Initial plan was to ride to Tel Aviv, that would make a 200 kilometers trip. I knew it would be hard, the distance and the Middle Eastern Sun will surely bring tons of suffering unto me. But hey, thats what atonement is all about, right?
Rode out at 3 AM, which gave me 6 hours of cool morning air and the magnificent sight of sunrise. I had to be back at my home before 17 PM, so at 9 AM I was at the interchange where I had to decide whether to go home or to ride at least to a middle point of my initial plan, the city Hadera. I decided Hadera. So, at 10 AM I saw Hadera city sign and turned back to my sweet home.
At that point the weather was getting pretty hot and I felt very tired. Not to mention my ass hurt as hell cause of the narrow bike seat.
At 12 PM I was so exhausted , that even my favorite music couldn't help with the constant thoughts of food (I decided not to eat, as we should on Yom Kippur) and shower. But I had to go on.
The thing is, even if you want to quit you can't, you still have to ride.
And as always I took too much stuff with me. Having this fear of dehydration I took 10 liters of frozen water (drzank only 4), tools to repair any bike malfunction, and my SLR camera which I used rarely cause was too exhausted. Couldn't even shoot, I mean take a photo of some arab kid throwing stones at me when I rested near his village. Not one photo I took is worth posting so just a photo of my fully loaded bicycle.
The result is I got home at 17 PM (exactly on time) totally exhausted and totally burned by sun. And basically instead of 200 km I rode only 120. 14 freaking hours in the saddle.
Was it worth it? Well, it was kind of an accomplishment for me. And I also made kind of an atonement for my sins (not that there are a lot of them, hell I can't think of even one that need atonement).
Hardly an atonement there, even if you had any sins worth regretting. I don't believe suffering a little bit is atoning for something. Suffering should be related to the sin committed and experienced more than a yearly 24 hours. In any case, a very nice accomplishment! We kept talking about this with Diana, so we're proud of you! Keep up those challenges!
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