It finished with 40 people riding into Istanbul amid Bayram (Eid) traffic, chants, beeping horns and shouts of support. 33 of us had just tackled 300 kilometres of mountainous Turkish terrain, starting in Bandirma on the Marmaris sea, onto Çanakkale, Tekirdag, and finishing in Istanbul. This was by far the toughest of all four Cycling4Gaza challenges. Despite our tour guide John’s best attempts to make us believe that we would be cycling on relatively flat roads for the most part, we soon discovered that his definition of flat was any kind of hill that wasn’t a full-fledged mountain. We tackled hill after hill after hill, reaching an elevation of over 1,230 meters on the first day, gasping for breath at the top of some of the most beautiful landscapes we had seen.

Perhaps the most memorable night was the first one. Continue Reading…