Report on the Alyn Bike Ride

November 9, 2006 - 4:35 PM by Sarah

Jerusalem’s Alyn Pediatric and Adolescent Rehabilitation Center is renowned for its excellent care for Jewish and Arab children alike. Each year hundreds of volunteers bike from Jerusalem to Eilat to raise funds for the hospital facility. The author of Divrei Moshe took part for the first time this year, necessitating months of training to build up from “I just biked around my small town a few times and feel winded and sore” to “100 km a day for five days? No problem!”
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Well, mostly no problems . . . sort of . . .

something I had not counted on happened. It was raining. It is hard to complain about something we pray for, but I had not trained at all in the rain. I trained in the intense heat of the summer, but there is no rain in Israel from Aril, until NOW. I had no rain gear and had not ridden on a wet surface….this I was not prepared for.

. . . we had to be at the bus at 6:am sharp. It was drizzling. Maybe the rain would hold up I thought. We took the bus into Jerusalem to Mt Scopus and met up with our bikes. It was now pouring. I was cold and soaking wet. I was so wet & cold that during the open ceremony I found an unlocked parked and sat in the back seat! I was not comfortable. After the ceremony, we finally pushed off at 8:45 for a cold, wet, slippery ride down to the Dead Sea where I was told it would not be raining and the temperature would be warmer. Something to look forward to I thought. When I hit the first hill at Ma’ale Adumim I was so excited to pedal hard…at this point it was not to see if I could do it, but rather, it was my first chance to WARM UP!

. . . In the next picture, I am blow-drying my clothes! They got soaked ‘in’ my luggage. Our suitcases were delivered to each of our destinations every day. But because of the rain, our luggage was left out in the morning for some time, before it was loaded onto the truck. A minor inconvenience. Now I can no longer say that I have never used a hair dryer!

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On Day 2, Sandstorms:

We left Dimona for what was “supposed” to have been an easy day but strong headwinds and a few sand storms made progress very difficult. We passed and stopped in to Sde Boker and the home and gravesite of the first Prime Minister Of Israel, Ben Gurion. We stopped for lunch in the Nabatean town of Avdat, which was the spice route from Arabia to the Mediterranean. I learnt something very important. When an Israeli guide says that it will be an easy day with a few hills, don’t believe him! As you can see from the chart, this was not an easy day. With several major climbs, and many, many kilometers of nothingness. Our group spanned an 8km stretch I found myself in the front of the group and very often, not being able to see anyone around in front or behind.

But they made new friends along the way . . .

And in the end it was all worth it . . .

Day 5 was exciting. Especially since we had a great meal the night before. We all knew what the end of the day would bring. We all just wanted to get there. Since we had pushed so hard on day 4, when I got up in the morning, I was not quite sure what to expect. Could I make another 100km today? I have to, we’re almost home! We have to do it for the kids. So, we got up at 5am, daavened, breakfast and on the road by 7am, again! We rode along the Egyptian border and could even see the Egyptian soldiers. It was up hill for the most part of the first 70km. Then a mega down hill, then a mega climb and then 18km decent into Eilat. This decent was a thrill and was extremely scary as I reached a top speed of 71.6km! Most amazing was that first glimpse of the blue waters of the Red Sea. There was an electric feeling as we descended into Eilat. People were singing and yelling. All of the different groups met up and converged into Eilat together. It was an amazing sight. All the riders, almost 420 of them who confronted this amazing challenge to help out little children. There were riders who were blind, (on tandems) riders who had prosthetic limbs and themselves, survivors of terror attacks.

In all over 2.5 million will be raised for Alyn.

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