31 dead mountain bikers piled up...

September 10th, 2010: Today I successfully completed a 64 kilometer (39.7677563 miles), 3,400 meters (11 154.8556 feet) downhill bike ride on, “The Death Road.” This year…only 1 Israeli mountain biker died shooting off the edge, when yearly this road use to average anywhere between 200 – 300 deaths for those in cars, buses, trucks and anything else in four wheels before the “new” road opened about 4 years ago.

Over the last 15 years…31 dead mountain bikers piled up at the bottom and I can see how people died on this because the scenery is beautiful making it hard to stay focused on the narrow road. I guess if I was going to plummet to my death…this would be the place to be – there would be a lot of air time before impact…a lot.

When starting the ride, I told myself I was just going to take it slow. This is just what I did…I would take it slow letting everyone get far ahead, then needing to catch up I just “had” to go…fast. I reinforced my realization today that sometimes…I don’t always make the smartest choices.

Thinking about it, when riding down this road…if nobody dies on it anymore, the tour companies would no longer be able to sell their tour for a premium because it wouldn’t matter what types of bikes or safety equipment they provide. And, if nobody dies on “The Death Road” the name of the tour would have to change due to false advertisement. After abandoning the current name and changing it to “The Happy Road”- who would even want to do it let alone get a t-shirt saying that they completed “The Happy Road”?

With this said, the companies can’t possibly eliminate all deaths and only have serious injuries…there needs to be a sacrifice or two every year in order to maintain the excitement and heavy flow of income to the tour companies and t-shirt manufactures so that they can feed their families. Today...I was obviously not one of those sacrificed, since you have to be a virgin – a female virgin.