MY LUNGS are pumping fit to burst in the thin mountain air, but I still feel as if I’m making no headway up the hill. The road feels as steep as a wall, and I’m not helped by the bottom three gears on my mountain bike, which have chosen the time I need them most to go on strike. It’s as if they flew planes for Cyprus Airways and it was the height of the season.
“How are you doing?” a friendly voice asks. Between gasps, I mumble a reply unintelligible even to myself, but this friendly, obscenely fit fellow mountain biker concerned about my welfare is generous with his encouragement. “Since you can still talk, you’re doing quite well,” he spurs me on.
A colleague had told me the previous Wednesday of the bike ride up beyond St Hilarion castle in the Pentadactylos range, organised by Duke Bedelian of the Cyprus Mountain Bike Club. My daily bicycle ride to work and back (less than two kilometres both ways) gave me sufficient confidence in my biking abilities to make it seem like a good idea. A phone call to Duke elicited the reassurance that it was going to be a “leisurely, recreational mountain bike ride”. Duke strongly recommended I get myself a helmet, a safety measure I’d neglected for my daily ride to work. Self-preservation is always a good argument with me, and I made sure I bought a helmet the day before.
So off I set on Sunday morning with colleague Gregory and his charming wife and daughter to the Ledra Palace checkpoint, my bike lubricated, my new helmet on my head, passport ready for inspection. Am I pissed off at having to show a passport to enter a part of my own country? Absolutely. Will I let that stop me? Absolutely not. Am I going to enter yet another pointless discussion about whether doing so is a treasonable act and should be punished by exile, decapitation, or forced watching of Survivor? Don’t hold your breath. Am I looking forward to the day when all this nonsense is finally dumped in the dustbin of history where it belongs? Do mountain bikes have sprockets?
We meet the rest of the merry band of bikers and exchange brief pleasantries as the bikes are loaded onto the bus for the ride up to St Hilarion. There are people of various ages, of both genders and from both sides of the Green Line. Most importantly to me, there appear to be people of varying levels of physical fitness; my fears of being abandoned to expire by the roadside are somewhat allayed.
The bus — which must have started its career in Germany in the days of Chancellor Schmidt, as evidenced by the “No Smoking” and “No Talking To The Driver” signs in German, and the funky Seventies bodywork and colour scheme — overheats going up the mountain. The driver gives it a forced rest just before tackling the last, really steep part, and the bikers joke about giving the bus driver a lift up the mountain. Radiator temperature eventually drops to acceptable levels and the steep and bendy bit is tackled with gusto. Who said Ayrton Senna died? He lives and drives a bus in northern Cyprus…
I had already been to St Hilarion once since the Green Line was opened on April 23, but the spectacle of the magnificent castle on the rock is still breathtaking. Soon, however, I am to have my breath taken away rather more literally. The bikes are off-loaded and assembled, and soon the formation masses for a photo before setting off down the castle road, and then up the hill.
I set a good pace at the start, but soon the grim reality is brought home firmly that cycling a kilometre to work doesn’t make up for a life exercising my wrists on a keyboard. I am desperately out of breath, but relieved to be in the middle of the field and not bringing up the rear as in my days of school and army PE, when I was widely acknowledged to be a leading candidate for most unfit teenager on the island. And the view is awe-inspiring. Breathless or not, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.
By getting off the bike and pushing in the really steep bits, I eventually get my breath back and make it up the hill. It is then revealed by those in charge that, having made it up the hill, we are to come back down the same route. I am relieved I didn’t know that before; finding a nice bit of shade and waiting for the others to come back down, standard jogging practice whenever I could get away with it in school and army days, would have been too great a temptation. Going down is exhilarating, and leaves me a bit incredulous — did I really cycle up all this?
Reforming below the castle once more, we are given detailed instructions on navigating the rest of the route to Kyrenia Harbour, where the bus is to pick us up. “Those who know where they’re going, raise your hands,” instructs Ricky Tate. “The rest of you, follow those who have their hands up,” he adds helpfully.
The ride down the motorway to Kyrenia is more eventful. Two riders have punctures caused by debris on the hard shoulder. Both are quickly helped to get going again, and we soon enter the town and make our way through the narrow cobbled streets round the castle to the harbour. We descend on one of the harbour-side cafes and order refreshments. Beer in litre-size tankards appeared to be the most popular choice, one to which I subscribed mostly for the amount of liquid involved, which promised to go some way towards slaking my thirst. It’s the most welcome litre of beer I’ve had in recent memory, and I can tell the others are enjoying their drinks at least as much. A call for volunteers for a group to ride back to Nicosia is put out by Duke, but he finds no takers; everyone seems content to ride the bus back.
Being among Cypriots, I expected that a long and liquid lunch would ensue, but these mountain bikers don’t hang about; we head for the bus back to Nicosia about as soon as we finish our drinks.
This was the most fun I’ve had in a day in recent memory. If ever there was a fun way to get off my overtaxed posterior and get physical, this is it. When Duke mentions the prospect of another ride, this time along the Green Line on November 30, the prospect appeals. This one promises to be on more level ground, for one thing. And if a past leading candidate for most unfit teenager in Cyprus can join, so can you. All you need is a mountain bike and a helmet.
Contact the Cyprus Mountain Bike Club via Duke Bedelian on 22-661517 or 99-433972.
