With its updated ALUXX SL aluminium frame, quick-handling 27.5 wheels and high-volume tyres, Fathom is a great choice for technical terrain and singletrack shredding. The combination of a lightweight hardtail frame, 130mm suspension fork and 27.5 wheels with wide rims and high-volume tyres delivers loads of traction, speed and fun on the trail. Giant's Fathom is a trail ready hardtail designed to put a smile on your face.
This Giant Fatis available with our legendary Podium Point free accessory scheme. Please call for bike sales, viewings and repairs. Then read Day 3 and Day 4.COVID-19 Tadley Store: Open. Read Fathom on the Road: Tel Aviv, Day 1.
Suddenly the sky turns a dark blue and reveals a moon without stars to support it.Īnd it's strangely beautiful in a way I never imagined. This weightlessness, combined with the pale pinkish sand across the water, makes me feel like I'm on another planet. A lifeguard tells us that it's so salty it's nearly impossible to drown. The water is warm and smells like minerals. We're strapped for time (the Dead Sea beaches close at 5 p.m.), so we hurry to the nearest entrance, slip on our swimsuits, and trudge past overturned beach chairs and families on holiday toward the muddy shore. My ears pop as we make our way down, down, down, below sea level, to the lowest point on Earth. Then we continue on from the verdant, vibrant city, through a tunnel that empties out into a beige and desolate desert. We get back in the car and drive to lunch in another part of Jerusalem. As I make my way to the limestone remnants (constructed as early as 19 B.C.), the mood is somber and contemplative. At the Wailing Wall, men and women separate to write wishes and whisper into the stone cracks.
And the billowing robes of visiting rabbi. Still, there is some beauty to be gleaned from a shiny sesame pastry fresh from a hot wood oven. When we stop in a corridor marked as the fifth station of the cross (where Jesus, en route to crucifixtion, leaves an impression of his face on the hankerchief of Veronica), a man in a beverage stall next door shouts, "Come to station five-and-a-half, where Jesus gets a good coffee." But it's juxtaposed with new-style graffiti and hordes of tourists. There are beautiful old living quarters with balconies and colorful vines clinging to stone walls. An indoor marketplace is filled with people shopping for olives, fruit, bagels, and - wait for it - T-shirts with smiley faces and phrases like "Don't worry, be Jewish." We approach the city from the secluded Armenian quarter and wind around vestiges of the oldest building blocks of the city.
It's like watching the movie version of the book you love: You have to prepare for disappointment. And as the tour guide leads my small group through the fortified walls of the Old City, I can't help but feel a sense of loss for my version of ancient Jerusalem, a romantic and crumbling figment of my imagination. There's a lot to sort through, this being one of the most religiously charged sites in the world.
On her first full day in Israel, Fathom editorial director Jeralyn treks through Jerusalem and floats in the Dead Sea.