The Israeli bicycle craze 🚴
When the rider becomes a philosopher, and the trail — a dusty synagogue with a helmet
🚴♀️ What connects a 44-year-old high-tech engineer, a pediatrician from Jerusalem, and a carpenter from the Galilee?
No, this is not the beginning of a joke — this is the beginning of a mountain bike trip.
Once upon a time, cycling was a thing for kids with shorts and injured knees.
Today? It’s a religion.
And its temples — are not in Jerusalem, but on dusty trails in the south, in the endless greenery of the Carmel, or in a strange section in the middle of Nes Ziona that suddenly became a “medium-challenging singletrack with technical descents and switchbacks.”
Welcome to the Israel of 2025 — the only country where you can see someone pedaling at the pace of a ballistic missile on an uphill climb, roaring “Come on, knees!” and immediately stopping to take a mustard photo.
🚲 Don’t Covet Your Neighbor’s Bike
Israel, the Holy Land, has raised a new generation of believers.
They don’t pray with a siddur – but with a Garmin watch, a helmet with a GoPro, and tighter pants than the Ministry of Transportation budget.
But wait, what’s so appealing about mountain biking?
First – there’s the equipment.
Riding is the most elegant excuse an Israeli can find to buy something for 9,800 NIS and tell his wife: “It’s for your health!” And sometimes health is just about the ego.
Second – there is the togetherness.
Every Saturday morning: gangs of five men sweating and shouting at each other “Dude, give me an energy gel,” as if it were a rare drug.
Among them, there will always be one with a bandaged knee, one who is giving a briefing, and one who shouts “Come on, chillers, this is a hike, not a race!”
🚴🏼♂️ Types of riders (or: survival guide for singles)
1. The frustrated leader:
Always comes first.
Angry at the pace.
Yells “Get a grip on yourselves!” while fueling up with a pretzel full of magnesium.
2. The constant documentarian:
Photographs every rock, every stone.
Knows how to turn an hour-long ride into a 12-minute YouTube video, with trance music and the caption: “We went down Hashel Hill – madness.”
3. The Suffering Spiritualist:
Comes to nature, not to the kilometer.
Talks about the meaning of life in the middle of an ascent, then is surprised that no one answers because everyone is dying.
4. The New One:
A friend who joined this week.
Dressed in bright clothes, his chain fell off after the first kilometer, and he still asks if he should pedal downhill.
5. The Legendary Old Man:
Age 66, beats the ascent like it’s nothing.
Leaves dust for everyone, spits aside, laughs at us.
Probably did reserve duty while you were getting your degree.
🚵 Singles – Not What You Thought
In the dating world, “singles” is a bit of a stretch.
But in the Israeli cycling world, single is not a single person – but a path the width of one wheel where the pedaling brotherhood was born.
Israel is full of singles.
They are built with love, plowed with sweat, and remind us all of how beautiful this country is when you can’t see it from the car window.
Among the famous singles you will find:
- Ben Shemen: The Grand Canyon of the center of the country. Full of riders, roots, and babies on balance bikes.
- Ein Zivan: A forest ride in the Golan Heights, with the scent of apples and staring cows.
- Tze’elim in the South: The place where you ask yourself if it’s really a good idea to ride 34 km in the desert with two dates in your bag.
🚴 How cycling has changed To a kind of exile kibbutz?
The riders come from all walks of life:
- Ashkenazim, Mizrahi, secular, religious, residents of the north and Tel Aviv with 800 shekel cycling clothes.
- Dog owners, insurance consultants, discharged officers and science teachers – all with a helmet, a smile, and a tight muscle.
After all, what connects the most diverse people in the country?
Dust, sweat, and pain in the thigh muscles.
Nobody asks who you vote for, only if you brought a spare inner tube.
🚴♀️ The philosophy of the pedal
Make no mistake – it’s not just a sport.
It’s healing.
Off-road cycling is the most Israeli way to stop thinking.
There’s no time for political anxieties when you’re flying down a technical descent at 30 km/h and trying not to swallow a grasshopper.
There is no room for existential fear when you are crossing a knee-high wadi while hearing someone yell “Keep your line! Keep your line!”
In this sense, the bike is a psychologist, yoga, personal trainer, and guided tour all rolled into one.
And the helmet? Just reminds you that you are mortal with a tendency to crash on rocks.
☕ The Coffee After Death
There is no real bike trip without black coffee and borax after.
This is where alliances are born, inside jokes are made, and WhatsApp groups are opened with names like: “The Riders of Suffering,” “Back Plate,” or “Pedal and Zhalash.”
And if there’s anything more Israeli than a 3-hour ride and then mushroom borax – we haven’t heard of it.
🏆 And finally: Pedal and more pedal
So yes, mountain biking is crazy.
Expensive, painful, sometimes dangerous – and yet, thousands of Israelis get up every Saturday at 5:30 a.m. (of their own accord!) to pedal up a depressing climb in stunning scenery, sweat, curse, laugh – and return home with a smile.
It’s not just a sport.
It’s a way of life.
And it’s so Israeli – a little crazy, full of passion, with a lot of dirt –
But it makes you want more.
הירשמו כדי לקבל את הפוסטים האחרונים אל המייל שלכם
