Story by Glenn Powell
The Veolia Desert Challenge, held Saturday, December 5th, was Israel’s largest bike race to date with some 1,500 competitors. The start of this two-person team mountain bike event is located near the Dead Sea resort town of En Bokek. Race options included 25K, 50K and 70K courses in the Mt.Sodom desert region, with mixed, open and age-graded team categories. My brother Rod and I arrived at En Bokek on Thursday to pre-ride the course, soak up some sun, float in the 30% saline Dead Sea and enjoy the 75+ degree temps.
Since the Dead Sea starting point is the lowest place on the planet, it seemed reasonable that a little climbing might be in order. The 35K lap pre-ride began with a wide open dirt road and then transition to winding single track climbing up a canyon along Mt. Sodom (a mountain of salt). At the high point, the canyon lead to an open high-plain area, then descended to the southern-most low point where the course turns north and climbs back up the eastern side of the valley back on top of the plain. One climb was a long granny-gear butt-kicker that I barely made it up on the pre-ride. (Race day everyone walked up.) The descent back toward the start/finish had some very fast and fun single-track down through a narrow canyon. All in all the course appeared very fast and not technical, well suited for our 29-er hard tails. We rode half a lap on Friday to get better dialed in on the canyon descent, picked up our race numbers and electronic timing chips, floated like a cork in the Dead Sea for a while and then called it a day.
On race day we rode the two miles from our accommodations to the start area, laid out water and bars for the second lap and then did a few intervals to get revved up for what I expected to be a mad dash down the road to the single track section. At 7:30 am our 70K field of 200-250 competitors launched. Beforehand the race organizers gave instructions to “go neutral until the single track”. I bet you can guess how that went… Not! We were able to get lined up early behind the first 50 or so riders and hit the single track flying in about that same position. There was little opportunity to pass until hitting the open plain area. There we were with a chase group of about 20 containing two guys with the Trek sponsored club (largest in Israel). One of the two, a guy named “Rommi”, I learned was the top 40+ rider in the Country. Even though we were in the 50+ category, I marked him as one to watch. My brother (a road rider) was a little nervous about the high speed crowded descent so I told him we should hang off the back until the bottom. That was a bad idea. We lost contact with the Rommi duo and had to work like crazy to catch them on the climb. At the top of “the butt-kicker” they were just up ahead of us, but my brother had knocked his pump off getting on his bike at the top. By the time we fetched it back and got rolling, we were gassed and Rommi & the boys were gone.
After a quick stop at the start/finish for water bottles and food, brother Rod set a blistering pace from the beginning of the 2nd lap all the way back up to the plain. Past the descent, at the turn-around climb we started passing lots of the 50K stragglers. This wasn’t any real trouble on the climbs but on the fast descent leading up to the finish Rod had to take the lead again because I didn’t know how to say “on your right!” or “on your left!” in Hebrew. In spite of the traffic jams, we caught and passed another 4-5 of the 70K teams on the second lap. When the dust settled, we ended up 16th overall, 5th in the 40 + and first amongst the 50+ grandpa/geezers. (Rommi and his partner placed 2nd in the 40+.)
The race as a whole was very well organized, with a party Friday night that spotlighted some Jewish guy that sang lots of Neil Young songs in English. The after race event was held at one of the resorts. It looked kind of like the finish of STP (except with a beach). Bike industry vendors from Israel had booths set up all around. Prior to the race we happen to meet and become friends with the race organizers, Boaz, Warren, Adam and Nimrod (He preferred “Nimmy”). They we’re all great guys and very helpful/kind to “the Americans”.
I was looking over the posted results at the “after race event” and realized that the only names of the 1,500 entrants that weren’t written in Hebrew were “Rod Powell” and “Glenn Powell”. I suggested to Boaz that next year maybe they should have a three-person team option that could be made up of Jew, Arab and Westerner!
Thanks again to Dave, Casey and Phil for helping me scrounge together Rod’s Fanatik kit apparel.
GP
Ps: Rod lives in Haifa with his wife Margi. He is studying Hebrew there as part of a post-graduate degree in theology. He also works with a group that reaches out to Russian speaking heroin addicts in Tel Aviv. In addition to the Dead Sea Race, my two week stay in Israel included bike rides in the Mt. Karmel and Galilee areas, some time in the old city ofJerusalem, visits to the heroin addict quarter of Tel Aviv and their recovery center in Haifa.
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