Woke up at 6:15am this morning for my second biking trip to the Golan. Danny Reiter picked me up at 6:30 and we were off on the 2 hours drive to Arik in the Southern Golan. Perched some 500meters above the Kinneret, the surround cliffs have great views of the farms along the eastern shore. It was from this area that the Syrians used to lob bombs on to the Israeli farmers below before 1967. Some of the guns were left for us to see. The understated description of the ride said there would be some ups and downs, including some scarey downhill sections.We started off and after riding past the refet (cow shed) and the cow dung, we very quickly hit out first downhill. It was rather steep, and the it was rather muddy. Of course after enjoying a 150m of descent, payback time was just around the corner -- 150 of ascent. Well, this went on and off for most of the ride. Terrifying descents, followed by steep ascents. I kid you not when I say each up-down cycle was worse (better depending on your perspective) than the previous.
By the end there were several segments that were either too steep, or too muddy to be biked. (I suppose that's a matter of opinion, but I wasn't the only walker to say the least -- and even when I was walking, the bikers could barely keep up.) The mud was so think that at one point while walking the bike the my front wheel locked up from all the muddy clay stuck on brakes.
Some of the downhills were so steep and so long that my hands and arms hurt by the time I reached the bottom from squeezing the brakes for so long. Its always a delicate balance between going fast enough to be stable, avoiding the puddles and fellows riders, and enjoying the thrill of speed. Of course on one downhill two brilliant kids decided to race one another. Just as I was closely following somebody the two of them decide to pass us -- one on the left, and one on the right. The guy on the left ended up driving through some shrubbery and than almost knocked the guy in front of me off his bike. The two kids then regained control and sped off to the bottom off the hill. When I finally got to the bottom I overheard the one bragging to the other about how he drove right through the bushes. I think he'll soon be a candidate for a darwin award.
