Rock slush and quicksand.

Today's ride, the final of the "pure" off-road days, was the retroactive inspiration for the title of this blog. We spent the morning running through a canyon, but we didn't ride through its base because that was a riverbed filled with loose rocks and sand. Instead, we rode along very narrow trails dug out of the cliffs for miles on either side of the canyon. The problem was that the topography required that we traversed from one side of the canyon to the other every 10 minutes or so, climbing up to the left side trail and then up the right wall, over and over, cutting through the sand and shale each time. This stops your bike in its tracks. Trying to ride through it is possible, but if you don't make it it sometimes gets ugly when you fall over her somebody bumped into you from behind. I don't think I've had to get off my bike so many times within two hours this entire ride. 

After lunch, while tackling an incredibly sharply inclined rise (we called him walls), my chain actually broke and the mechanics truck just happened to be about 20 m behind me. We threw the bike into the truck and they drove me up the remaining three walls, which I can't say I am sorry about missing :-). At the top they replaced the link in my chain in about two minutes and I was off again. I consider myself very lucky that that's the only mishap I've had mechanically. People are getting flat tires left and right, and I can only assume that maybe not being up front in the pack means that everybody else has already flattened or absorbed all of the thorns and other stuff that gets people flats. Not of a lot of fun to have to stop on the side and change your tire.

 Anyway, then came a very long and very steep descent toward the Dead Sea through some incredibly stunning views (I took some video clips with another camera that I will put together at the end of this week) and then another canyon that looked very much like the ones I remember from our trips to Arizona and Nevada and New Mexico when I was a kid. Again, the trails themselves now turned into slate and crushed rock which was very tough to grab traction on, especially while you're looking around at the magnificence that nature head stuck there in every direction. 

All in all, it was certainly a challenging day, but so different than the other days so far, that it was a rush. We are now at a hotel in the Dead Sea (I think I just had the world's best shower, after primitive outdoor showers at our campground yesterday which pretty much means two days of dust and sweat built up.) for the closing gala event (there is a special award ceremony where people who have been on the ride five years or 10 years or 15 years get special jackets, etc.) before the ride up to Jerusalem tomorrow Oh, not from here-- They are bussing us up to the Elah Valley first, which is much more my turf, so that should be fun, where we join like 500+ other people who were riding with us for the day, including 10 kids from the hospital who have been rehabilitated from incredibly tragic accidents, surgeries and medical conditions and have been training for many months to ride with us on tandems, regular bikes, and handbikes. Should be quite an experience. If you have just four minutes, please watch this video about one of the girls who is going to be riding. It will blow your mind.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q_XVINhYU_E&ytsession=3PQgh04-Vz6R5JeH9FeLcim9qpFt30yW0EIlaZdJsZ5wZECZM1LapW7FCcwUWt-ezVo58Y1JWLNyC3mwah333aq97IBhhYpeLFPd_yJkB_7vcRnVZCb0NmujR-_3dUGbTEBgMf1cKQx_nvCd5JjnObbPv-r8AnUYWBW5wButrhMXCvuIpB9LsMQf_AcO199hsp0_bPle4zHPo3Oadxxo3HND2gvLh6tI4otPKM7-ScKhot66jT62q-eXisVWvFjpQLoQZu_maExPqpBgqWx0X0mefbrkPmG1CrZnTNU0HTkLLGvCv3BqOC4vdSgSG0fvpuyDre3cQls&feature=youtu.be