(or This Is Africa)

Today was a long day. Some days are long, purely because of the distance, but today the distance was relatively short (87km). The ground was unusually rough and upwardly inclined. It was the second of the three hardest days of the tour - the first was the Blue Nile Gorge climb and the third will be somewhere further south where we cycle 200km in one day (the longest single stage).

As I may have remarked previously, it is days like this when you wish you had thought about your bike choice better. They throw a lot of advice out to us - about tyres, bringing suspension and all the rest. Somehow, in the bike choosing process, I settled on a cyclocross bike and in the days before today, I began to wonder if I would be able to actually ride the road (based on a photo of the lava rock fields I had seen). Luckily the road is slightly clearer than the fields, there are ruts where vehicles have driven and as such, there is a way forward.

Often these ruts will be gravelly and hence incredibly slippery - if you slow down enough you eventually lose balance. This is fine when you're fresh and full of energy but as they day goes on, it becomes increasingly hard to keep your speed up. Dropping down some gears lets you pedal easier but you tend to slip more as more torque runs through your wheel.

Every now and then you'll notice that the other rut is smoother, or less gravelly or better packed (i.e. flat) and you'll consider switching. Sometimes, it's worth switching - if you don't, you'll lose a silly amount of time. Sometimes, it's not worth switching - since 15 metres down the road it will become just as bad as your side. Sometimes they alternate and you can either switch constantly (again, requiring lots of energy) or just stick it out in your rut.

Switching almost always mandates a high chance of falling. The middle section between the two ruts is thick gravel and usually the ruts are recessed by half a foot or so, with a slight slope on the sides of the middle section. It's possible, if you have enough speed and the right angle, to ride straight up and over the middle. Not enough energy, or just mistiming things and you'll slide straight over - the cause of many riders' grazes and cuts.

I've got a few cuts to the leg, nothing serious. The skin on my index finger where I grip the hoods of my brake levers has worn down since my glove is ripped and I need to put a plaster on it to stop it rubbing down further. It hurts to grip things - I can feel it in my fingers most, presumably from holding onto the handlebars tightly for 6-7 hours. I also have some nice callouses forming on my palms from the repeated small impacts which are passed up through the fork. Saddle sores are back in fashion - presumably for several riders. Hopefully with the upcoming rest day in Nairobi and three rest days in Arusha, they'll go away quickly enough.

Riding aside, the heat in Kenya is stifling and almost as bad as that of the Sudanese desert. Normally we'll arrive to camp as the heat is about to reach its peak, although today took much longer and most of the heat was experienced while out on the bike. The beauty of these roads being so bad is that we are, for vast stretches of time, completely alone. I pulled over several times, took my headphones out and just listened to the wind, the birds and some surprisingly noisy insects. The country is very flat and you can see the bush for miles (or kilometres...) around. This is the Africa I imagined when I signed up.

Fear of height.
(View in high res)

(View in high res)

It wasn't meant to be this long in between posts but it has been an exhausting few days. Seven days of hard riding wasn't going to be easy and it hasn't been. In fact, it's been the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. I'm just exhausted, I have no energy reserves left. Every time I eat an energy bar whilst riding, my speed visibly increases. Some time later, it drops off again.

The first day off road was hard - bumpy and slow but not unreasonable. The second day was riding through Dinder National Park as I previously mentioned. The first 50 kilometres were similar to the prior day but the road inside the park was just a whole new level of pain. What was good (and bad) was that for our own safety, we were put into convoys. Luckily, I managed to catch the fastest group of riders, arriving just as their convoy was about to leave.

What followed was nothing short of (probable) hilarity. As we bundled down the path at a steady 10-15kmph, Marcel, one of the fastest riders in the tour and a pretty serious racer, had about a million punctures. In his race strong attitude he had bought some lightweight off road 'cross tyres - these seemed to puncture as soon as anyone gave them so much as a sharp look, let alone the thousands of thorns lining the side of the track. (My Marathon Extremes held up well, can't comment on their comfort yet though).

When we finally reached lunch just after noon (lunch at lunchtime, who would have thought), we shoved down a load of pitta bread and talked to Caroline, one of the nurses who was supervising lunch and explained that crossing the park was taking too long in convoys. Being in the middle of a national park, there was no mobile reception and she was unable to reach the tour leaders. Each time we tried to leave, we were stopped by the Sudanese park guards who wanted us to leave in a convoy with a vehicle leading the way. Before we could leave though, we had to take part in some strange ceremony where they awarded us each a laminated badge bearing the National Park logo and shook our hands while we were videotaped. After this, one of the officials gave a speech to a video and then interviewed each of us in turn to get our impressions of the park.

When we finally left, over an hour later, I was feeling the exhaustion and struggled to keep up with the group. As usually happens when I get tired, my balance disappeared and I fell over repeatedly on a sandy stretch of track (the tyre ruts were filled with sand enough to suck your wheels in, the side of the track was hard, dry earth). My legs are now marked with several scratches which make it painfully fun when I try to kneel inside my tent. The group eventually separated and we cycled at our own pace for the remainder of the distance (the day was 130 kilometres of off road approx).

The afternoon sun was beating down and we were running out of energy and water. Many of the riders behind us had given up at lunch, finding the morning terrain tough, and were riding in 'buckies' (or pick-up trucks, as I've always heard them called). Just after I had run out of water, one of these vehicles passed and I gladly took as much water and energy drink as they could provide. The terrain just wasn't easing up and the vibration was making it extremely painful to just hold the handlebars. Easing up on my grip wasn't an option either because that would mean more weight on my legs and my balance was precarious as it was.

I shuffled along at a steady 11-12 kmph and it soon got to the point where the sun was setting. Gisi, a German rider who is one of the fastest women on the tour, had a flat about 15km from the end of the park and I stopped to help her. Soon after, Stuart, one of the strong Australian riders, came back to check if we were ok and we realised that we'd need to pick our speed up to reach camp before it became dark. Stuart and Gisi left me behind (they both have suspension and my arms were pretty much destroyed) and I powered on through the last part of the park, the road eased up just before the park ended.

Leaving the park, thr roads improved considerably (much, much smoother) but I was too tired to appreciate it fully. There was a wonderful section through a village, a small single carriageway which looked just about wide enough for a car, weaving in an out of houses. Every now and then there would be a slightly raised drain crossing the path with a ramp on either side - I managed to get a small amount of air going over a couple of these but would have tried harder if I had a bit more energy). As I rode into the village, my eyes grew hungry for the finish flag since we'd been told at lunch that it'd be 118km. Instead, I pedalled on into the growing darkness for another 10km, looking out wearily every second for any sign of riders. When I finally reached to the sound of applause (customary for every rider who comes in late in the day), most of the riders were still missing, being held in transit from whereever they were picked up on the rough park roads.

Rod and Juliana, a husband and wife duo who are some of the most prepared riders I have met, made it in a short while after I did. As soon as they arrived, Rod curled up in a ball and just lay on the ground - both were extremely dehydrated. Michella, the other Tour nurse was kept busy dressing wounds (mine included). Everything that night ran late, by the time I had my tent set up it was pushing 8:30pm. It also happened that it was my turn on the washing up crew (we have an alphabetical rota) but this was postponed given the hard day.

A lot of riders didn't make it that day - I think less than 20 EFI riders remain. There were a lot of angry faces at lunch and the expection of how difficult the ride would be was much lower than it actually was. The National Park was also incredibly disappointing in terms of wildlife (on par with the terribad safari in Ranthambhore, India) - we saw a couple of warthog and baboons. Regardless, the Tour rolls on. The next day was more dirt and was equally hard. Fazed by the ride through Dinder, the trucks were packed with riders who had chosen only to ride half of the day (by getting a lift to lunch) or not at all. The terrain was a mixture of difficult and was at times almost unrideable.

One section of road consisted of broken earth but the cracks inbetween pieces were large enough to swallow a wheel. One of the Australian riders, Dan, caught a wheel and stacked it quite badly. Several other riders chose to walk that section. Adrian, another of the fastest riders, lost control further down the road and hit a sandy embankment to graze a lot of his right arm. The afternoon eased up slightly and at 110km we hit road again. The sun was burning down again at this point and a Coke stop at the intersection was kept busy by TDA riders.

By the time I reached Matema, the Sudan-Ethiopia border town, it was quite late in the evening, almost 6pm. There was a lot to do (change tyres back to road tyres, get the Sudanese exit stamp, eat, shower) although I ended up sleeping early from ehaustion, waking up early to change my tyres. Human error decided to step in when I was putting in the tube (must have done it wrong somehow) and despite pumping it up to 100psi (maximum for my tyres), it was flat by the time we reached the border (0.5km away). This was no real issue at first because we were standing around waiting for our passports to be stamped by the Ethiopian immigration office. After changing the tube, it turned out that my spare tube was also punctured (annoying) and I ended up trying to patch both. One of the patches failed and the valve on the other tube disintegrated. Just as this happened, they announced we could all go and most of the riders left. Jethro, a South African rider, stayed and helped me sort out my tyre - luckily Paul had a spare tube that fit and I was able to get my bike going again.

The landscape in Ethiopia is wonderful, green and mountainous. That's probably the most amazing thing about the trip so far that makes it so different to most other trips I've been on. The whole country is not very flat so I think I'm going to suffer (but this will probably help my piss-poor climbing ability (as anyone who has ever cycled uphill with me will know)). I've shed most of the excess weight off my bike (rack is in storage, as is the rackbag, may changed the suspension seatpost for a rigid one). Tomorrow is our first mando-day, 2500 metres of climbing. This will be painful.

The mood amongst the riders and staff has soured slightly. Many of the riders who couldn't handle the last few days have decided to go on ahead via private transport to our next rest day in Gonder (where we're heading tomorrow). It's obvious that the staff are being stretched and the Indaba crew (who operate our support vehicles) weren't happy with us today because of the mess on their trucks. The annoying thing (at least from my perspective) is that the mess was likely caused by the people who were riding the trucks - most of the riders still left at the meeting today were those who weren't riding the trucks. Erin, an American rider on the tour who has run a marathon on every continent, says that the last few days have been tougher than when she ran a marathon on Antarctica. Enough said.

Originally posted on the official Tour D'Afrique blog.

Yesterday afternoon there was a flurry of activity in our first 'bush camp' as riders either swapped tyres on their bikes or helped other riders swap tyres on their bikes. The sound of tents flapping in the wind was interrupted only by the constant whoosh of tyres being deflated.

It was with much trepidation that our first day of riding on dirt finally arrived. While last year's riders would have experienced this much earler in the tour (as they entered Sudan), road builders in Sudan have been hard at work paving the main road from the North of the country to Khartoum.

This year, recognising that we were being deprived of precious off-road mileage (or should that be kilometreage), the route was rejigged so that we're passing through Dinder National Park and with that comes two and a half days of unpaved, dirt roads.

Having spent much time contemplating what bike to bring, it is now in Africa that our decisions are being tested. It is virtually impossible to change our choices of bike now.

The dirt began and within minutes you began to wonder 'what if'. The road was composed of fine gravel, corrugated in patches and sandy in other, mostly overlapping patches. Choosing your line wisely was important - to one side of the road the corrugation would shake you hard and to the other you'd be performing the bicycle equivalent of 'swathing' through sand.

When I finally reached the lunch truck, the relative rider ranking was clearly different. Riders with front suspension were (for the most part) smiling, those with rigid cyclocross bikes looked weary from hard work.

The afternoon was, despite much of the same terrain, surprisingly good fun. Occasionally the road would become slightly less 'throw you all over the place if you don't hold on tight with both hands' and more 'go fast' and there were some beautiful sections that rolled up and down. The constant corrugation led to sore forearms (for those of us without front suspension) and you soon forgot any other sores picked up in the last week.

The road took us through a number of local villages and in most of them, villagers lined up by the side of the road to cheer us on. Occasionally we'd cycle past a school building and nearly a hundred children would come out running and shouting. I apologise to their teacher for the disruption.

As I sit here writing at 6pm, there are still riders coming in, nearly 11 hours after they set off this morning. The sky is nearly overcast and there is potential for rain. Dinner will be well received tonight.

The last three days of riding have been quite tough, so tough in fact that I've been putting off writing an update each evening. Tonight though, I wrote a piece for the TDA blog so I'll fulfil my journalistic obligations while I have my writing hat on.

We've had two days of roughly 160km each and then 135km today, of which 85km was off-road (our first encounter with the unpaved). The first day started out slowly, as they usually do after a rest day. Having 30 riders load their kit onto a truck at 6am is never going to be the smoothest operation, especially when it's *all* their bags. I'll probably go into the locker situation more later but they're a necessary pain.

After waiting for ages to load my bags, eating breakfast and then realising I was late, I signed out and rushed to the toilet before I actually left.Not even 30 metres after I turned out of camp, the cable came off my front derailleur (also known as the thing that changes gears at the front) and I spent 10 minutes wrestling with it so that I could use my big chainring. Soon after this, my poor navigational sense led me to take a wrong turn (out of the four turns we had that day, this was the third and barely a kilometre out of camp). Double checking the directions, I turned back and was very relieved when the dinner truck drove past about 15 minutes later.

Eager to make up time, and as part of my new found speed (having almost recovered from my cold and saddle sores), I spent most of the morning cycling as fast as I could with the tailwind and caught up to the bulk of the group just as they reached lunch. I left lunch pretty quickly and caught up with an even faster group. It didn't seem like they were going fast enough though and I thought it'd be possible to overtake them. The law of the universe soon kicked in though (karma dontcha know) and within a minute of overtaking, my front gear shifter fell off my handlebars and I had to pull over.

Luckily no real damage was done but in order to tighten it and the cable up properly, it was necessary to replace the cable. Chris, the trip's bike mechanic sorted this out and it now shifts beautifully. He needed to adjust quite a few parts of the derailleur, something which I wish the mechanics at Cycleopedia in Watford had picked up - I'll be looking for a new bike shop when I get back home.

The traffic was really quite fierce that day and unfortunately there were a few accidents amongst the riders. I won't go into full detail but several helmets were cracked! The heavy traffic also caused several riders to actually cycle past camp and a couple of guys (both British in fact) cycled an extra 30-40km.

That evening, whilst being wary of the scorpions that supposedly shared our campsite with us, the staff awarded plates to the winners of the first section. I was happy to receive a special 'Bad Ass' award plate because of my efforts to continue cycling! It'll be going with the rest of my race plate collection at home.

The second 160km day was tiring too, although the road condition improved later in the day. In the morning I was overtaken by the lunch truck and managed to keep pace with it for some time as it slowed down for potholes. In my eagerness to keep up, I rode straight into a pothole and survived - my bottle decided to jump out of it's cage and explode on the road, leaving a mess of red energy drink.

I was caught in the afternoon by the second fastest group of riders, just as I was about to pull over and take a leak. I decided that this was too much of an efficiency advantage to let pass so I joined them for some time. Unfortunately there was no opportunity for relieving myself for the next hour - we picked up a police escort which took us through a crowded roundabout and town where people were out cheering, clapping and waving to us as we cycled through.

This was amazing and for the first time in my life, I felt like some kind of celebrity. Kids were going crazy and at one point ran into the road, almost closing off the way through. Most were fairly pleasant but they treated some of the later riders quite badly, throwing stones and trying to touch them as they cycled past - not amusing at all.

After the crowds had settled down, I left the group and pulled over - there are no words to describe the feeling of relief that ensued. The rest of the ride was fairly sedate, the only notable sight being some kind of airstrip where there were two wrecked aircraft strewn across the field.

Today was quite different indeed but I'll post the article I wrote for the TDA blog.

P.S. Full Mono since my one of my earphones broke.

Bump, bump, bump, curse.
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Offroad (left), road (right)
(View in high res)