HAZON Bike Ride

I leave for Israel in less than a week and the bike ride begins in two weeks. Mentally I am prepared and looking forward to the trip, but physically I wish I had done a little more training. I suppose I am hoping that optimism will supplement whatever deficiencies I have in my physical preparation. We shall see.

I wanted to thank everyone who contributed and helped me exceed my fundraising goal. It was actually quite remarkable how quickly I met the required minimum and how donations continued to register even after that benchmark was reached and long after my single fundraising email was sent. I remain in awe not only from the response of my family and friends, but of the number of donations from friends of friends, many of whom I've never met, and even strangers or people I've only had brief interaction with until now. You have humbled and honored me.

Many people have been asking me about the ride itself so I thought I would pass along the information and details I've recently gotten from the organizers.

First of all, the ride will be from Tel Aviv to Eilat with a total riding distance of about 320 miles over four days. The course departs from Tel Aviv along the coast, then heads inland through Rishon LeTsiyon and Kiryat Malaki before arriving back on the coast at Ashkelon for our first night. The second day we travel along the edge of Gaza until about 10 miles from the Egypt boarder before heading south-east to our second night stop at Mashabim. From Mashabim is it almost due south to Mitzpe Ramon, then to Ketura, before the final day into Eilat. You can see a complete map of the route by clicking here.

Unfortunately, the ride is not all downhill as I was led to beleive. In fact there are a couple significant climbs and even a couple whose grades are in the 4-6% range, as you can see on this elevation profile:



As challenging as hills are, they have never really concerned me too much. I would much prefer a day of hill climbing to riding into a head wind any time, since you get the pay off a downhill after the climb and there seems to be a bunch of nice ones including the final ride into Eilat.

So once again, thank you all for your donations and support in making it possible to go on the trip. To reiterate what I said in my fundraising email, my time in Israel back in 1994 proved amazingly beneficial at a time of decision and self doubt in my young life. I fervently believe that the person I am and the person Karen fell in love with was formed in large part by the seeds sowed there. This has been a devastating past five months, with the last couple weeks being especially so. The chance to engage in the contemplative and self-healing activity of bike riding in a place of such history and emotional significance, I hope, will provide some much needed restorative energy.

Lastly, while I've already exceeded my fundraising goal I welcome anyone who still wishes to make a donation to do so by following this link.

Thank you all once again.