Sde Nechemya to Shlomi, 42 miles, 5,068 ft elevation (*)
(*) But … the weather!
We started off with a beautiful sunny day and spirits were high. After a 10km flat warm up, we began a long killer climb with steep stretches of 10% and 11% gradient. It was slow going.
And then the rain came.
Our ride leader directed the sweep bus to start picking up people from the back of the pack and about a third of the group got on the bus. The rest of us kept soldiering on – and up – in the rain. Eventually, the decision was made to pick up everyone and that’s what they did. Coordinating with the police escort, it was also decided that the weather was too treacherous to continue and the ride was (sigh) canceled, leaving us with a long bus ride back to the hotel in Shlomi.
Ironically, once we got down off the mountain, the weather was – of course – sunny and beautiful again. Nevertheless, logistics prevented us from restarting at that point. Instead, we will add on extra mileage tomorrow. Oh, well. (I noticed afterwards that I had left my Garmin on the bike, so Strava is showing me speeding along the highway at an ungodly speed. Too funny.)
Joanne and I took advantage of the now nice weather and headed out on a 4-mile walk to and from the beautiful beach. From the shores you could see a long line of tankers on the far off horizon waiting to dock at the large port in Haifa, just south of us.
We had another honored guest tonight after dinner. Guy Niv, from the Israel professional cycling team joined us for a fireside chat and shared his experiences being the first Israeli cyclist to compete in the Tour de France. Guy rode with us in 2019 and no kidding, he is awesome. What a treat.
Please enjoy these beautiful pictures from ALYN Day 3. It is so good to be back in Israel after three years of waiting.
Once again, I am deeply grateful to all my generous supporters. Won’t you please join us on this fantastic journey. You can donate at: https://www.alynactive.org/participant/jeff-blye/
You can subscribe for daily email updates (and pix!) by signing up at www.jeffblye.com
Follow me on Facebook or Twitter @bikerboyjeff, or contact me at:
Jeff Blye
pianoman88@optonline.net
+1 917-717-0096 cell
http://www.jeffblye.com
Journey with Jeff 
The ride is hard enough without weather interfering…but I’m glad that once again, safety comes first! Enjoy the rest of the ride-stay safe and thanks again for keeping us in the loop!
Howard
LikeLike