Gynecology chairman among 65 doctors and more than 500 others riding for Alyn hospital

Prof. Uzi Beller to participate in next week's ninth annual Wheels of Love charity bike ride.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
bike (photo credit: Courtesy)
bike
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Prof. Uzi Beller, chairman of the gynecology department at Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Medical Center, will be taking off his latex gloves and stethoscope and putting on his canteen, riding shoes and hat to participate in next week's ninth annual Wheels of Love charity bike ride on behalf of the capital's Alyn Pediatric and Adolescent Rehabilitation Center. He will be among 600 other riders - including 64 physicians - on five routes starting at the capital's Malha Mall and stretching between 125 and 600 kilometers (the longest route will take five days) south. Beller has previously biked in three days from Metulla in the north to Eilat, participated in a short version of the Tour de France (in 2006) and climbed Mount Hermon and Mount Gilboa on his bicycle. Alongside the doctors, there will be 65 lawyers, 52 hi-tech professionals, 14 businessmen, seven bankers, nine real estate experts and other bike lovers from Israel and abroad participating. They all find sponsors to donate funds to Alyn, which last year netted nearly $3 million. Beller told The Jerusalem Post on Monday that though he has been biking for a decade, he had never before participated in the Alyn ride. "I'm excited about it, as my mother was a social worker at Alyn when it was located in the San Simon quarter. I remember as a child that she used to bring polio patients home." The founder of Alyn was a friend of his father, Prof. Aaron Beller, long-time chairman of Hadassah University Medical Center's neurosurgery department. Friends of the Shaare Zedek gynecologist are sponsoring his ride. Beller will ride to Beersheba, where he will be greeted by his daughter - a geology and biology student at Ben-Gurion University. "I always advise my patients to exercise," said Beller, who is an expert in gynecological cancers, "as regular sports activity has been shown to reduce the recurrence of cancer." He will take dried fruit with him as a snack, as a day of biking can use up to 5,000 calories a day. The non-profit Alyn hospital rehabilitates infants, children and adolescents afflicted with a broad range of physical disabilities caused by road accidents, terror attacks, congenital conditions and various illnesses. For more information about the ride, see the hospital's Web site at www.alyn.org.