Where do I start ? This was truly the good, the bad and the ugly. An epic exerience.
WARNING – it's long !
The good: scenery, it's all all about the scenery. The desert is fascinating, a place of stark contrasts. More good: riding with friends. Road surfaces were very good.
The bad: weather, always out of one's control other than maximizing your riding in the most favorable conditions. The organizer does his/her best to pick a time of year with reasonable conditions. Some roads had heavy traffic; often we were on main roads.
The ugly: self imposed to a certain extent; lack of food.
The scenery is fabulous. Coming from a land of forests and lakes, you don't see much of the actual geography. Here in the desert you see it all, layers of rock, varying colors, little to no oxidation, vast vistas that you can't see in more humid conditions. Those hills take a long time to reach ! The flora is scrubby, occasional bits of faded green. Fauna is hidden; we saw a couple of snakes, not much else. In the prior edition, four years ago, a cloud of locusts covered the sky. There were some annoying flies when we stopped, but that's mostly it from a moving creature standpoint !
The terrain really isn't punishing, in the right weather conditions. Grades were, for the most part, 7-8% and under. Some climbs were a reasonable length, but we weren't on any real mountains. They seemed longer & steeper due to the weather.
If I had to choose one point where it all came together, from a scenery point, it was overlooking Eilat. 800+ meters below, the confluence of Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt; the Red Sea; some haze, naturally, breathtaking.
Speaking of which, the weather … hmm. Well, we had all that the desert can dish out. No, I guess that we did not. There was no snow, no real cold at night (I didn't wear my heavy coat once !) temps were well above normal. We had wind; mega wind. Bob Kassel said that it wasn't a headwind, it was a hurricane. Some had rain; I only had a quick shower although I wanted more ! Wind was bad enough but it turned into a sandstorm. Wind whipped up the sand, blowing across the road as I've only seen in drifting snow. In Collingwood ON, had it been snow, the roads would have been closed. In Florida it would have been sideways rain … but that only goes on for a long time in a hurricane.
Earlier in the year I'd had what I figured was my worst day on the bike – Day 3 of Hokkaido, cold and wet. However, without a ready water source, the desert sucks the water and the energy out of you. Without complete cover, sand is everywhere, making your teeth gritty. I've been on a number of rides now where I've easily survived the heat with an unlimited supply of refreshingly cool spring water – Italy & Bulgaria, to name two, Spain as well. Not here. This is really desert. The only spring water was in Masada and it was warm and not-so-good tasting.
The food … none of us really understood what Tal was saying about food at our overnight hub. Many of us brought snacks but nothing substantial. Were I to ride this again, I'd want a big bag of Ramen Soup mixes, for instance, to use at the overnight hub. Boiled eggs. Coffee ! We had kettles that were unused; fridges that did get some use. Tal supplied snacks as part of the ride but nothing with any long lasting sustenance. Even my regular snacks went mostly uneaten. Without a "comfort food" base and adequate hydration, there was no desire for snacks. All the dried fruit, nuts and my seed bars went untouched. I did not consume one gel. At one point I tried to eat some dried fruit but my stomach rejected it before it went down my throat.
Tal did an admirable job, no, I take that back – an amazing job - of providing water whenever we needed it, following and leading the riders, picking up ice, wonderful ice. By the end of the ride he was our babysitter :). Israel believes in ice, unlike Western Europe ! All the convenience stores & gas stations had ice, but could you find them – those stations - when you needed them ?
The key, for me (and most, I expect) is keeping the core temperature down. Once your core temp raises, you slow down dramatically. You get sleepy. That 7% grade becomes 15%. In those aforementioned hot spots in Europe, the water supply allows me to constantly pour water on my head, all over myself, stopping at more springs to gasp with the water pouring over you. Here there was no such luck. The best that you could do at times to bring the temp down was to stop. Water supply was limited, very limited, and I really had to drink this time !
I think that another factor was simply the lack of food. Less food means less salt and less water retention. Less water means that your stomach rejects food, a vicious circle.
We'd heard about night-time cold from those who rode the prior edition We did not have that kind of cold. From the low 20's at altitude, or slightly less, we dropped down to Masada below sea level with temps in the mid 30's in the middle of the night. It was like descending into a furnace, but that was the easy part. On the way up and out from the Dead Sea, it only got hotter as we hit daylight … more on our actual ride in a minute.
I remember that the DNF rate on the pre-ride was 50% … I think. The main event was much worse. Out of 27 starters, there were 17 DNF's. Well seasoned riders threw in the towel. This wasn't their first rodeo. Those of us who finished, did so mainly/partly out of good luck and, at least in my case, with a little – no, a lot – of help from my friends.
We started at night, 10pm, after Tal's "pre ride mix" which was a major shawarma sandwich and bike check / handout of brevet card, frame tag and jersey, if you ordered one, handover of drop bag. Gary Sparks and Jeff Mudrakoff came over to our apartment just beforehand so that I could help Greg with his Garmin. Bob and I followed them soon after, on our bikes, to he pre-mix, carrying our drop-bags.
We rode north to Cesarea, mostly a km adding leg north and in from the coast, roads somewhat busy, not exciting. From there we went south, around the Tel Aviv airport, ending up in our overnight spot of Sde Boker. Tal's ride plan had us stopping there each night. There was a 24 hour convenience store a few kms beforehand. We did not stock up enough, not really knowing what Tal might have in store for us. That first leg was just under 400k and I think that we pulled in around 7pm.
Mark and I originally had a good plan. We would ride to Sde Boker, have a short break and then head to Masada, a hundred kms or so further on. The hotel was all booked and awaiting us. Our day's distance would be around 530 (remember the night start). Mark, however, was really done in by the heat and Masada would have been a real stretch. We'll never know if we would have been better heading out again, but that was at least a 6-8 hour hike from Sde Boker and it's a good question as to whether we'd have gotten there before dawn. We opted to get three hours sleep and head out at 11pm. Gary, Jeff, Mark, Bob and I left together, headed for Masada and back, a 250 km ride. In the back of my mind, I was thinking ok, 250 kms, we'll be in early afternoon and can head to Eilat, our original next night hotel stop, vs stopping at Sde Boker. I really wanted to shorten that third day but it was not meant to be.
We did get to Masada in reasonable time. Mark was a little ahead of Bob and me, 8kms or so, all of us reaching Masada before dawn. We had stopped a couple of times along the way at bus shelters for a quick snooze but were rolling reasonably well.
The convenience store before Masada – yes, the 24 hour convenience store – was closed. I didn't really believe the fellow at the window but there was nothing that we could do. I think that he just didn't want to serve all the cyclists. We soldiered onto Masada knowing that we only had spring water, warm spring water, awaiting us. Still dark, we headed back the way that we came and then turned up the climb, expecting our next services to be Tal stopped somewhere along the way. Sooner than expected, there he was. Unexpectedly, so was Mark. I foolishly gulped down 3 full water bottles of ice water, chewing on the ice, getting my core temp down. It was compulsive. It could have been dangerous, thinking about Rus Hamilton and Hyponatremia. The three of us left together but Mark dropped back. We wouldn't know until late in the day that he rode most of the way up that grade and then threw in the towel, descending back to Tal's van.
Up to Sea Level and beyond, we soon encountered wind. No, it wasn't wind, it was a mid-desert hurricane. Dark clouds approached, rain pelted down, on went the jacket and then off. It only lasted a few minutes. That was the only rain that we saw. We stopped numerous times, the wind taking our energy and our water. We were supposed to stop at some power plant for water, a facility that never appeared. We were in trouble.
Bob called Tal, told him where we were and we went off the road into this facility that had trucks thundering in and out constantly. At the gate we did as we were told, ask for water. Yup, alongside the guard house was a water purifying machine that vended cold water. Benches in the shade invited us to sit down. Overcome with sleepiness, we crashed. I had asked the guard about an employee facility, perhaps, with Coke, anything else … nope … but along came an angel with a cold Pepsi that we split.
The story later from Gary and Jeff was about an ice cream truck that happened upon them in the middle of nowhere. Really, without those saving moments, we were done.
It got worse. We had water now, adequate until dark or Sde Boker, whichever came first, but the west wind, cross as we headed north, picked up the sand and blasted us. Stinging the face, grit in our teeth, obscuring the road, I've never ridden in conditions like that. Others have ridden in snow; I've certainly skied in drifting snow, and driven, which is the best way of describing it. An aside – it will be interesting to check my chain when I reassemble my bike. I'm betting that it's finished.
Puling into Sde Boker around 6pm, we had been on the road since 11pm the night before. 19 hours for that 250k, about 9 of which were rolling time and the rest of it stopped time. We snoozed in more bus shelters, rested at the side of Tal's van, even begged a place to sit from a bus driver supporting a school trip, but Bob and I had made it to Sde Boker for the 2nd night. With Eilat being roughly 180 kms away there was no way to shave the huge day ahead of us going to and returning from Eilat. Ugh.
Bob wasn't sure that he could go on. He was going to make up his mind when I woke him up at 10:30. At that point he said yes, thank goodness. I really didn't want to continue by myself. I didn't trust my judgment to stop when I should stop, even to save my life.
Before getting back to Sde Boker, Tal stopped to provide water and ice. It was then that we knew that Mark had stopped much earlier in the day. Spencer and Jerry were in the van with them. I was disappointed. We want our friends to finish, but I knew that Mark and Jerry would have huge problems with the heat. Jerry can power his way through wind like no one else I know, but the heat did him in. Mark has amazing resilience but the heat killed his ride. With Bob's help, I got through that day, it wasn't a solo effort. Dan D refers to this kind of riding as a death march. Yes. That's an adequate description, only half of the time we were stopped !
Day 3 was now underway or, rather, night 3. The original plan was to revert to days vs nights but that didn't happen. We had roughly 360 kms to do that day, hitting 800 meters twice with lots of climbing in between, lots of wind, the descent to Eilat and the Red Sea and then return to Sde Boker by a slightly, very slightly, easier route. Vinny caught up to Bob and me at the convenience store at Mitzpe Ramon and we rode on together. Soon, however, we needed to stop for a snooze. Vinny continued. That stretch was fascinating. Many, many kms alongside the Egyptian Border, double rows of high fencing and razor wire reminded me of a wall between the US and Mexico. There was no friendly crossing here, however, with the correct documentation; we were in the middle of an inhospitable nowhere.
Is this, truly, the "Promised Land" ? Is this the land of "Milk and Honey" ? Brutal landscape, impossible climate, no amount of irrigation would even make a difference. It's only use, made obvious by the signage, was for live fire testing. Luckily we weren't targets !
Down to Eilat we found a supermarket by the Photo Control and Vinny. Bob called Tal, got some advice on buses and called it quits. I headed off with Vinny, who quickly dropped back; I caught up with Gary and Jeff who had left Sde Boker about 5 hours before us (that's what the heat does to people) and together, but not together, we made it back to Mitzpe Ramon and then Sde Boker. That day, 360 kms, should rightly have been over before midnight, given where we were mid day. From 70 kms before Mitzpe Ramon to 35 kms, it crawled, easily taking 3+ hours. I'd pass Jeff and Gary; drop them way behind. Later they would pass me. It had nothing to do with the terrain, rather it was cycles of energy … or lack thereof … something.
Vinny caught up with us at Mitzpe Ramon and the four of us finished the day within a half hour of each other. Getting to MR was, in a way, victory. From there it was downhill to Sde Boker; from SB to Tel Aviv it was also downhill, our last day's riding.
I was exchanging messages with Mark along the way, indicating perhaps a 3am and then a 3:30 am departure. He had decided to ride in with us rather than take a bus back to Tel Aviv. Mark's support for that final 199k was the last part of my "with a little help from my friends" ride completion. Not truly fresh legs but a fresher brain was required, in spite of what appeared to be an easy day. The fat lady hadn't sung quite yet !
Ok, in at 2am, out at 4am, 40 minutes of sleep sandwiched in there – actually I was less than efficient that stop. I needed to have everything packed and ready for a quick departure. I didn't have to worry about eating; there was nothing. We would be passing a convenience store within about 5kms of our start.
Mark, Vinny, Gary, Jeff and I headed out together shortly after 4am. We had 12 hours to do a 199k. Tal had done it in 9.5. Surely we had margin !
The convenience store was closed. It was Saturday morning, the Sabbath. Dang. That was a big deal. Nothing to be done about it, however. We had left a little before Gary and Jeff and they caught us at the next convenience store.
Halfway to the end, Mark got a call. My phone was off. Had I been alone, I wouldn't have known that there were potential issues. Missiles had been fired. It was likely safe but Tal was getting messages that he shouldn't let us go through there. He called and had us retrace steps about 9k. Meeting us, we had a new routing. We would still go to the end but not the intermediate control. Before the end, we would hit 199km on the day and that would be our end, wherever that was. We stopped for lunch; we rode on. Tal followed us; our guardian angel; he took the lane at intersections and ensured that we were ok on the busy roads.
Close to our 199, Vinny was crashing. We talked him into another 2k; recorded the time (just less than 11 hours, i.e. 2:59) and another guardian angel, a faster rider, gave him a beer and arranged for a pickup. We rode to the planned end, found that Sandy and Bob had gone on to the BBQ without us (at Tal's direction); we took a few pics and went onto the BBQ.
Tal gave a little speech, providing humour with the number of emails and other anecdotes. A very small club had pulled off another 1200k in spite of the weather, did their best to get us in safely, and we were.
It's probably not one that I'd do again. If I did, knowing what I do now, it would be a totally different experience. The ride plan was a good one. It wasn't managed well by us. Personal nutrition and hydration would be better planned (hell, they'd be planned !). There are some, like the Mile Failte in Ireland, that I won't do again because they couldn't get any better. This one could only get better. Perhaps we didn't hit the complete depths, but close. Coming back again with Sandy, we'd drive to some of these places.
There's much more to see in Israel, Egypt and Jordan, but I don't need to see it on the bike. It was a fascinating experience in total. We loved Israel but this was one tough ride.
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