Roei Sadan (1982 – 12 March 2021) was an Israeli adventurer who became famous worldwide for cycling around the world.

Roei Sadan

Biography

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Sadan was born and raised in the Israeli settlement of Oranit, West Bank, and later moved to kibbutz Rosh HaNikra. After completing his military service in the Israel Defense Forces, he became involved in mountain climbing and even undertook a professional mountain climbing course in India. However, eventually Roei become involved in cycling and drew his attention to preparing for a long and intensive worldwide cycling journey. Roei’s worldwide cycling voyage started in July 2007, in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay, a voyage that lasted four and a half years. The mental and physical preparation for the journey took one year and equipped him for the longest and most extensive trip ever taken by an Israeli, including cycling over 66,000 km around the world, crossing 42 countries, spreading over North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia. Sadan’s voyage was a solitary one, without the support of any logistic teams.

Sadan next planned a kayak trip across the West Coast of North America. In 2015, while taking a break from his training for the trip, he vacationed in India where he was seriously injured in a mountain climbing accident in the Stok Kangri mountain range. While descending after having climbed a mountain, Sadan slipped on a rock and fell, plummeting about 500 meters and bouncing off of rocks on the way down. He was caught by a group of climbers passing below, who absorbed the force of his fall. The hikers kept Sadan alive with an oxygen bottle before a helicopter arrived to evacuate him to a hospital in Leh, from where he was later transferred to another hospital in New Delhi. After being stabilized, he was flown to Israel where he was hospitalized at Sheba Medical Center and was in a coma for more than a month before awakening. He had to undergo lengthy rehabilitation and physical therapy.[1]

On 11 March 2021, while riding his bicycle near Rosh Hanikra, Sadan was hit by a bus and suffered permanent brain damage. Paramedics found him unconscious with severe injuries and without vital signs. After resuscitation efforts were made to restore his pulse, he was taken to Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya, where he was put on a respirator. He died at the hospital the next day, and his organs were donated to 7 patients.[2][3]

Cycling across the continents

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References

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