Fat Man/Fit Town

Up at 5:30, we eat another wildly complex Israeli hotel breakfast, then pile on the buses to drive to Bar Giyura near Beit Shemesh for the opening ceremonies. Thoughtful readings, Shir haMaalot sung to the tune of Hatikvah, and, of course, a shechechyanu started us off.

Then, the excitement. The first leg was pretty much straight downhill for 10 miles. Ever ridden a tandem downhill? Twice the weight with about the same wind resistance as a single bike. That means our terminal velocity, sans brakes, is quite a bit higher than everyone else on the ride. So: Wheeeeeeeee! Also, some profanity, and my brief thought that maybe I should say a quick Shema, which is, by tradition, the last thing uttered by a Jew about to die. Really, I trust Derek more than that, and I wasn’t really afraid for my life, but we did chew through a bit of brake pad.

From there, things calmed down quite a bit, with rolling hills and and a net downhill ride. We were going a little faster than the middle (Bogrim) group, so after lunch at Tel Lakhesh Park, we joined the faster expert (mumchim) group. We were a little fresher than they were, since they had a longer morning that included a climb too insane for us, so we kept up a nice pace for the next 35km until we reached the outskirts of Ashkelon on the coast. At that point, the heavy traffic, narrow shoulders, and, frankly, my fatigue, compounded with the relatively poor maneuverability of our tandem to make us choose the better part of valor and hop in the support truck for the last couple of miles to our hotel. Both of us fell asleep before we got there. We made about 50 miles today.

Tomorrow, we enter the Negev.

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