Our bearded man of adventure Pete Scullion just landed home from a trip-of-a-lifetime mountain bike odyssey to Israel. Here’s a few holiday snaps from behind the scenes whilst we wait for his full-story in the mag!
Pete: Being fairly close to the bottom of the pile when it comes to foreign press trips, I couldn’t quite believe my ears when esteemed Wideopenmag editor, Jamie Edwards asked if I would like to go to Israel for a week to ride my bike. Jamie now has no hands as I snapped them both off immediately.
It’s fair to say that all the preconceptions I had of Israel were, thankfully, proven wrong. If all you ever hear of a place is bad press, then you can only ever build one skewed mental image. It’s hard do this place justice in words. Everyone we met just wanted to treat us like kings and show us their favourite trails. Smiles were almost a permanent fixture of the trip. The riding was awesome, the Vitamin D most welcome, the people now good friends and the food… Oh, the food!
Break – Yanni, our king of logistics, brought organic dates from the Samar, beer and coffee to meet us mid-ride.
Just catching up on current affairs…
Endless Singletrack – The limestone here is like concrete, go as fast as you like along the ribbons created by goats and camels long since passed.
Instagram – Our first taste of desert riding just outside Jerusalem and our guide Nimi gets the obligatory Instabanger in.
More Singletrack – If you like riding dry, dusty singletrack for a week, then Israel has to be on top of you list of places to go!
Mt. Sedom – Also know as Sodom. We didn’t find any righteous people here either…
Naboteans – This old damn wall was built several thousands of years ago, here, Ryan ‘Rampage’ Gagnon hikes up to find a suitable line down.
Rain Dance – For the last two days, Yanni joined us for the riding. Samar, being a desert, is pretty dry. Here he tries a rain dance over Lady Ariel.
Stoked – Here I stand, a mere 190m above sea level, about to descend to the Dead Sea, 427m below us. Those sums shouldn’t work, but they do!
Sunrise – My first morning in Tel Aviv started well. Took the opportunity to watch the sun come up before cruising about the Carmel Market and doing some people watching on the sea front.
Timna – What a place. You could spend weeks exploring this place regardless of the mode of travel. Luckily the trains were amazing too.
Big thanks to top chief Nimi Cohen of Mountain Goat for organising the trip, Yanni for being the king of logistics, Joffa for showing us around Alon de Galil, Ron for medic duties, Alon for following us everywhere and taking photos, Yaron for showing us how rocky a desert can be, and to Ryan and Stephen for talking just as much crap as I did.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed my holiday snaps. Expect to see a full report with professional images very soon!
