Why on Earth should one’s hobby make one miserable. As I tried to clean the mud out of my nose later that night, I felt comfortable that after riding Alyn for four years and raising over ten thousand dollars for the children’s hospital, I had done my share. Let someone else take over.

Of course, by the time the ride ended, I realized how important the funds we raised for the hospital are. These funds enable children to continue to receive the wonderful care that Alyn has to offer. Hmm…maybe my preference to stay warm and dry was just a bit selfish when compared with the needs of the Alyn kids.

Then I thought about how many people have heard of the Alyn ride,  and how proud I have been to mention that I had ridden four years in a row. How would I feel explaining to someone that this year I skipped the ride because I was afraid of getting a little dirty.

I could just imagine someone in the Alyn office saying “well, let’s skip the therepy sessions for little Moshe this year. Frankl decided to stay home and watch TV.”

Couldn’t have that.

No, that just wouldn’t do.

So yes, I am signed up for #5 and ready to tackle the new enduro route. The enduro route is for us gluttons for punishment who are not satisfied with the length of the traditional off-road route. Since the ride is in the South this year, I don’t have to worry about the cold and the rain. Intense heat, on the other hand, is fairly typical for the middle of the desert.

So I am in the midst of training again and looking forward to doing my share to help Alyn continue putting together the lives of young bodies shattered by car accidents, deadly diseases, and a variety of other nightmares that all parents pray their children will never have to face.

But unlike those who choose to suffer for a week by riding their bikes, these kids have no choices. Some are learning to walk again, to eat, to speak, to live.

And here is where you come in. Because no matter how many hours I spend on the bike or what the weather is, I cannot be successful without raising the funds for Alyn that are at the core of this magnificent event. So I will give a little physical suffering if you will give a little financial. Believe me — I would not be asking if I was not 200 percent convinced that the money collected is literally saving children’s lives.

So please click here to make a donation and  help me support the children of Alyn.

I know he does not quit, so how could I?

With my deep appreciation for any amount you can manage.

Yarden Frankl, Neve Daniel

My ride number

I just spent a week riding through mud.

Not the kind of nice warm Dead Sea mud that tourists buy. I’m talking about freezing cold mud. It gets on your arms, your legs, in your nose, and between your teeth. Every day after the ride you take a shower wearing your riding gear to try and get some of it off. But it’s just not possible.

The mud gets on your bike chain and in your gears. It gets in your brakes and clogs your pedals. Your bike weighs a ton no matter how often you try and clean some muck off.

What an amazing week.

I'm shivering!

But let me go back a bit. For the fourth year in a row I was riding in the Alyn 5 day bike ride to raise money for the Alyn Children’s Hospital in Jerusalem. I was joined by fellow Team Neve Daniel members Pinney and Lawrence.

Also along with us was our friend Bob, who we like so darn much we just put him on the team. He has a daughter my age, and he can still hang with the best riders in the pack. Also honorary team member Yael from Kfar Meiman, showing us that girls can ride crazy too.

This year, the ride would spend four days on the Golan Heights and one day riding from Modi’in to Jerusalem. Except when it rains, the Golan is an ideal place to ride a mountain bike since the views are spectacular and the Heights are full of amazing bike trails.

Like I said, except when it rains.

It rained.

It flooded.

The Golan turned to mud.

Team Neve Daniel at the Start: Dry and Happy

We started the ride on Sunday in Rosh Pina. Within the first hour, I knew it was going to be a tough year. Riding fast down a winding trail, another rider swerved to the right to avoid a big rock. There was just one problem — I was on his right side.

Down I went and when I got up I found I had a gashed leg and a bent derailleur (the thing that changes gears.)  As I was contemplating what that would mean for the next five days, the skies opened up and dropped what felt like a lake on us. The rain was so thick, you could hardly see where you were going. Then it started to get cold. Yael reminded me of the article I wrote before the ride about how we should just accept the inevitable and embrace the rain.

I told her to shut up.

We rode on road for a bit up a very steep climb and then turned onto the first segment of the North-South Golan trail. Here was my first experience of real mud riding.  For what seemed to be hours, we road through the mud. The key is that you must keep moving, no matter how slowly. If you stop and put a foot down, it will become almost impossible to start again.

Team Neve Daniel after the Mud

After the mud came puddles. Big puddles. These were not the type of puddles that kids like to jump up and down in. These were long stretches of the trail where water went from one side to the other and you had no choice but to ride through. At some point your bike could sink up to the hubs and you wondered if you were about to take an ice bath. (Lots of riders did). Every time you peddled your foot went through icy water. (Every morning I dreaded lacing up the cold wet shoes.)

To be perfectly honest I was not pleased with my performance. I felt tired and miserable and had a million reasons why I did not want to continue riding. My leg hurt, the bike couldn’t stay in gear, and the forecast was not gloomy — it was catastrophic.

Yet the next day, I decided I would have a better attitude. I put on all my rain gear, looked in the mirror, and gave myself a little pep talk. I was actually pumped up when I left the room and headed for the staging area.

That was when word came down the line that something had happened that has never happened before in the Alyn Ride’s ten-year history. The whole day’s ride was canceled. Due to massive flooding and extreme winds, the powers that be decided it would be too dangerous to ride. What followed was a rather dull day. As we ate dinner in the youth hostel and watched water leaking from the ceiling, no one was very upbeat.

A backpack gave my mud jacket an interesting look

It rained through the night and into the next day. Yet, the decision was made to ride. The route was changed so that the only off road segments became optional. But the route would still be a challenge.

We started with a 24 kilometer climb up the slopes of Mount Hermon to the Beduin village of Masade. The climb was fantastic although the fog was so thick that you couldn’t see anything but a patch of road in front of you. Along the way up I found the rider who had knocked me off on Sunday. We exchanged some pleasantries which gave me the added incentive to ride hard and leave him in the dust rain. (He did apologize in the end, and I did NOT knock him into the ditch at the side of the road.)

The real problem was that when we got up to the top, the temperature dropped and the winds picked up. I changed into the last dry shirt I had and still froze. Coming down the winds pushed us across the road. There was nothing to do but put your head down and pedal. Around this time I again started wondering if it was worth it. Actually, I felt miserable and decided it wasn’t. I decided that I would finish the ride but no way would I ever sign up for this hell again.

Later in the day we had a few off road bits including a dangerous descent which put my good friend Simcha into an ambulance and out of the ride. I didn’t see Simcha’s fall, but another guy in front of me lost the traction on his bike wheel and went skidding down into the ground. He yelled that he was o.k. so I kept going – gripping the bars, saying a prayer, and looking forward to getting to the bottom.

At the bottom were several kilometers through what were basically a few flooded fields with mushy patches of mud to ride on. The riders were so spread out that I could scream like a banshee all sorts of colorful words. I was in my own little world. My own freezing, wet little world.

Then an interesting thing happened. We came out on the road and all of a sudden I felt a surge of energy. I hammered down on the pedals and felt myself flying. Kilometer after kilometer just clicked by. I no longer felt the cold. When I reached Keshet, the end of the day’s ride, I felt exhilarated but completely spent. By  5:30 I was sound asleep. (Thankfully I woke up for dinner.)

Boomer and Pinney's bike: Our trusted steeds

The next day was more mud and more climbs including a 2 kilometer haul over a 15% grade. Yet the sun came out and that made everything much better. I even fell into one of the mud lakes, but I didn’t freeze to death. I joked about it and let the sun dry me off. We rode down one final descent to the Kinneret and all of a sudden there was just one more day of Alyn.

Of course today was more like Alyn rides I have done before. Tons of climbing going from Modi’in up to Alyn in Jerusalem, but it was warm and we knew the end of the ride was coming, so everything felt great.

We finished by charging up the hill from Ein Karem to Alyn and got to ride past all the cheering people who had come to see us finish. We got mobbed by our families and high- fived each other like we had just won the Tour de France.

Even better, there to greet us were all the children being treated at Alyn. A young child in a wheelchair put a medal around my neck and his smile said it all. Now I felt guilty for ever having such negative thoughts. What the hell is a little mud compared to what we were really there for?

I will leave you with one example of why this ride is important. There is a little boy who lives in a town near Sderot. During the Gaza war, his leg was blown off by a Palestinian rocket (HELLO JUDGE GOLDSTONE?? YOU HOME??? — Sorry).

Anyway, after he was stabilized, he was fitted with a prosthetic leg. Yet learning to walk with an artificial leg is not easy, especially for a child. At first, walking is very painful. But that is exactly what you need to do for your body to get used to the leg. This boy would just not walk — it was too painful.

So at Alyn, instead of medicine, they gave him….  a rabbit. His job was to try and walk after the rabbit. Now it was no longer painful therapy – it was a game. And that is how this boy is learning to walk again. That’s Alyn for you. This kind of therapy is not covered by health insurance – it is covered by Alyn Ride insurance.

So if a boy can forget the pain and learn to walk even when it hurts him,  I guess a bike rider can forget about a  little mud and cold and just enjoy learning what he is capable of doing.

Kol HaKavod to Alyn for staging another great ride under very trying circumstances and thank you to each and every one my sponsors for making this week possible.

Next year?

Not even a question.

I’ll be there.

How about you?

Team Neve Daniel has trained as much as we can and raised the money for our sponsorships for Alyn. For everyone who sponsored us, thank you.

The weather report for the next week is grim. The Golan is expected to be cold, rainy, and muddy. Now anyone who seriously rides a bike has gotten caught in the rain more than once. A cold rain can make a ride quite difficult and uncomfortable. Basically, when it starts to come down and the trails turn to mud, there are only two ways to look at the situation:The first is to curse and shiver. We have all been there when all of a sudden the fun ride becomes like a scene from the Titanic. You feel wet from head to toe. Even if you are lucky enough to be wearing foul weather gear, cold water has a way of getting to your skin and cozying up. First you try and ride around puddles, then at some point they become big enough that you have no choice. You plunge straight through, and your body and bike end up wearing a suit of mud.

The other way to react is to accept the weather and embrace it. Know that there is nothing you can do so you might as well enjoy the fact that you are out riding a bike and see how big a splash you can make. You can’t stop the rain but wearing a smile can be even better than wearing Goretex.

But no matter how you react, the simple fact remains is that unlike your physical shape, weather is the thing you can do nothing about. I am sure there will be times in the next few days that it might seem preferable to be in a warm house with a cup of tea and a good book. But then again, this is the Alyn ride. The Alyn ride is about pushing yourself, not staying home with the cup of tea.

While a week of riding in the rain and mud might be challenging – it is absolutely nothing compared to a little girl learning to walk again. In fact, almost any child at Alyn would give anything to trade places with an Alyn rider for the week. I know that because for four years I have met many of the Alyn children after the ride and their expressions say it all. When you can’t even walk on your own, the prospect of riding a bike – in any weather – is just a dream.

So off we go on the next adventure. If the money that we have raised helps some of the Alyn children get the help they need to stop being medical patients and return to being kids, then there is no amount of rain than can make it a “bad ride.”

I hope you have a great week – rain or shine I know I will.

Let’s roll.

Chaya Bailey Bat Kelev

Last week, my family had a bit of a crisis. Our beloved dog Bailey swallowed something that was never meant to be swallowed, and it tore up her belly and intestines.

She spent a week and a half in the vet clinic in Maale Adumim where she underwent two major operations. At one point, the vet told us that the odds were heavily against her making it home.

Those who are not pet owners are forgiven for not comprehending how torn apart a family can be when a pet is near death’s door. All of us went to bed on Rosh Hashana crying, wondering if we would see our Bailey again.

Yet, despite how this episode has affected me and my family, I know that at the end of the day a dog — no matter how loved — is a dog and not a child. I do not know how on Earth parents get through it when they have a child at death’s door.

But the sad reality is that it happens, it happens far too often. Children are hurt badly in car accidents and terrorist attacks. They may survive but take years to fully heal. A child that goes to bed with a hug and kiss can wake up with cancer. The thought is terrifying, yet we all know people who have seen their world shattered in an instant by something happening to their child.

Team Neve Daniel raised over $10k last year

For the past three years I have participated in a five-day bike ride that raises money for this hospital. Every year, I take a tour of the hospital to remind myself why I do it.

Seeing the children receiving treatment always makes me smile, but seeing the parents anxiously waiting to see if their kids will be all right brings tears to my eyes. As Lance would say, “Sometimes, it’s not about the bike.”

I pray that the only involvement I ever have with a children’s hospital is to raise money for it by riding my bike. But I am glad to know that should G-d forbid I ever receive “the phone call,” there is a place here in Israel that simply does not give up on children — no matter how severe their injuries or disabilities.

Both individually and as a leader of a team of riders, I have been able to raise tens of thousands of dollars for this remarkable institution. And I intend to continue doing so as long as I can stay on my bike.

This is where you come in. Please sponsor my ride this year by clicking on the button in the right top corner of my website or just click straight to the Alyn site. Any donation helps from $1 and up.

Come on, let's ride

I know it seems odd to be planning to ride a five-day ride right after getting a concussion because I can’t stay on my bike. I accept that I am a bit nuts. But at least I’m nuts for a good cause.

May all of us — parents, kids, and even dogs — have a wonderful year.

Yarden

By the way, I brought Bailey home last night.

Yet as moving as riding in Israel is, once a year to ride a bicycle takes on another dimension. About ten years ago, some genius thought that he could use a bike ride to raise desperately needed money for a children’s hospital in Jerusalem. Apparently, many people agreed with him and the Alyn Hospital “Wheels of Love” ride began.

For the last two years, I have joined about 500 other riders for this week-long ride throughout Israel. One year, we rode from Jerusalem to Eilat traversing the Judean and Negev deserts. Last year, we started in Tiveria and finished at the Alyn hospital in Jerusalem. Riding into the cheering crowd of children being treated by Alyn and their families brought all of us to tears. This is really a lot more than a bike ride.

It is a terrible fact of life that sometimes children get seriously hurt or sick. Next time you feel like complaining about some mild malady, look at a picture of a ten year old suffering from cerebral palsy who wonders if he will have an eleventh birthday. How about the pretty seven year old who had a brain hemorrhage in the middle of the night. She wants to know if she will ever be well enough to go to school with her friends. Can we even look at the three year old whose legs were amputated after he was hit by a car and remember our own complaints?

Yes, a visit to Alyn can be very disturbing.

Yet it can also be one of the most uplifting moments you will experience. Because in this hospital, the boy with cerebral palsy is smiling because the therapy he receives is working. The girl who suffered the brain hemorrhage is learning how to eat by herself with a fork and knife. The three year old now has two tiny prosthetic legs and is riding around the halls of Alyn on a special scooter.

I have found the Alyn ride to be an intensely physical challenge. Yet I know that it is really not that bad. After all, it is a challenge that I eagerly embrace every year. No one wants to get sick or be hit by a car.

There are few things that I am as proud of doing in my life as having raised about $10,000 for the Alyn children over the past two years. This year, I am leading a team of riders from Neve Daniel. Together we need to raise $8,000. Please help me ride again this year by giving a donation to Alyn. All you need to do is go to the website http://www.alynus.org/SPONSORRIDER/US and click on “sponsor a rider.” Choose your donation amount and put my name in as the sponsored rider.

You will receive an e-mail from Alyn thanking you and one from me too. But the best thanks you will have is knowing that you really did help a child who has nowhere else to turn.

Come on, ride with me. You won’t regret it.

Shabbat Shalom from our blessed nation.

For five days, over 500 riders rode through the north of Israel gradually making our way towards the hospital in Jerusalem. Every time we thought the hardest part was over, we rounded the corner into even greater challenges. We would climb into the sun and then descend at incredible speeds over rocky footpaths. We rode on pavement, gravel, rocks, and mud. When the terrain flattened out, we shifted to the big gears and rode like the wind. When we finished for the day, we were covered in dust and sweat. At night, we would shower, eat three or four dinners, and crawl into bed. The next day we woke at 5:00 A.M., ready to do it again.

So now that I am home and starting to feel my legs and other parts of my body, I try to figure out just why the heck I loved it so much. I could say that it is all for the hospital, but you know what? I have seen many institutions that run on donations and nothing is as moving as this place. You see kids struggling to walk again. You see parents who receive a short phone call about a car accident and now practically live in the waiting room. You see doctors, therapists, and even medical clowns trying to get kids who thought their lives were over to smile again. We all should donate and raise money to help these kids, even if we don’t know how to ride a bike.

2007-11-08bThere is an old midrash that says “Without pain, there is no gain.” (O.K., if it’s not from a midrash then it’s from a Nike commercial, but you get the point.) All of us take on things that are challenging because of some vague hope that the result of our effort will be worth far more than the struggle we put ourselves through. It’s part of our nature as human beings to want to see just what we are capable of.

One day as we were resting our aching bodies and wolfing down chicken, one of the representatives from Alyn showed us pictures of some of the kids who were in the hospital. They had been injured in road accidents, terrorism, or suffered from muscular disease. For many of them, the challenge of learning how to walk is an even greater challenge than the one we all faced riding.

I was born forty years ago. For a while it has been difficult for me to admit that age was gaining on me. But you know what? I was faster than many riders younger than me and slower than some who were older. A guy who I rode with most of the way has a daughter who is forty. “You just can’t ride a bike at forty as fast as you can at eighteen.” Who says that?

We can do whatever we set our minds on. Every day we can find a new challenge. And we shouldn’t be turned away because the task appears too difficult. Because whatever hill you decide to climb, the harder the effort to get to the top, the more spectacular the view.

Will I do the ride again next year?

It’s not even a question. The only question is… will you ride with me?

Shabbat Shalom from our blessed nation.

Wheel of Love

I am writing on Friday right before Shabbat. Tomorrow night I leave for Tiberia to join the Alyn Charity Bike ride. About 500 men and women will be riding bikes from the North of Israel to Jerusalem. One week with nothing to do but ride. Talk about the ultimate vacation.

As much fun as these rides are, I have to remind myself why we are doing it. After all, the fact that 500 people get a break from work, family, and e-mail is nice, but it is only really significant for those of us who are riding. Of far greater significance are the kids at the Alyn hospital who are the beneficiaries of about $3,000,000 that we will raise from this ride.

Let’s face it, life is really, really hard if your child needs to stay in a hospital. The kids there are not ones with little scratches, these are kids who need attention around the clock. They will never be the same as before they came.

Most hospitals send family home at night. Not Alyn. Not only can parents stay there (in beds – not cots – round the clock, the waiting room has a refrigerator and showers. They even have a neat play area for the brothers and sisters of the patients who might be a bit nervous to visit a hospital.

As amazing as the facility is, the kids there are even more so. I met someone who has a severe muscular condition. He has no control over almost his entire body. He has a computer which he operates by using a stick manipulated by his mouth. Despite this challenge, he apparently set up a computer supply business on the Internet and is running it out of his room at Alyn. The guy who lives next door to him paints pictures. He paints by using a brush held in his mouth. Despite their serious conditions, they are not forced to wear the standard issue hospital robes which have that lovely habit of flapping open in the back. They can dress like anyone else. Yes, their rooms have medical equipment in them, but they also have posters and paintings and whatever personal touches they want.

Hey world, how about this story. While Israel was going after Islamic Jihad terrorists, a family was in the wrong place at the wrong time. An Israeli missile that killed an arch-terrorist also killed all the members of a Gazan family except for a father, son, and daughter. Go ahead and blame us if you want, but we all know that if the Jihadists stopped their Jihad, there would be fewer tragedies like this. Knowing that the terrorists’ goal is to kill Israeli children like my own, I can’t really say that we made a mistake. Yet the suffering of this innocent family is still a tragedy.

Anyway, this little girl, whose name is Maria, was so badly injured that she was taken from Gaza to Alyn. Her father, Hamdi, accompanied her, and he has never left her side. The government of Israel paid for her treatment for a year and then told the hospital to send her back. The only hitch is that in Gaza she would be dead within twenty-four hours. You see, our “peace partners” tend to spend all their cash on bullets and rockets instead of healthcare. So the director of the hospital told the government to stuff it, and Maria continues to receive treatment at Alyn. I wish her father could wheel Maria to Annapolis and ask the “peace conference” delegates to again explain how Israel is an Apartheid state. How much does the Palestinian Authority pay for the treatment of Jews injured by acts of terrorism?

I have found many special places in Israel. Some are special because of their spiritual importance. Some have a fascinating history. Still others are unbelievably beautiful. But some places here are special because of what we accomplish. The Alyn Children’s Hospital is just such a place.

And that’s why I am on vacation next week.

Shabbat Shalom from our blessed nation.

Some have told us that making Aliyah, or living in the “West Bank” is an act of courage. But no, while there are many positive ways to describe life here, I am reserving the word “courage.”

If you read the quotations from virtually any Palestinian leader, you will hear them use the word “courage” over and over again to describe valiant warriors who shoot rockets and bullets at children. But their use of the term is obscene.

In the packets of materials that Alyn gives out to the riders is a letter from a young boy named Raz. He writes:

“On May 10th 2002, my family and I were in a terrible road crash. My older sister, Eden, was killed. The doctors said that if I lived, I would be a ‘vegetable.’ When I regained consciousness, mummy told me what had happened and said ‘If you want to go on living, you will have to work very hard.’ The next day I moved a finger….” That’s courage.

Tzur was a ten year old boy talented in math, flute and gymnastics. One day he was out with his father and some friends when he was shot in the head by terrorists from a passing car. He has received all kinds of treatments at Alyn including “animal” therapy and even “humor” therapy with Alyn’s resident magician. On my tour, they told me that sometimes kids are so terrified after trauma, that they simply will not respond to any type of traditional stimulus. Alyn does everything possible to find some way of bringing these children back. Now Tzur is making great progress. In fact, the headline in the story about Tzur from Alyn was “Terror Victim Smiles Again.” That’s courage.

Alyn also gives you a picture of a child being treated at the hospital that all riders are asked to affix to their bikes. These pictures were put together by a girl named Sara. Sara was also severely injured in a car accident. She was brought to Alyn, unable to walk or speak. It was not easy for Sara to help put 485 pictures together, but she wanted to thank Alyn for helping her. That’s courage.

Remember how much of the world’s press blamed Israel for a “disproportionate” reaction to the Hizbollah rocket attacks? They implied that these rockets were really not that dangerous. Well, along with hundreds of thousands of Israelis who had to stay in bomb shelters for a month was a certain severely handicapped child. He needs daily therapy as well as special equipment. Needless to say, while bomb shelters generally provide protection, this boy was in great danger in the shelter. Alyn took him in where he stayed until the cease-fire.

You want courage? I give you the children of Alyn. Every day. And even more, it is the staff at Alyn that show courage. How can anyone face day after day, young kids who instead of being outside playing ball are trying to relearn how to hold a fork and knife by themselves? Every day, these miracle workers greet the children with big smiles and then sit down and try to figure out how they can help patch them back together so that these children regain some part of their childhood.

Now that, my friends, is courage.

If you would like to make a donation to Alyn, please go to the website http://www.alynride.org/alyn/onlineDonations.php.

Shabbat Shalom from our blessed nation.