Cycle Palestine: chapter 1 - physical challenge

Why Take Part
 
In 2018, I signed up to take part in a fundraising cycle ride through the West Bank.  It was organised by and raising money for Medical Aid for Palestinians www.map.org.uk.  There were thirty places on the ride.

I have supported the Palestinian struggle against occupation for a long time, but I had never been there before 2018.  I had some misgivings, because I had always said that I didn’t want to go as a tourist. A fundraising cycle ride seemed a little close to tourism in my mind, but I convinced myself to take part on two grounds.
 
Firstly, there was an element of physical challenge, which has a certain kind of appeal.
 
Secondly, in doing my fundraising, both before and after the event, it would be an opportunity to talk about Palestine as much as possible and meet people and groups that I might not normally have had the chance to talk to.
 
The Physical Challenge
 
There were two main challenges that we were warned about.  One was the heat, but there wasn’t much preparation I could do for that in the English winter.  The other was that the West Bank is very hilly.  Not being as light as I once was, I knew that hills would definitely be a challenge.
 
But hills I could prepare for.  In Lewisham, we’ve got Vicars Hill.  If I could crack Vicars Hill, surely there could be nothing any tougher than that in the West Bank?

One day, being too bored or lazy to cycle any distance, I just cycled repeatedly over Vicars Hill for a couple of hours.
 
Also, it turned out that seven of the riders were from south east London, so we met up a few times and went for training rides that always seemed to end at Vicars Hill.
 
I should mention that there is cake at the top of that hill, which provides a lot of motivation for getting up there.  It’s in the very good and supportive (of Palestine) café in Hilly Fields.
 
Hills Further Afield
 
I ventured into the borough of Bromley, where you can find a 1 : 4 hill in Cudham.

I really had cycled up that, although it could only be done by zigzagging from side to side to make it more of a shallow climb.
 
Mechanical Challenges
 
The day I went to Cudham, I was tought a lesson about supporting corporations like Sports Direct. I got a puncture, and this was what happened to the spare tube I had purchased from Sports Direct a few days earlier.

On another training ride, I had two punctures in one day.  Someone kindly photographed me fixing one of them.