that the first time I would arrive in Sde Boker, Mitzpe Ramon, and Eilat, I would have done it by bicycle.  I can now add Beit Guvrin, the Machtesh HaGadol, and Ashkelon that list.  I have now been to Sde Boker and Mitzpe Ramon twice, arriving by bike each time, and I have arrived in Eilat more by bike (twice) than by bus (once).  Also, as a result of my two Israel Rides, Sukkot 5770 bike trip around the Kinneret with friends from the Conservative Yeshiva, and occasional ride to Tel Aviv, I’ve crisscrossed the country by bike so much that there are many times and places I can be in a car or bus and point out to what we are passing and say “I’ve biked here!”

With David Eisenberg, my father's elementary school classmate, at Mitzpe Ramon

I also had a great time meeting new riders and reconnecting with riders who I had met previously.  There were a number of other riders working in urban planning, who had Cornell connections (there was even a rider who did her masters in planning at Cornell), or knew people who I also knew.  One rider who comes each year went to elementary school with my father.  Also, it was nice to have a larger group of younger riders this time around, it made for a slightly different vibe than two years ago.  While I didn’t get to talk to every rider, since I don’t necessarily get to meet riders who aren’t in my riding group or who I don’t happen to sit with at meals, spending so much time together is a great way to meet and get to know people, and I genuinely enjoyed spending time with my fellow riders over the course of the ride.           

Finally, I strongly believe in the work being done by the causes I fundraise for when I ride, Hazon and the Arava Institute.  I have already met my goal of raising $4000 for these great organizations, but it isn’t too late to contribute even though the ride has ended.  Make a tax-deductible donation online at http://arava.kintera.org/2011israelride/oaghirsch and help me see how much I can exceed my fundraising goal by!  You have until the end of December to make a donation.

Two years ago, I wrote that I’d jump at the chance to do another ride like this again, and especially inIsrael.  I think that statement still holds true, and I do hope there is a third Israel Ride in my future at some point in time.  I love riding, love Israel, love riding in Israel, and really enjoy the perspective of traveling by bicycle and not motorized transportation.  Although I’m looking forward to a bit of a break from riding during the rainy season (it has rained in Jerusalem for much of the past week, and we even got some precipitation in Eilat while we were there which is very rare), I can’t wait to get back on my bike soon.  As it is, I managed to keep my biker tan from the end of the 2009 ride until now, with enough riding and some luck I might be able to keep it until my next big ride…

If you haven’t seen enough yet:

• My photos on Picasa (with the approximate location of each photo shown on a map as you see all the photos)
• Photos from the Hazon Flickr Feed
• A set of videos chronicling each day of the ride, made by a rider who is a professional videographer (I have a cameo on Day 1 and talk briefly on Day 6)

On the beach in Ashkelon after the first day of riding