Pre-ride report: Welcome to Israel!

October 22-24, 2018
Great Neck, NY to Jerusalem, ISRAEL

Dear Friends and Generous Supporters,

Yes, the blogs are back.  And it’s time to ride my bike across another country – thankfully, a much smaller one this time.  Still, with 400 miles in 5 days, it won’t be a picnic.  Welcome to the ALYN Wheels of Love.

The last few days are a bit of a blur starting with a long-ish midnight flight from JFK to Tel Aviv.  The first hurdle was getting my bike past the TSA inspectors and hoping they didn’t rip everything apart.  Last year, the gorilla TSA agent slammed the case shut and broke off one of my bottle holders.  This year, it looked like they were just going to swab it for, … well, you know, … bad stuff, and I thought I might skate through.

Not to be.  Who knows what set off the alarm, but the alarm did go off and once again the inspectors unpacked EVERYTHING in my bike case and confiscated all of my CO2 cartridges.  (Last year, three of them made it through.)  The good news is that they packed it back relatively carefully and nothing else got damaged.

The plane left NY two hours late, but with a brisk tailwind, we made up time and the flight took only 9 hours 30 minutes.  We lucked out with an empty seat next to me and managed to sleep most of the way.  Relatively easy, comfortable flight.

The ride doesn’t start until Sunday, but I love spending time in Jerusalem getting acclimated.  Wednesday morning, I reassembled my bike and went for a ride, ending up at the hospital.  (No, not IN the hospital, … AT the hospital.  I realized that might need clarification.)  It was great to meet all my Israeli friends at check-in, many of whom had been following my Bike Ride of a Lifetime journey across the US.  (“Hi, guys!!”)

I think we’ll leave it here for now.

You can click here to find out Why I Ride and to support me.  Or copy and paste this link: www.wolusa.org/goto/jeffblye   To all of my generous supporters – past, present and future – I thank you so very very much.

Please enjoy some pictures to get us started.

…Jeff
Wheels of Love Challenge Rider
2007-2018