Today was the day that I've been promising for the last three weeks. I went off this morning not really thinking about doing the full century but ended up seeing that I was almost there so made the extra loop to push myself over the line. I was supposed to be heading into the hills today with one of the Spider riders from Rosh Hanikra and then along the northern border. I must add that it was done on the road so I popped the road century cherry and I must say that I was just as pooped by the end of it as i would have been was I on a mountain bike. Well at seven my fellow rider canceled so I thought that I would head out and see what happens, seeing as with the financial situation as it is we are not working on a Thursday.
I headed up to misgav knowing that if I ran into any serious trouble I'd be closer to friends who could come to the rescue. After my puncture experience from last week my road cycling experience is already in safety mode. Well the climb on the bike with bigger gears made for interesting view as I huffed and puffed my way to the top. After thinking about it both my century's of the year were done on a similar route, one on dirt and the one of today done on the road. So after crawling to the top I did the same on the way down as my descending skills on the road are no where near my rocking hopping, tree bouncing mountain bike downhilling.
I was contemplating doing some further climbing to Ma'alot and then down but decided to rather go up to Rosh Ha'Nikra as I didn't want to overdo it and the fact that that route would take me near some of the villages. Something I don't want to do without some peleton backup or pepper spray. Seems like I'm riding through a gangsters paradise over here in Israel but actually 95% of the time everything goes smoothly, its that 5% percent though that seems to stick in the mind.
I made it up to to the Northern Border between Lebanon and Israel without any hassles and then came back through the chute of banana fields of Gesher Aziv. This is an awesome piece of road as it has a gate on either side but the road is smoothly paved so after spending the day with cars zipping past this was bliss. All of this changed though as I passed the hundred mark I went through the last intersection before getting back to the kibbutz. I was caught off and made it quite clear what I thought of his driving skills, after some heated shouting the guy pulls over further up the road waiting. Do I try and speed by risking him push me or stop and hear him out. Well I chose the latter unintelligently and he was waiting with a knife. I really couldn't believe it but luckily left unharmed. So another day of fun and games in a foreign country for me, sometimes I wonder what I'm doing here but then I realized what an awesome ride it had been. Don't let that 5% spoil it!
