Perhaps I should have regarded it as a bad omen that my borrowed hybrid bicycle somehow punctured its tire the day before the largest cycling relay race of the year, but after getting the tire patched up by Sari at midnight in Cycling Jordan, I thought that everything would be taken care of. We had three bikes (Rami brought his mountain bike as a spare), copious supplies sponsored Red Bull, and a sack of Snickers bars. What we didn’t have, though, was extra tubes for the hybrid. We knew we were walking into possible danger with that carefree disregard of proper safety procedure, but there were simply no hybrid tires to be found in the entire country, as we found out…they needed to be specially imported from the America or Europe.

It was too late to do anything about it now, and we cheerfully piled into our trusty silver Intracom pickup truck. Perhaps it was the copious amounts of sugar in our bloodstream, the onions and garlic from the spaghetti dinner, or merely lack of sleep, but we were in giddy high spirits as we roared down the highway, shouting and waving out the windows at other bike-laden trucks. The twinkling lights of the Palestinian/Israeli towns on the other side of the Jordan River greeted us as we approached the foggy Dead Sea, and after some confusion as to where we were actually supposed to start, we met up with the rest of the starting trucks and exited into the warm night air.

Last year, I was a stranger to the Dead2Red biking groups, but this year, I felt like I knew at least half of the people involved! I found Aaron and Laura with their own biking group and rented mountain bikes, looking doubly determined and in equally high spirits. Rob from choir was ready to head out a half-hour early with the single riders, and I told him about my friends Luay and Kamal from last year who had preceded him in the lonely solo 250 kilometers, the latter on a mountain bike. I high-fived the gregarious Samir, the organizer of the entire event who had accompanied Cycling Jordan’s trip to Beyda last year and he shouted “Free sandwiches for everybody!” while yanking open the back of his pickup truck to reveal a crate-load of turkey sandwiches. All the guys from Cycling Jordan were there, like Sari, Hussein, Sinnan, and Sa’ad and his son. The atmosphere was festive as we unloaded Omar’s sleek 5-kilo racing bike from our truck and we all agreed that the weather was certainly so much warmer and nicer than last year. And what a pleasant breeze!
*cue ominous foreshadowing music*

‘This is the bike that’s going to win us a trophy!’ I roared giddily. ‘Why does he smell like sugary drinks?’ they asked.

We had already decided on our racing order. Rami would go first, clearing the way to take the lead early. “Don’t be afraid to use your elbows,” we told him. We were joking, mostly. Then, after five kilometers, I’d take over on the hybrid bike, followed by Omar, then Micha, and finally Andrew. After the solo riders left at 3:30 AM, everyone quieted down a little bit, focusing on stretching, testing their bikes, and discussing strategies with friends. As for me, I was trying to help some friends of mine from choir that were on their way down from Amman when their support vehicle got not one but two flat tires, leaving them stranded still 20 kilometers from the start line. They barely made it in time for the start at 4 AM, but they had arrived by the time the pistol cracked, sending the ~20 bikers from the 3 and 5 person flying into the darkness.

Just like last year, our support truck was close behind them, and our four pairs of eyes strained to find Rami in the mass of juking and jiving reflective jerseys. This year, Samir and his team mandated that all runners and cyclists must wear the provided reflective jerseys during the nighttime hours, on pain of disqualification, and it definitely made it harder to pick Rami out of the crowd. After a few minutes, we found him and shouted encouragement as he climbed up the first couple small hills near the large potash factories of the Dead Sea.

It seemed like only a few minutes had passed before Rami called out for me to replace him, and before I even knew what was happening, the car was careening to a halt, and I was leaping out the door. Last year, team DRed Shaheen did 10 kilometer sprints, and this year’s 5 KM’s made things seem a lot more frantic. Rami was already right on me as I grabbed the hybrid out of the truck bed, checked the seat height…and the tires…and then I was off!

Those reflective vests definitely did their job…but made it much harder for cameras with flash!

Continue reading this post…

I really should be in bed right now. Andrew, the Dead 2 Red teammate with the backup truck, is going to be picking me up in 3 hours from now, and I only now just got done cleaning up the kitchen downstairs from the Second Annual Dead 2 Red Spaghetti Dinner (it’s a mouthful, pun intended). Instead, I’m drinking copious amounts of water and taking some aspirin to settle a headache. Probably stress related instead of anything else!

I was at work late today setting up a new computer, which directly led me to be late getting home to start on the spaghetti. I brought down all the pots, pans, and spices, as well as a few cans of tomato paste I’d purchased last autumn. Daniel was helpful in saving me by chopping onions, as I was trying to keep track of too many things at once and sliced open my index finger pretty badly. We saved the onions, don’t worry.

The interesting thing happened right after Omar and Rami arrived…I took the can opener to the small, six-ounce can of tomato paste and without any warning whatsoever the thing exploded with a sound like a dozen pop cans opening at once. Rami, a few meters away from me stirring the meat, looked at me in shock as his black jacket is covered with tomato paste, and I wiped chunks of it off of my chin. This has got to be a new record for an exploding-can-of-tomato-paste because it not only reached about 10 meters horizontal distance, but did quite well going straight up, too.

I can only be glad that Philip wasn't here to see this (if you're reading, don't worry, I stood on the table with a sponge afterward!)

That mishap aside, most of the paste stayed in the can, and the rest of the dinner proceeded deliciously and without issue. Although Andrew wasn’t able to attend, Micha came a little later and we all got to try on our Intracom-sponsored jerseys to make sure that they fit…not that we’d have time to do anything about it if they didn’t, and they were one-size-fits-all anyway!

The Intracom team chows down on some carbohydrates

In other news, Dozan had another choir concert last night, all the way on the other side of Amman in al-Hashmi Shmali. Apparently there’s a weekly concert with classical muwashahaat (folk music) instruments and singing. This time, Dozan was invited as one of the acts. We sang four songs in Arabic, with titles like “White Pigeon” (possibly dove, actually, I don’t know if I translated that right), and “Raise Your Hands” while accompanied by instruments like the six-stringed, guitar-like Oud and what looked like a harpsichord. We also had backup singers too, although they were more like the regular singers, and we were encroaching on their turf! They were docile, friendly looking middle aged and older Arab men, many placidly clutching prayer beads which they twisted absentmindedly as they sang their low, ululating tones. They had a soloist, too, who sang Arabic love songs in a beautiful baritone and really milked the audience.

For their part, the audience loved it and went wild for all of us. As wild as 70 elderly people can go, clapping gently along with us and nodding and smiling happily, sometimes snapping their fingers and waving their arms shakily in the air. It was all quite adorable, and I wish that Dozan could have sang for them longer.

The only problem was with the sound system, which appeared to have been set up by monkeys that only knew how to go up to “eleven” – they put our group in the corner of the room to wait, right next to these massive speakers that crackled ominously with way-too-much reverb and barely-contained power. After the concert started, it seriously felt like my ears were going to start bleeding at any moment, and most of us crowded away towards the other side of the room to try to escape, probably a futile effort.

Only 2 and a half hours until Andrew arrives. Time to put the camera on the charger and get to bed. Personally, I’ll be happy if we can beat 8 hours and 12 minutes, our team’s time from last year. Wish us luck!

My housemate Dan and I were sitting at the kitchen table a few days ago on our laptops, and he mentioned that a professor at Duke University had done a study on Southern Jordan’s natural water aquifers. Seems there’s a little issue with cancer-causing levels of the radioactive element Radium in the water, on the lines of 2000% above international and EPA-recommended safe levels for drinking water. It apparently doesn’t affect Amman or the northern part of the country, but people in the south and even in nearby countries (Saudi, Palestine, Israel) should definitely have cause for alarm.

The above video sums up his research, in which he also adds his advice for an easy resolution.

In fact, you can manage it. It’s not something that’s impossible to manage. A simple ionic change, a softener, would remove the radium from the water. Reverse osmosis distillation would do the same.”

I found Doctor Vengosh’s address at Duke University and emailed him to ask him about showering in radium-filled water in Aqaba. He replied to me within a few hours, reassuring me that although he certainly advised against consuming any of the water in the area, showering should not be a problem because the radium is not entering your body and being absorbed into your bones, which is how it affects people who drink it.

It’s not for certain now, but there’s a strong possibility that I’ll be doing some work or projects down in the Aqaba region, Jordan’s southernmost city, which will necessitate me visiting the area much more frequently. If the fix that Vengosh proposes is so simple, I can only pray that it’s been brought to the attention of the Jordanian authorities by now and that subsidized softeners (at least) have been provided for the citizens. More than anything else, I’d worry about the safety of the Bedouin, native Arabs who still live out in the desert with original wells who are probably not buying filtered bottled water from corner markets like the average Aqaban.

It’s something I’ll definitely ask around about in Aqaba when I’m there in five days for the Dead 2 Red. But no matter how hard I’m panting at the end of the race, I won’t be swigging down the first open bottle that’s proffered to me.

What happened to the desert country of Jordan? It rained all day today, the last Friday before the Dead 2 Red, so hard that Rami, Omar and I canceled our training plans in the hopes that we’ll have better luck tomorrow or some other time in the week.

I forgot I hadn’t set my new LG mobile to go off on the weekends. Rami called me 10 minutes before our scheduled 8:20 meeting time and warned me that he was going to be late, to which I blearily told him not to worry about it, I’d also be a little behind. The road-bike tires on my borrowed bicycle did not enjoy the wet, cracked road and the climb to the summit of Jebel Amman, but at least I didn’t have to worry about puddling here…unlike later. Rami met me at 3rd near his house, and we called Hussein and told him we were on our way.

Rami and I prepare to start out from 3rd Circle

Zahran Street was a roaring torrent of improperly drained rainwater, fog, and what suspiciously looked like oil slicks. I felt like I was in a bad 80’s video game, dodging honking taxis that came at from me behind like angry bees, swerving around overflowing sewer grates, and trying to see farther than 10 meters in front of me so I wouldn’t smash into a partially hidden curb. “ISN’T BIKING FUN” I bellowed to Rami, who was grimly hunched over on his mountain bike behind me. “IN MY STATE IT CAN BE THIS WAY FOR WEEKS.”

I’ve only realized in the past week that there is a 4% grade from 3rd circle up to 6th circle, something I never noticed in a taxi or when walking. But when you’re on a bike, a four kilometer slow uphill slowly saps you until you want to fling yourself under the tires of the next smog-belching semi that wheezes past you. And today as I crested 6th circle, I found with a sinking feeling that a sudden downhill in the rain on a bike with no fenders is a recipe for leg drenching. Rami roared with exultation (he loves downhills and he was wearing Gore-tex) and tore past me, vanishing into the fog.

Hussein wearing a hat you don't see very often in Jordan, which he uses as raingear - or to dress up as a cowboy.

By the time we reached Cycling Jordan, I weighed an extra three kilos from the water I was carrying in my jeans. Hussein guffawed at my bedraggled appearance and pulled up a chair for me next to the electric heater under his desk. Apart from a couple of Cycling Jordan guides and Omar, the place was deserted. He explained to the three of us that they were canceling the beginner group’s ride because of the weather. We decided that discretion was the better part of valor and postponed our own ride, too. No sense in getting sick a week before the largest ride of the year.

We finished off our morning at The Bakehouse, an excellent American-style pancake and waffle place near the Anglican Church on first circle. While we were in the restaurant, hail started pouring out onto the metal roofs of the buildings nearby, stilling conversation and making us and all the other patrons stare out the windows with amazement. So what if we had only done 7.5 kilometers instead of 80; it isn’t every week when you find your city in the middle of a monsoon!

Rami enjoys a "Bakehouse Grand Slam." Unfortunately, that's only beef bacon on his plate, not ACTUAL bacon.

Here’s a video from one of my fellow choir members, taken at our show at the King Hussein Cultural Center. We were the last five minutes of a two-hour long presentation, but Shireen said that the audience complimented her on it and said that they were looking forward to seeing more. Since the primary purpose of this “mini-show” was to gain sponsorship and attract attention, then it can definitely be considered a success!

In case you’re wondering about that little bit of almost-unintelligible Arabic we stuck in at the end of Ascot Gavotte, I’ve been told that what we’re singing is a bit of an old Jordanian folk song about romance, the woman asking to be taken to Zarqa’ and teasingly calling the man “little boy” (ya Walaad), then the man being insulted and telling her that he won’t take her, then telling her to be quiet, (ay Ooskut). Obviously, the last bit is a play on the fact that the phrase to tell someone “be quiet!” in Arabic is almost the same as the title of the song.

For the first time in a year and a half, I mounted a bicycle today with the purpose of traveling to my place of work instead of for recreation. With the Dead 2 Red just around the corner and a week and a half away, I want to make sure that I’m in the best shape possible. I’ve just finished making a new version of Cycling Jordan’s website, which I will probably unveil in about a week, or whenever Sa’ad tells me to do so. In return, Sa’ad is allowing me to borrow one of his road bikes for my training purposes until the Dead 2 Red, something that I plan on using extensively as often as I can!

Why not make your breathing mask fun? You're going to get stared and hollered at anyway; might as well go all the way.

Biking in the streets of Amman is nothing like biking back when I was in college in Madison. For one thing, you fear for your life a lot more, either from being pancaked into the grille of a Hummer or from being asphyxiated by vehicle fumes. It’s a common joke here in Jordan that most of the heavy transport trucks seen around the city were purchased on the cheap by local companies from Europe because they simply wouldn’t pass European emissions laws. Well, Europe’s garbage is our treasure here in Jordan, I guess, because these smog-belching vehicles from the last century are quite prevalent. Whether you’re on a bicycle or in a car with an open window, you can always tell when one of these beasts is coming up behind you, because somehow they’re so foul that their pollution actually precedes them, causing eyes to water and vision to blur.

Ironically, the opposite quality of vehicle is proportionally just as prevalent in Jordan. There are Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, and Hummer dealerships all within a few kilometers of each other near Mecca Street where Cycling Jordan has its shops, and it seems as if drivers here have a mindset that the nicer their car is, the more right they have to crush you like a bug if you do something as foolish as obey common traffic etiquette rules.

So yes, fearing for my life was how I started out the morning. I had successfully made it back from choir to my house last night, even without my helmet, a light, or any reflective clothes. But that was a 3 minute drive at 10:00 at night when the roads were comparatively empty. My heart sank at the thought of biking 22 KM to work, all the way in Ayn al Basha, and then coming back up the hill. I left home at 10:25 in the morning, but immediately ran into problems when I discovered I couldn’t shift into the lowest gear on my front set. Not a huge deal in the Jebel Amman area with its moderate hills, but there’s a 350 meter climb from Ayn al Basha back into Amman and I knew that would be impossible without that low gear. I decided to head to the shop first to have the specialists look at it.

It was an interesting trip, just like I knew it would be. Amman during the work week is much busier than the silent Friday holy day, and my colorful yellow and green jersey, helmet, and facemask got a lot of stares and calls from peanut gallery. “HELLO WHAT THIS? WHERE YOU GO?” was a frequent phrase bellowed at me from the sidewalk. Bikers here just learn to smile, wave, and ignore everything else… “Polite Indifference” is the best way to deal with gawking hecklers. Then there are the busloads of soldiers who whoop uncontrollably at you, the drivers that play chicken with you, and the aforementioned black smoke following behind 15% of the vehicles on the road. But of course there are the fun parts, like when little children stare at you from their driveways, awestruck, and rush out to the edge of the road, jumping up and down with huge smiles, waving and crying “HELLO! HELLO! HELLO!”

Hussein, the lanky young Egyptian man who manages the shop for Sa’ad, looked me up and down and chuckled as I entered. He’s a wizard with bike maintenance and had the gears readjusted and a new water bottle holder installed in 5 minutes. He asked me where I was heading, and raised his bushy eyebrow when I said I was going down into the Ayn al Basha region. And you’re going to go back up the hill then, too? he asked, to which I merely replied, “insha’allah!”

Of course, the ride down that magnificent hill wasn’t without problems. A hidden pothole got me as I was only a few hundred meters from the bottom of the hill, causing the handlebars to slide downwards a little bit. The bike itself was completely undamaged (although I almost had a heart attack after narrowly avoiding being struck by a manure truck) but I knew that before I would attempt to return up this hill, the handlebars would need to be re-aligned. My coworkers found my getup to be hilarious, especially the mask and shorts. Shorts are an article of clothing that just isn’t worn in Jordan unless you’re a child or on the beach. One of the other teachers asked to buy the bike from me for reasons I can’t fathom (Taher’s never biked a day in his life) and our janitor, Wusam, wanted to know if he could join the Dead 2 Red team.

Khalil drove me back up to the top of the hill in his truck, after Wajih and Aaron derided me for not biking the behemoth instead. “Next time!” I told them, “when the whole bike is working in perfect condition!” The sun was going down by now, and I suddenly realized that just because I was in a desert country in February didn’t mean that it wasn’t February. I was wearing a biking jersey and shorts, and I was cold. Jordan doesn’t usually have much wind chill (or wind for that matter, except for about 50 days in April and May) but that becomes moot when you’re biking down a highway at 30 km/h.

Honestly, regardless of the small mishaps of the day, I really enjoyed re-introducing myself to the practicality of a bike. I joke about how terrifying the drivers can be, but actually they were a lot better than I was dreading. I’ve never biked in New York City, but I imagine that this is how New York would be for bikers if they didn’t have nice things like emissions laws and biking lanes. And the time saving! It normally takes me 50 minutes to walk from 6th Circle back to my house, but on the bike going along the same route I’m able to do it in 15-20 minutes. I’m going to be sad to give the bike back to Sa’ad after the Dead 2 Red is over…but maybe this experience will be the thing that pushes me in the bike-owners category!