Tour d'Afrique - Cairo to Cape Town by Bike

Date for GTA Presentation Set!

2008-03-14T14:27:00.005-05:00

Admittedly, I have been loving cycling in the abundance of snow lately; however, I am eager to be able to ride without the salt eating away at my bike. Come and get fired-up for the spring riding season with a slide-show presentation at Running Free in Markham! Here are the details:

What: A FREE presentation of 12 000km of beautiful African cycling scenery and more!

When: 5:00pm, Sunday April 13, 2008

Where: Running Free multi-sport store, 708 Denison St., Markham, Ontario

Please RSVP by e-mail so we have an idea of numbers.

Hope to see you there!

Ethiopia - New Video

2008-02-13T11:57:00.003-05:00

The tour videographer has posted another video and it looks great! I like how he managed to capture the children on the sides of the road. They really were like that most of the way along. Man how I miss it now. A number of the videos used were by me, including the final clip...no I didn't actually take a spill there!

Enjoy!

New media around

2008-01-06T18:27:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year! I thought I would put up a quick post about some new media that have come forth in various forms.

Firstly, the day of my presentation on December 6th, an article appeared about me in the Ottawa Citizen. Take a look at the bottom of this post to check it out.

Also, I had an interview with a neat guy on the east coast who runs a website about doing active things outdoors. He put it in his podcast that can be found by CLICKING HERE (then click on the grey "POD" logo directly under the date or by visiting his website www.doingstuffoutdoors.com.

Finally, the videographer who joined us for parts of the tour compiled some footage and interviews about the Sudan. He told me toward the end of the tour that I was "the decisive voice on the Sudan" but I didn't get to see the video until I noticed it last week. He has great videographic style. If you're looking for more, type "Tour d'Afrique" into YouTube and you will find some more great stuff he made. Note the difference between my huge lid of hair in most interviews in Botswana, and my short hair in Sudan. Check it out:

...and finally the Citizen article.

All the best for a great and green 2008!

Presentation a success!

2007-12-07T16:47:00.001-05:00

The presentation I gave at the University of Ottawa last night certainly turned out well in a number of ways. First and foremost, I had some very positive feedback from some of the near 200 people who attended! There were some fun audience reactions from the photos ranging from laughter to “awww…” to the more silent “Hmmm…”

Citizens for Safe Cycling (www.safecycling.ca) had a booth set-up helping attendees out with great information about cycling in the region. They had a donation jar out and collected just short of $200 to help them proliferate the good word of cycling and make it a safe and easy method of transportation in the area. Thanks to those who donated!

On the note of thanks, I would like to extend my thanks to the University of Ottawa Bicycle Club for their help with publicity. Thanks also go out to OMEGA (Ottawa Mechanical Engineering Graduates’ Association) and the Ottawa Orienteering Club for providing refreshments for the presentation.

Stay tuned to this site for more presentation announcements!

Slide show presentation: one week to go!

2007-11-29T19:33:00.000-05:00

My presentation is coming up fast; I hope you're planning to come. Check out the video above as a bit of a trailer for the presentation. Also check out the poster below to get you excited about it. I hope you can make it!

An African bicycle journey of 12 000km and beyond... Presentation date set!

2007-11-10T15:39:00.000-05:00

For those in the Ottawa area, come and enjoy my free presentation where I will share a selection of photos, videos and stories of my African sojourn! For those in the GTA, look forward to my presentation at Running Free (www.runningfree.com/) in the spring.

What: A presentation of 12 000km of beautiful scenery, memorable people and inspiration!

When: Thursday, December 6th, 2007 7:30pm

Where: University of Ottawa Campus, Colonel By building room C-03 (see map at right). Colonel By is the yellow building at the south end of campus near the intersection of King Edward and Mann. C-03 is the main auditorium in the basement. I will have signs up on the building doors directing you to the auditorium.

Who: Bring as many people as you like. There will be plenty of seating room

How: Come by bike or foot if possible. The presentation is 200m from the "Campus" transit station. If you must drive, there is plenty of parking available on campus and in nearby Sandy Hill.

Why: The presentation is free of charge because I would like to share what I experienced and my passion for cycling with as many as want to see. I will have a donation jar for Citizens for Safe Cycling (http://www.safecycling.ca/) available if you would like to donate and help spread the good word of the bicycle.

Spread the word!

Link to article in Financial Post Business Magazine

2007-10-15T14:11:00.000-05:00

Oops...I forgot to post the link to the article published in Financial Post Business Magazine recently. Much credit to the author Mr. Banks for managing to sift through the mountain of information we talked about and produce a great article.

If you have not yet had a chance, check it out by clicking here! (If the link doesn't work, head to www.financialpostbusiness.com and it is in the Outbound section about halfway down on the right. It also pops up if you google "Andrew Cameron Africa").

As a side note, I had a great weekend this past weekend. I cycled to Montreal to attend a party with a bunch of Tour alumni. It was great to see everyone without cycling helmets on and wearing different clothes than they had in Africa. It was also nice to share our difficulties in re-integrating back into our Westernized society. The ride back was made a little longer by a consistent head wind, but the nearly fluorescent fall colours and nice rolling scenery more than made up for it. 475km over the weekend; not bad!

More amazingly, I didn't break any bike components!

Take a look on Tuesday, Oct. 2 at Financial Post Business Magazine!

2007-09-27T12:22:00.001-05:00

Just a quick note to let you know that on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007 you should check out a copy of Financial Post Business Magazine. If you purchase the National Post newspaper, you will find the magazine inside. At the back of that you will find an article written by a Financial Post author about my experience on the tour.

The monthly magazine includes a section at the back about an average working Canadian enjoying an outdoor, athletic activity to motivate readers to stay active. What a better way to keep active than enjoying our own countryside without the din of your car's engine. Love biking to work!

The Bicycle Donation - Finally the Full Story!

2007-09-27T10:56:00.000-05:00

Myself shaking hands with Fryson Chodzi, the director of CAYO - the organization to which the bicycles were presented

The line-up of bicycles being presented. The bike in the foreground is an anomoly; all of the others are the typical local type which can be easily repaired.

CAP-AIDS representative Kevin Perkins presenting the bicycles to CAYO (Mr. Chodzi in the foreground)

Myself meeting Mr. Perkins at his office in Ottawa where he told me about the presentation.

Well this is a post that sure has been long awaited! Many probably noticed that in my previous writings that I very quickly glossed over any details about one of the most important parts of these online writings - the tale of the presentation of the bicycles in Lilongwe, Malawi. Here it is now...finally!

To try to annotate (you will also notice that brevity is not one of my strong points), the funds were transferred from the Tour d'Afrique Foundation here in Canada to CAYO (Counselling of Adolescent & Youth Organization) in Malawi. Unfortunately, the US bank was a little paranoid with a large amount of US currency being given to a small organization in Malawi which is apparently on the US terrorism watch list. As such, they did not allow the transfer to happen.

After much trouble, the funds ended up going through another charity in Ethiopia in Canadian currency and down to CAYO in Malawi. Unfortunately, this delay meant that the bicycles had not been acquired when I arrived in Lilongwe, Malawi. The organization scraped together enough funds to purchase three bicycles such that I would have something with two wheels to present on that day. Very thoughtful of them.

It was a great opportunity to sit down with the director of CAYO, Mr. Fryson Chodzi and speak with him about the types of bicycles that they were planning to purchase, who will be using the bicycles, how they plan to keep track of the bicycles, how the bicycles are going to be repaired, among other issues.

Admittedly, I was fairly disappointed when I saw the bicycles that were at my presentation (in the background of the photo of myself shaking hands with Mr. Chodzi). They were low-end full suspension bicycles. Anyone who has done any cycling knows that these bicycles really have no advantages at all because they are mechanically complex and prone to breakage due to the low quality of the components. The low-end rear suspension is also extremely inefficient since it bobs up and down repeatedly sucking energy away. These bicycles are also difficult to repair locally because of their different parts and therefore it is extremely unlikely that these bicycles will be repaired at all. I spoke my concerns with CAYO and learned that they were under the impression that these bicycles would be ideal for the purpose of getting to remote places because of their rugged appearance, but also admitted to not realize their inherant disadvantages. I made it over some extremely rough roads on my fully rigid (no suspension at all) bicycle to this point in the tour and I think that convinced them that locally common, mechanically simple bicycles would be a better donation choice.

Over the next couple of months, communications were not common which is understandable since I was finishing cycling across a continent and computer time is not as easy for locals to access as it was for us travellers using foreign currency. In time, I finally found out the details I was looking for.

The bicycle presentation finally happened on June 2nd, by which time I was back in Canada. Luckily, Mr. Kevin Perkins also from Ottawa was there for a few purposes and witnessed the presentation of the bicycles to their recipients. After playing around with our schedules, I finally met up with Mr. Perkins last week so I could ask a bunch of questions about the presentation.

The question that was bugging me the most was the actual cost of the bicycles. From the beginning of my involvement with the Tour d'Afrique Foundation, I was under the impression that the bicycles themselves were worth $100USD which is why donations of this amount resulted in one bicycle being donated. There was a fear in my mind that the bicycles were actually significantly cheaper, however I was extremely wrong! The bicycles were all of different values since there were a few types for different purposes. The most expensive ones were the bicycle ambulances. These are custom-built bicycles with a stretcher welded on to the rear to act as a human-powered ambulance to deliver people to medical help in emergencies. These apparently cost $300USD.

The average cost for a bicycle turned out to be $130USD. How it worked was that 100% of the donations from the Tour d'Afrique Foundation went toward the bicycles themselves, and another charity CAP AIDS (Canada-Africa Partnership on AIDS) topped off the final $30USD and took care of the administrative costs of delivering the bicycles! Thanks CAP AIDS!

Though the process was a little more involved than originally planned, the final result was that 24 bicycles were donated to very thankful native Malawian health care workers that can now see between 5-10 times the number of patients in one day that they could whilst walking. The large number of communities that these bicycles were spread to now have health providers sustainable means of transportation to tend to the overwhealming health care needs of citizens of a developing portion of the world. They have YOU to thank for your generous donations. Thank-you!

I was congratulated by the Tour d'Afrique Foundation for having raised the most amount of money for the Foundation than any other rider in its history. I forward the congratulations and huge thanks to you the donors; thanks for not only helping people receive better health care, but also helping more people enjoy the simple pleasure of riding a bicycle. Join me in celebrating by all turning our own pedals and help spread the bicycle back home as well.

Many thanks!

Impressions of Africa

2007-06-28T15:22:00.001-05:00

I just noticed that one month ago this evening I set foot back on Canadian soil for the first time since the beginning of 2007. I thought that this was great motivation to finally finish my “Impressions of…” section of my website. Here are the final few sections below.

I have also added pictures to some of the posts that did not previously have pictures due to difficulties with African internet connections.

For those of you that are new to this site, you can step your way from bottom to top (the way web logs usually work) through the archives. The links are found on the side bar, but also here for your convenience. I hope you enjoy!

September 2006 - Registraion
November 2006 - Pre-tour media
December 2006 - Pre-tour media
January 2007 - Start! Egypt, Sudan
February 2007 - Sudan, Ethiopia
March 2007 - Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania
April 2007 - Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia
May 2007 - South Africa
June 2007 - South Africa and wrap up

Here is my final “Impressions” post on the whole trip. It is interesting how when we hear about anything that happens on this continent, we always hear about it as “Africa” rather than concerning one of the 56 countries that make up the continent. As with any continent, each country has a very distinct identity and an independent set of issues to deal with. Though generalizations are also easy to make about places like “Europe,” “North America,” “South-East Asia,” etc., I feel that generalizations about this vast continent run far deeper than others. I tried to point out some of these superficial differences throughout this web site. To start, here are some of the common threads that do tie some of the nations through which I travelled together.

The people:
• Great! Generally very embracing of us foreigners and with some exceptions welcomed us into their lands.
• Good social sense. Now back on North American soil, I feel that we have much to learn from social structures found across Africa. The sense of family and community is very strong down there and has been all but lost in many parts of Canada. Though we live in populated areas, we talk face-to-face much less and rely very strongly on impersonal electronic communication. I am very guilty of this and will try to incorporate more of this into my lifestyle.
• Happy. It is very humbling to pass someone on the side of a road and note the stark contrast between us. I am flying by at 30km/h on a bicycle made from aircraft-grade aluminum, into which thousands of hours of design has gone into optimal flow of the brake fluid through my hydraulic callipers and other minutiae, wearing similarly intricate clothing, special creams rubbed into my skin to protect me from the sun, an expensive piece of foam on my head to protect me in the unlikely event of an accident, a specialized powder in my clean drinking water to more efficiently replenish my body fluids and a small repair shop on my back collectively weighing less than a small bucket full of water. Who am I passing? I am passing by someone with a massive load of goods be it produce, textiles or other goods that they have somehow acquired, carrying them for kilometres on end along with their village mates, family members or whomever else is helping that day to town where they will try to sell their goods, bring the remainder back the large distance to repeat the process the next day.

Who is happier? This begs the question of how happiness is defined. My western upbringing has instilled a sense of necessity for progress. We seem to not be happy unless we are somehow moving forward. Aspirations for the future drive us to work harder and without that potential for a brighter future our motivation fades and we become unhappy. What about a more static definition of happiness? I have food within me, shelter over me, good people around me, a body healthy enough to be able to live and enjoy another day, what else do I really NEED? Since my return, I have swung more toward this definition and have tried to adopt a hybrid definition between the two extremes. Whenever we feel unhappy, we can ask ourselves how much in the grand scheme of life this issue really matters. Does it really matter whether what colour the bathroom is painted? Does it really matter if the grocery store is out of our favourite product? Does it really matter if we do not have hydro for another couple of hours? Does it really matter if I cannot partake in an event because I already have other commitments? In the famous words of Meher Baba: “Don’t worry, be happy.”

The landscape:
• Amazing, beautiful, stunning, diverse, addictive, mountainous, flat, lush, arid, green, brown, blue, purple, yellow, red, an endless list of descriptors.
• Considering I traversed an entire continent, it is not surprising that a great deal of diversity was encountered. With that said, I think this statement dispels a great deal of misconceptions that I have come across. What a beautiful place.
• A fellow rider pointed out toward the end of the tour that scenery is that much more beautiful from a bike. I thought she was romanticising the idea until I stepped into a car again. I constantly had the window down and was struggling with the desire to get out of the car which is clearly a dangerous thing to do whilst in motion. She was right. While on a bike, you can look left, right, up, down, forward and back without bound. The labour of independently powering your way up a hill makes the vista at the top that much sweeter!

Aid:
• This is an extremely heavy topic so I will keep this short. The next time you donate to a charity ask yourself the questions: “What caused me to give this money here and will this organization/person be able to perform that?” “Will this donation help the people I am trying to help?” “What portion of this donation will help and what portion will go into the glossy, perfectly worded pamphlet I am holding?” “What is the social effect of my donation?” This will hopefully guide you to donate your hard-earned funds to small and efficient charities rather than large ones that have large overhead costs.

Thanks so much to the countries that made my African journey as special as it was. Don’t worry, I’ll be back!

Impressions of South Africa (Western Cape)

2007-06-28T15:21:00.002-05:00

The people:
• Firstly the Northern Cape (province we entered the country in) was a little like Namibia and Botswana in that there were not that many people around. Once we approached Cape Town in the Western Cape the population density shot up. On my travels after the tour along the Garden Route and into the Eastern Cape it was largely a tourist population, but many western style towns and farming communities existed.
• South Africa is often referred to as “The Rainbow Nation” referring to their diversity in heritage between the variety of tribes native to the area and the diversity of settlers in the country. With eleven official languages this country does celebrate its diversity which being from another diverse nation like Canada is really inspiring to feel their national pride toward this identity.
• What an interesting collision of worlds. Up until this point in the trip, the terms “locals” and “natives” felt synonymous. Now in South Africa it feels much more like so many other nations in the world where the native population is confined to certain areas while the settlers take up most of the space. It is interesting to see a nation in this state as it makes me question my own presence in Canada. It is strange to think of this place that I call home as land that was once frequented by natives and was not “owned” at all.
• I am particularly conservative with issues that involve racism to the effect that I will never use skin colour as a descriptor for people and tend not to notice proportions of ethnicity within groups. South Africa with apartheid so recent in their history is much more progressive to this effect. I was often asked when speaking of someone whether they were “white, black or coloured” and often I had no idea. For some – I hope many - there is no implied racism at all but rather similar to referring to the heighth or length of hair of someone. However, for others this opens the door to form opinions of others before even meeting the person.
• Thank goodness that apartheid is dead and it is apparent everyone having equal opportunity by the rules. It is interesting to note the divide that still exists between backgrounds. This is of course a generalization and does not apply across the board, but it did seem that by and large, people of European descent live a lifestyle that westerners are familiar with. People of African descent continue to live a lifestyle more in line with what I observed throughout the rest of the continent. People live in “informal settlements” that on the outside look like inhabitable place, but as I have heard from numerous sources on the inside offer a desirable lifestyle.

The landscape:
• The Northern Cape was beautifully mountainous. I thoroughly enjoyed cycling between, up and down mountainsides and traversing the areas valleys. Once into Western Cape, the mountains became rolling hills and gently sloped into the sea. There were occasionally sea cliffs, but generally the land went gently into the sea offering nice beaches, albeit cold due to Antarctic currents. Around Cape Town is stunning with Table Mountain and the chain of mountains that run down the Cape Peninsula and finally dive into the ocean not far west of the confluence of the Indian and Atlantic oceans at the Cape of Good Hope. Along the Garden Route the scenery is also stunning with mountains, beautiful coastlines, deep river gorges, lots of wildlife and a variety of green landscapes. Farther inland of course are the large and small Karoo deserts.

What a great, yet strange way to end a tour such as this. I started my integration back into western society in South Africa. After four months of sleeping in a tent every night, very simple pleasures felt extremely lavish and completely ridiculous at times. The beautiful scenery was a great distraction from that though! I can definitely see myself coming back to ZA!

Impressions of Namiba

2007-06-28T15:21:00.001-05:00

The people:
• Namibia has the lowest population density of all countries in Africa; once again very few people here. The German influence is very strong here.

The landscape:
• Finally, a hill! Though the flat landscape of Botswana was beautiful, it was a little tiresome after a thousand kilometres of zero geographic relief. There were some beautiful mountainous areas farther west and of course out on the west coast are the famous dunes of the Namib Desert.
• We unfortunately skimmed through the country with only a sampling of diverse Namibian scenery, but the rest of the country houses an unbelievable diversity of scenery!

Infrastructure:
• The Namibians apparently take pride in the state of their roads. The paved roads are in good condition.
• Of note is that Namibia has apparently the largest network of gravel roads in the world. It was decided that due to the low population density (and hence low traffic) on the roads outside of the main artery, these roads would be kept gravel, but well maintained. I can attest to the good condition of these gravel roads since I hit 77km/h heading down a hill in my aerobars on gravel. I couldn’t have said that before this trip!
• Extremely westernized. The “typical African village” is nearly lost through the areas that we travelled.

Namibia is certainly another country that I would like to come back to. There is a huge amount to see and we really did skim through it very quickly.

Impressions of Bostwana

2007-06-28T15:20:00.000-05:00

The people:
• People? What people?
• The countryside did not contain people like every other country up until now. It was easy to cycle a whole day and see no one except our group, truck drivers and wildlife. The villages that we did go through had very friendly people in them, but these villages were very few and very far between. We actually had one guy drive way out of town chasing after us in his car because he thought we had turned the wrong way on our bikes.

The landscape:
• Flat, flat, flat!
• My maximum speeds for the day were not often all that much larger than my average speed. The roads were also super straight where at times I would travel for over 40km without even a bend in the road.
• There was however diversity in the vegetation. Flora is not a forté of mine, but what I can comment on is at times there were large open plains, other times, the grasses were taller and trees dotted the plain and other times it seemed to be a tall scrub that covered the land (by tall I mean over 3m).
• I was curious as to what the Kalahari desert looked like, but remembered that a desert is defined by the amount of annual rainfall that it receives. The Kalahari is not a desert like we think or like I saw farther north in the Sahara or Nubian deserts. It is covered in scrubby vegetation about 1-2m tall.

Infrastructure:
• The towns that are around are once again even more westernized. Electricity is now commonplace.
• Trucks as well as cars are generally in very good repair and cities though small are well developed.

The wildlife:
• Though I had seen a good deal of wildlife on the trip up to this point, it seemed very abundant in Botswana. I surmise that this is due to the low population density. In other countries it seemed that wildlife was contained to parks where it was visited by humans whereas in Botswana it seemed that the people were contained to the villages where they were visited by wildlife. I saw a huge warthog running through the streets of Kasane, our campsite was surrounded by hippos, elephants and apparently crocodiles (luckily separated by a tall electric fence, we saw giraffes, elephants and other large animals while riding along public highways, saw tonnes of wildlife in the Okavango Delta that were kept out of the city of Maun by a game fence, the list goes on.

Like Canada’s prairies, Botswana is a pretty flat place (even more flat I think) but contains a lot of surprising jewels. Fun place!

Impressions of Zambia

2007-06-28T15:19:00.000-05:00

The people:
• Once again, very friendly. Similar to Malawi in that people would stare out of curiosity, but would quickly lose interest and continue doing what they were doing.
• Hard working. Though the population density seemed quite a bit lower through Zambia the people we did see were working away in the fields, doing their urban occupation in urban areas or cutting the roadside grass by hand. Most of the roads we travelled were lined by grass which was 2-3m tall at the highest points, but was constantly cut by hand!

The landscape:
• Very green, very rolling, perfect for cycling! We were doing some bigger distance days in Zambia which were made a little tougher by constantly rising and falling, but it was very welcome as it offered beautiful scenery. Once farther west in the country, things started to flatten out a bit, but always slightly rolling which was nice.
• Of course Zambia shares with Zimbabwe the amazing Victoria Falls. I already babbled on about my amazing experience around the falls so I’ll let you read that post. Wow, exhilarating!

The countryside:
• It seemed that the way things are organized in the country is that there are many small settlements (smaller than villages) scattered over the countryside. The villages that we had become used to were fewer and farther between. These settlements appeared to be family-based as they were typically a collection of thatch huts with a small dirt courtyard between them and farmland behind them. It is a good reminder that us humans don’t need a whole lot to be happy; roof over us, enough food and good company all available in these little settlements.
• Once we did hit major centres (Chipata, Lusaka, Livingstone) they were extremely westernized. Arriving in Lusaka in particular was a shock to the system in that there was all of a sudden massive factories to start along with a great deal of traffic, the traffic seemed to be of vehicles that appeared to actually be road worthy (as opposed to up until now city streets were littered with vehicles perpetually on their last legs, but keep going), and a few air conditioned shopping malls. What a contrast to the simple country life we witnessed outside of these major centres.

Education system:
• I can’t compare since I only became familiar with the system here. It seems that schools have to get to a certain state of repair before they are taken on by the government. It is supposed to motivate communities to care of the maintenance of their schools, however this is very difficult for communities to do on their own. Once schools drop below a certain level, they are dropped by the government and you end up with kids sitting on benches beneath trees trying to get some sort of shade while they learn. This is an ideal non-funded situation since usually once the funding stops, the teacher’s funding reduces and their residence is not maintained (normally only one teacher per school). It is very difficult to woo teachers toward schools.

I thoroughly enjoyed Zambia; what a haven for cycling! Okay, at times the roads were pretty rough, but one doesn’t travel to Africa looking for pristine pavement.

The last few hundred thousand pedal revolutions...

2007-06-06T17:40:00.001-05:00

We crossed the Tropic of Cancer in Egypt, the equator in Kenya and now just south of Windhoek, we hit the southern tropic!

These quiver trees give an eery look to the starry sunset.

No tour is complete without the coveted naked kilometre. Fortunately, this is the best picture I have!

The 2nd largest canyon in the world, the 500m deep Fish River Canyon

A warm welcome to South Africa; a beautiful sunset over the Orange River!

The Atlantic Ocean! The first salt water we hit since the Red Sea in Egypt.

Arrived 2nd place on the last race day and 5th overall.

Showing my Canadian pride on our final convoy into Cape Town. Congrats fellow TDA riders!

Though this is finally the update into Cape Town, it will not be my last post here. I last left off as we were leaving Windhoek. Since Windhoek sits in a valley, it was certain that we were going to climb to get out of the city, and of course climbing means that there are some great views as well. Right off the line I went my own pace which meant that the racers stuck on my wheel for a while, then sped off as I slowed to take more pictures. This actually became typical of the next few days where I would quickly drop off the back and ride on my own for the majority of the day.

Unfortunately, the descent into Windhoek complete with traffic lights (I'm not used to those now!) must have lowered my brake pads just about to the end, then pulling into lunch the first day out, the remaining pad gave way and the metal-on-metal screech sternly let me know that something was wrong. Later that night I dug through my spare parts bag to grab some brand new brake pads.

The first three days away from Windhoek were all paved, all above 150km generally pretty straight and with the exception of the first 30km out of Windhoek pretty flat. With that said, I felt extremely encumbered upon being stuck in a peleton concentrating on the wheels and hips of the riders in front. I thoroughly enjoyed traveling at my own pace concentrating mostly on the scenery making its way by me and getting lost in my thoughts; mostly reflecting on what I have seen and experienced over the last couple of months. We camped at some odd locations along the way including what we referred to as the "haunted sight" since we were beside a World War One grave yard, many active snake nest sites, a rickety old house and a decommissioned railway station. We were corrected at 10pm we discovered the train station is still in use by a throng of disembarking passengers strolling curiously through our camp.

The fourth day we cruised down the hill into Keetmanshoop where we had our first problem with a police check point in months. Once resolved, we continued for 30km down the road and turned off of the pavement once again. We climbed into the hills on some beautifully maintained gravel roads, past the Naute Dam and in what has become typical Namibian fashion, no people in sight.

It was here that I decided that no bike tour would be complete without the coveted "naked kilometre." Never having streaked before, it sure felt strange stripping down and jumping on a bicycle in the middle of the scrubby landscape. I rode 3km and then passed by our lunch truck. Many who were standing there first wondered "I didn't think that Andy had white bike shorts" due to my sharp bike shorts tan.

We continued down the road toward the coveted Fish River Canyon and the landscape was getting more and more hilly. I caught up to one of the expedition riders who has become incredibly fast over the course of the tour, so decided to challenge him to a sprint. He bit so I stood up to crank my pace up, but felt and heard something snap under my right foot. A quick inspection revealed that I was still attached so I carried out the sprint from a sitting position and managed to pull it off. I quickly discovered that my pedal spindle had snapped half way down which meant that once I dismounted I still had my pedal attached to the bottom of my foot and half of a spindle was sticking out of my crank. Good luck that it happened right at the finish flag!

The following morning we had a non-race day so I took the ~35km detour to the Fish River Canyon lookout point. For those that don't know, it is the second largest canyon in the world, second only to the Grand Canyon in the US. I went to a couple of lookout points over the massive trench that the Fish river has dug over millions of years. The sight was quite spectacular. I thoroughly enjoyed the ride back out and along the edge of the canyon as we continued south. I caught up to another rider that was pedaling along well, but seemed to be bleeding in multiple locations. I stayed with him for the rest of the day for moral support. Okay, to tell the truth, I tried to stay with him but had to go ahead on the downhills then wait since my brakes were acting up again forcing me to have some pretty quick descents. The final 10km was a twisty drop to the bottom of the southern extreme of the Fish River Canyon which of course was quite exciting with the demise of my brakes. I made it just fine and didn't completely abandon my friend.

We had a rest day at the bottom of the canyon in a place called Ai-Ais which means "boiling hot" for the hot springs there. Unfortunately, the water comes out of the ground at an untouchable 65°C and the pump that circulates the water to the pool was broken, but the place was still very special being on the shore of the mysteriously dry Fish River. I also discovered that I had damaged my brake rotor leaving Windhoek since it had eaten through my brand new brake pads in four days of light braking. I added those to my bag o' broken parts and bribed another rider for some spares since mine were of a different type (remembering that I broke my wheel in Malawi).

The day leaving Ai-Ais, we had our final individual time trial. After fixing my new set of mechanical problems, I made my way up to the start just on time. The course was about 22km total with the first 4km being a good climb, then we turned with the wind and had a gradual descent with a massive tail wind. I didn't push quite hard enough up the climb so had ample energy to really hammer the pace down the hill and managed to stay in my aerobars despite pedaling at 78km/h on a gravel road; very fun! My time was good enough to earn me 3rd place.

We plodded along back to the pavement once again and descended our final 20 Namibian kilometres into the Orange River valley and did our final border crossing on our bikes into South Africa.

The first 3 days in the country we stayed along the major highway which was extremely pretty as it dove in and out of some mountain ranges offering fast climbs, speedy curving descents and beautiful vistas. Once we made it to Vanrhynsdorp, we left the main highway again and had some more gravel roads that lead us toward the Atlantic. We first came to the salt water at Lambert's Bay, then camped down the coast at Eland's bay. It was surprisingly touching to swim in salt water again knowing that the last time I had come near it was over 100 days ago on the Red Sea in Egypt where it can be safely said that things were very different.

We had the first annual "Granny Gear Race" and to increase the challenge I borrowed a 13" full-suspension bike from another rider for the race. The 1km course was quite grueling, but I managed to once again come away with 3rd place.

Leaving Eland's Bay was our final race day which is historically hotly contested. We had about 10km of dirt out of the town where we got some beautiful views of the sun rising behind thick sea mist: stunning! This was the only time on the tour where without one word the ENTIRE group of racers stopped to enjoy and take pictures; even the sneaky riders stayed with us! To keep a long and curious story short, we ended up with a group of five bikes leading from about 30km into our 150km ride. The course ended with a 7km very light descent back down to the sea and our tour leader beat me to the opportunity to attack. I came within about 10m of him, but then he opened up the gap to about 50m where it stayed no matter what my effort over the final 7km. A well deserved stage win for the now official 2007 TDA victor from the Netherlands; I couldn't let him get it easily though!

We had a fun soirée that night since it was our last night camping together and the following morning came far too early for many. I rode the first half of the last morning mostly on my own, briefly sharing stories of sadness of the end with another rider. As I came over one rise on the rolling ride the infamous Table Mountain rose into view. It towered majestically above the sea mist shrouding its lower flanks. This was yet another sight on the trip that I had never before seen, but instantly knew what I was looking at.

I reluctantly rolled into lunch as I was trying to draw out the day. Somehow feeling like if I slowed the pace down, the end of the tour would be significantly extended. Lunch was busy for me as I was in a flurry of preparations, fixated on the important details like taping a flapping Canadian flag to the top of my helmet, putting Canadian tattoos on fellow countrymen/countrywomen and the like.

We started our final convoy toward the city blocking busy Cape Town traffic, but were being greeted and cheered on from onlookers. I heard that we had made our presence felt in recent Cape Town media so the encouragement gave me an extremely warm feeling. Once in the city we were joined by many riders from "BEN" the Bicycle Empowerment Network which promotes the bicycle across the continent. We were then later joined by the mayor of Cape Town who rode the last kilometre with us on the back of a tandem bicycle.

The final corner into the V&A waterfront area revealed the massive finish banner above the cobbled road. I made it. Every F***in' Inch of the way, I made it! Our group was swallowed up by eager friends and family, some of which had travelled from far corners of the globe to see their loved ones cross the line. Much to my surprise, I was actually greeted by a reporter from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for those non-Canucks) who asked me a bunch of questions and quoted my website. My responses were a little disjointed since my head was in too many places, but apparently the interview went well and appeared on "The World This Weekend".

The rest of the day was a blur of celebrations, presentations and a surprising amount of support from locals. I was emotional that things were drawing to a close, sad that I wasn't going have over three dozen people to say "good morning" to anymore, however I was not overcome by it because I knew it wasn't completely over. I had one ride remaining.

The following day I spent packing things, moving things to a nearby hostel and hiking around Table Mountain on the beautiful day it was. I considered this my "rest day" because the following morning I donned my cycle kit for one last time. I had to disassemble my conglomeration of communal parts that I called "my" bike, so a staff member very kindly lent me his bike. I was supposed to meet a handful of riders to cycle with, but the rain, reduced temperature and gailforce winds made me the only one to saddle up that morning. The tour's website claims that the entire tour is 11 884 kilometres leaving me 116km short of my goal. The Argus Cycle Tour is a 120km cycle race that has become the largest timed cycling event in the world and its route follows the beautiful Cape Peninsula almost to its end. To make the long story short, I saw a penguin colony, my fair share of baboons, an ostrich farm and some stunning coast line. I find it quite funny that I did not once on the tour wear my new Salomon rain jacket on the bike due to rain as I was only rained on twice when it was sufficiently warm. I was treated to four months worth of adverse weather on this one day of cycling. It was awesome in every sense of the word. On numerous occasions the wind was so strong against me that I had to drop down to my granny gear on a flat just to get upwind! Though it didn't hail, the rain was falling at such a rate and speed that it felt not far off. Amazing! I was certainly happy to have my jacket with me.

Once I arrived back in Cape Town after covering about 125km I then dismounted for the final time. My last ride in Africa...for now of course. I cannot say that this journey began in Cairo and finished in Cape Town; that was merely a highlight of it. This journey began in my childhood with my first set of training wheels and will end when I am cremated along with my bike however many years from now.

In the words of James E. Starrs, "Melancholy is incompatible with bicycling." Join me and so many others in this journey of happiness and incorporate a bicycle into your weekly routine!

On CBC Radio Ottawa (91.5FM)

2007-05-20T09:06:00.001-05:00

On Tuesday morning (May 22nd, 2007) at 6:05am EST, I will be on CBC Radio Ottawa with a live interview. I was interviewed at the finish line last Saturday seconds after dismounting for the final time as a Tour d'Afrique rider and was on CBC Radio last week. They decided to have me back for a live interview. If you're not in Ottawa, I understand you can tune in over the internet through cbc.ca. I hope you can tune in!

E.F.I.

2007-05-15T16:11:00.001-05:00

A quick celebration at the finish line before entering the finish ceremony. I have to be honest, feeling pretty happy at this point!

A rough picture of the group at the finish ceremony; I'll hopefully post a non-shadowed one soon. Of the 32 riders that started in Cairo, 10 of us ended up E.F.I.

I have officially joined the exclusive E.F.I. club for having cycled "Every F.....abulous Inch" from Cairo to Cape Town. I only have a minute at this computer and there are a great deal of thoughts floating around in my head. I will have to expand on these after some more digestion.

The cycling is finished for now, but the journey never really ends!

Cape Town just around the bend!

2007-05-07T09:52:00.001-05:00

I am currently in Springbok, South Africa with five days in the saddle between me and Cape Town. I am so excited to see the ocean again, but sad that my simple daily existance involving two wheels and a bowl of porridge is coming to an end.

The riding is finally getting more hilly, the scenery is beautiful, the bike is still running and my legs still working.

Bring on the salt water!

Persisted through the wind to Windhoek

2007-04-29T11:51:00.001-05:00

Stage win #3! I had to try to get one on the pavement and for some reason I chose a headwind day to do it. That last 5km after my attack were killer!

The famous red dunes of the Namib Desert. Indescribable!

The flavour of what we have been rolling by has certainly changed. We had become accustomed to the Africa that involved an incredible number of people walking, cycling, donkey carting, etc. along the roads with large loads of goods in tow smiling and waving, small communities dotting the countrysides with thatch or corrugated roofs, simple town centres with limited resources that were acquired in informal markets and light motor traffic along the rutted roads beside which we would set-up our remote camp sights. We have now moved into a far more westernized Africa where the population density has hit rock bottom (Namibia is the lowest in Africa), the towns are 300km apart and contain one curiously modern gas station and a few other modern amenities, the traffic is now all motorized, in good repair and is comparatively indifferent to our presence. The larger towns contain shopping malls, marble banks, grocery stores and any other western comforts imaginable (except for high end bike stores of course :). Our camps are now most of the time at formal camp grounds with swimming pools, bars, showers (arriving in Windhoek I showered four times in four days...how strange!), and unfortunately lacking the stunning stars, the allure of camping in wild Africa or the fun of camping in simple African villages.

However, what the recent riding may lack in cultural stimulus and variety of scenery it has made up for in wildlife sightings. The scenery from Maun to Windhoek though attractive does not vary much. It has however been dotted with kudu, oryx, springbok, black-backed jackals, wort hogs, and ostriches among others.

Luckily, we moved through the uniform terrain rather quickly covering over 800km in five days including one day over 200km. I varied my riding style to keep things interesting by racing some of the time and riding on my own other times. I thoroughly enjoyed riding 110km of the 208km day on my own even though it meant battling the wind on my own. On a 162km day, I decided to try for a stage win on the tar. The wind really picked up as the day went on and turned into our faces for the last 50km. I rotated through pulling as per normal patiently waiting my moment. With about 5km to go I had decided that I didn't have a chance sprinting against the other four in our small peleton so I broke away. I managed to get away and started hoping for the finish flag to be a little early (we are never certain as to exactly where the flag will be). I dug pretty deep and kept glued to my aerobars only coming off to stand and accelerate up the remaining hills and managed to hold off the others for my third stage win. Two on the dirt and one on the tar; sounds good to me!

We arrived in Windhoek and many riders were pretty cooked from our big week, but four of us organized a rental car for the two days we had off here. We drove down to Soussusvlei to see the coveted red sand dunes. It was pretty strange and felt extremely fast being in a car again as we made our way down through (apparently) the largest network of gravel roads in the world. Our VW CitiGolf handled the roads surprisingly well considering it contained four heavy guys and a trunk full of tents and food. We arrived just in time to see a pretty stunning sunset over the dunes. The dunes glow a bright red, the sky was at times red, deep purple, and even almost green. What a backdrop for the grazing ostriches that were near. We camped just outside the park and awoke early the following morning and were waiting at the gates for the 5:20am opening time. I found it rather comical that the speed limit on the road out there (the only tarred road in the area) was 60km/h, but even the park rangers were driving over 140km/h to try to get to the parking lot 63km away before the public arrived where the overland trucks were over 130km/h and some vehicles over 150km/h.

No matter, we parked at the 2WD lot and hopped on our 4WD shuttle out to a dune above a dried lake bed of 1000 years. We watched the end of the sunrise ~130m above the valley floor standing atop a red sand dune as the howling wind blasted us with the tiny building blocks that created the dunes: sand. After standing and walking around in awe, we ran down the 33° slope with many fun spills and toured around some of the other areas around the dunes. We eventually made our way back to our car and took the scenic route back to Windhoek. The whole weekend the scenery was absolutely stunning. I think it seemed even more so considering that the mountains we were driving through were the first hills we saw since Maun.

Tomorrow we are back on the bikes where we will go south out of hilly Windhoek and take five days to get to Ai-Ais, the last of which is back on dirt where we will have our last time trial. After that we are on dirt for two more days, than five days on tar will bring us to Cape Town...strange!

As previously mentioned I have been avoiding thinking of the end but with only 1650km and twelve riding days remaining, others have started to reflect aloud. I had previously thought a bit about what I have to do once I am home, what I am going to do in Cape Town, what my summer will be like, etc., but only today started realizing how my every day existence will change. How I will lose the "Hakuna Matata" no worries nature of African existence, I will lose the concept of "African time", I will lose the camaraderie of having 40 siblings to say "good morning" to in the morning, share stories of the previous day or the day's ride with, etc.

Or will I? There is no doubt I will take a little while integrating back into a Canadian way of life where I shower more often than once per rest day, have to deal with deadlines and watches exact to the minute and have to accomplish more than cycle for 6 hours per day. However, the question to be answered is what we can learn from this way of life. How can us westerners learn to consume less and be happy with less.

Entire countries drive their economy by bicycle transport here; surely we can use it more in ours.

Down the long, flat and straight elephant highway

2007-04-22T05:41:00.000-05:00

Me standing in front of a very small section of the unbelievably powerful Victoria Falls (smeared by the heavy mist soaking us and the camera lens). Unreal feeling the power of the falls!

Water careens down the bridge fueled only by the spray of the falls. Just incomprehendable how much water lies in the mist. It actually creates other reasonably sized waterfalls along the rocks.

The long, straight, flat roads in Botswana. There was frequently over 40km between even the slightest bends in the road. Good thing there were elephants there to entertain me!

Not often you can get your bike and a grazing wild elephant in the same picture. She soon took a little more interest in me and came within 10m of me. Close enough; I left...fast.

We spent almost an hour watching these elephants scratch themselves on the trees and against each other. They would dig in the sand with their trunks and throw the cooler sand over their bodies. They hung out about 30m from us, then eventually all left in a procession of about 20 elephants.

We left Livingstone, Zambia with a 15km warm-up before our third time trial of the tour. This one was a little more conventional since it was a 40km paved time trial with some rolling hills. Though not feeling 100% due to some questionable meat that myself and another rider picked up for dinner the day before (we are responsible for our own food on rest days) I managed to finish in a time of 1h 6min for 4th place. We cruised the rest of the day to the border where we took a short ferry across the Zambezi into country 8: Botswana.

After splashing through foot and mouth disease control we rolled into our campsite adjacent to a town where I saw a nearly waist-high wort hog trotting through the streets. We pitched our tents in our prescribed area near the electric fence to keep the animals out. The camp manager came by and suggested that we should move our tents away from the water. Apparently two weeks ago a crocodile got by the disabled electric fence (due to the Luiana river's swelled size) and tore a tent apart. Needless to say, we obliged.

We rode south to cover over 300km in two days down the elephant highway. I rode alone or with one other rider to keep our eyes peeled for good elephant sightings. Nature obliged and I stood and watched a herd of about ten elephants on the side of the road. They say that you should always keep a distance of 50m away from elephants because they are known to charge. Considering the size difference between them and me I can understand. One female began to take interest in me and slowly advanced closer and closer to me. Once she got within 10m of me, I decided that nature observation time was over and it was now "get the heck out of here" time! What an experience though!

Once we hit Nata, we turned west and the winds turned to our backs. We had another elephant sighting just before lunch one day; a massive bull! He decided he didn't want us there anymore and began to mock-charge a fellow Canadian rider. She was well away from us so we had a safe view of not only how fast these massive beasts can move, but also how fast a small French-Canadian girl can accelerate on a bicycle!

We had a couple of days of long, hot mileage. We broke the monotony the day into Maun by having our first team time trial. "Team Maple Syrup" came 4th, but was only 14 seconds away from 2nd place. Notably we tried to throw "Team Crap" off of their game by mooning them at the finish line, but we were one-upped by a toilet paper clad rider crossing the finish line with his spandex shorts on his head. Too funny!

I have arrived safely here in Maun with a bit of a cold and a little devoid of energy, but otherwise fine. We took a game flight over the Okavango Delta where we saw a plethora of wildlife! Though a little motion sick, it was a great experience.

We have some big mileage to cover now: over 800km in five days. We then get two rest days in Windhoek, Namibia.

Many riders have started speaking of then end now which is understandable with only 17 riding days remaining. I am trying not to think about it as there are so many great experiences to have between here and there. With that said we seem to have all switched into "band-aid" mode now by patching any problems we have rather than really fixing them. I'm trying to break away from that by going on a fixing spree this afternoon; we'll see how far I get with that.

Bring on the Kalahari desert!

Special experience near Lusaka, then three consecutive centuries to the adrenaline capital of Africa!

2007-04-16T09:27:00.001-05:00

Unreal the reception we received from these school kids! We felt like local celebreties for the cahrity work that Markus had done

The large race peleton at the beginning of a fast day.

I left off when I arrived in Lusaka and was on the brink of an extremely special experience the following day.

I awoke on our rest day and was packed and ready for a day's excursion by 8:00am. CCF, a charity that a fellow rider had raised a massive amount of funds for sent a Land Cruiser to pick up the German rider, myself, another rider and our photographer and take us to the Mumba area over 100km away. We arrived at a nearly completed youth centre that had been built with the raised funds with the interest of educating youth and supporting them to avoid a myriad of social problems, but most notably AIDS. We met a panel of locals involved with the project and we proceeded to drill important accountability questions at them to ensure that the funds were being used appropriately and efficiently.

We were then taken well off the main road down a nearly impassible track to the school that had been built with the raised funds. Immediately upon arrival we were swarmed by dancing and singing children. Our driver carefully wove through the throng and parked our vehicle. We later learned that the children were actually still on Easter holidays, but all came to the school voluntarily to show their appreciation for the fundraiser. We were placed in padded chairs under a make-shift cover to shade us and were presented a multitude of speeches, songs, dances, poems, etc. all to give thanks for the school. Of note was a ceremony of celebration that included heavy drumming and traditionally clad warriors (well, traditional over top of their best Sunday clothes that is) charging at us with sticks and metal spears. They fell when they got to us representing our strength. Although initially intimidating, it was an extreme honour to experience.

We were then taken to the home of the sponsored child of the German rider where we met her family and were treated to a local lunch. We learned so much about her life and although she was extremely shy, we got to know her a little better. We were then taken to the school that she was supposed to attend but was in such a state of disrepair that she was whisked away to Lusaka to attend school over 100km away.

We were then taken back to Lusaka after a long day of greetings, thanks and a wealth of emotions to digest. The key lesson that I firmed up from this experience is how any aid that is given must be heavily researched to ensure that the funds are going to be used in a responsible way with the idea of sustainability ingrained into the recipients intentions. It is a difficult process.

Humbled by this incredible day of interactions and experiences, we mounted our aluminum horses the following morning and covered 160km now southwest toward Livingstone, Zambia where the famous Victoria Falls is located. Once away from the large city of Lusaka we quickly climbed into some small hills and were treated to some beautiful views of the plateau on the other side. The tailwinds were incredible and all of the riders finished the day very close together despite the long distance. The following day we covered 175km in once again a surprisingly quick amount of time. Though the scenery was nice and the locals along the way extremely friendly, the long distances and repetition in the scenery motivated me to stay with the lead group through the day and we all finished leisurely together.

The following day we covered yet again 160km for our third century ride in three days and the incredible tail wind pushed my average speed above 37km/h. I was going to sprint with the big guns for a road stage win, but problems with my valve gave me a couple of flats and I told them to finish without me. I arrived in Livingstone and enjoyed a social evening with the crew since we are losing a couple of sectional riders, celebrating a couple of 50th birthday parties (on the same day too!) and we were treated to a iced layer cake; what a treat!

We are lucky enough to get two rest days in the adventure capital of Africa, however since the river is at its highest since the mid 1950's, the white water rafting will be closed until the end of April. I have to admit that I was looking forward to this since before I left Canada, but managed to find some other activities to enjoy the powerful river we slumbered near. I went to the bridge that connects Zambia and Zimbabwe and set foot into Zimbabwe which I was able to do without a $75US stamp in my passport. I stood above where the bungee jumpers normally take flight, but was currently closed due to the incredible amount of mist coming off of the falls which would damage the cable. Few clients seemed to argue.

On the bridge, I bumped into one of the Mexican riders we met in Egypt and leap-frogged with until we hit Kenya. The other rider had an accident in Nairobi and is currently in Cape Town receiving surgery. I hope he has a speedy recovery and can get back on his bike soon! I also met many other inquisitive tourists about the tour. They saw the "Cairo to Cape Town" on my race number plate and were full of questions. I ate my lunch admiring the falls from the river bank above the thundering waters, then went back to my lodge where I was picked up for my river safari. I boarded the jet boat with intentions of seeing many animals, but quickly learned that the priority of the other clients was to sip gin and tonics on our jet boat rather than experience African wildlife. I still got to see some hippos, a croc from afar, a variety of birds and one stunning sunset. The other clients were dropped off at a 5-star resort about 100m upstream of the falls, but I stayed on the boat. The driver opened the throttle of our powerful jet boat and ducked in and out of the currents between the islands and under clouds of flying birds upstream to our jetty in the fading orange light. Still not worth the hefty admission price, but at least I got to embark upon the Zambezi in one form.

Unfortunately, the romance of the presence of one of the world's natural wonders was dampened by some unfortunate occurrences. Our medic was robbed of her valuables including her passport in broad daylight about 50m from the main road on the way to our lodge. She was extremely luckily unharmed, but understandably shaken by the incident. A rider was walking back to his lodge at about 11:00pm and cut across a lawn. In the darkness he did not see the 1.5m diameter and 3m deep bricked hole that he plunged into. A group of riders including myself managed to find him and a ladder to extricate him. We are all extremely thankful that he didn't hit his head and was able to call for help; however, there is a possibility that he may have fractured a vertebra. We are all extremely sad for him and wish him a speedy recovery!

This morning we set off to enter the national park where the falls are best viewed from. The intricate pathway network allowed for many angles of viewing the falls. Before this trip, I have sky dived, I have bungee jumped, I have had hockey break-aways toward the end of important hockey games and been set volleyballs at the end of important games. With that said, I was floored by the amount of adrenaline pumping through my veins from simply standing in front of the massive chute of water! The spray instantly soaked our bodies with the fierce wind that the falling water creates. I am extremely happy that I had my Salomon clothing on and my waterproof camera with me. Both myself and my camera were able to experience everything and quickly dry afterward unharmed and with memories full of pictures and videos that will last a lifetime.

Tomorrow we have our third time trial to the jetty where to board the ferry to Botswana. Bring on the elephant highway!

Typical day with the TDA

2007-04-15T05:00:00.001-05:00

I have been meaning to post something to this effect since Egypt...man how time flies! I have had many questions about the daily logistics of the tour; I hope this answers a bunch of them.

Our schedule is very consistent day-to-day, but has changed quite a bit throughout the tour with the hours of light (varied quite a bit by the change in season, our moving toward then away from the equator, and crossing time zone lines). Our current one is pretty wacky:

4:00am: my first alarm goes off

5:15am: I have packed up my tent and all of my camping possessions into my "red box", buried my morning business somewhere in the bush, applied body lube and bike shorts and am ready to go except for a few details

6:00am: I have eaten my ginormous breakfast (just like home) of oatmeal, peanut butter and jam/honey/syrup and occasionally they will put other goodies out for us like eggs or baked beans. One day they put the Canadians in heaven by having pancakes with REAL Canadian maple syrup (donated by a Montreal rider.

Lately, the sun rises around 6:00am.

6:20am: My "red box" is on the truck and I am normally running around trying to still do my last minute things like put sunscreen on, clean my glasses, fill my bladder with water and bottle with Fast Fuel, grab my PVM Energy bars for the day, pump up my tires, etc.

6:30am: I am normally ready seconds before the race start. Expedition riders are allowed to start whatever time they like after sunrise. There are a few which push the early limit every day to get as many kilometres finished before the heat of the day.

~9:30am: This is highly dependent on the distance for the day, but normally lunch is just over half the distance for the day. The other day we had an incredible tail wind and hit the 90km mark shortly after 9:00am. Lunch before 10:00am feels strange, but I don't argue because I'm normally pretty hungry by that time.

Early afternoon: Again, highly dependent upon the distance for the day and the road conditions, but we are normally done cycling for the day before 3:00pm. We have finished as early as 11:00am and as late at 5:00pm. Everyone goes at their own pace and stops at different places for different amounts of time so we scatter into camp slowly. Distances for the days depend on the road conditions. Lately, we completed three centuries (greater than 160km) in three days over decent roads and we were still done around noon. Over the rougher roads, a 100km day can take quite a bit longer.

6:00pm: Rider meeting where we learn about the following day's specifics, hear about any upcoming attractions, have fun announcements and fortnightly have a team quiz night. Following this: dinner! Varies quite a bit, it usually very good and is never short on quantity. The sun has been setting during dinner lately. If we are at a bush camp ( i.e. in the middle of nowhere) we hang around the camp chatting about whatever, then turn in to bed at varying times. I have gone to bed as embarrassingly early as 7:00pm and on this early rise schedule as late as after 9:00pm!

The following day: do it all again!

I was discussing with another rider last night that we found it odd that even when we really pushed hard for a day that our legs never really got sore after riding. It is only once I said it out loud that it seemed odd that we had just cycled 500km in three days and didn't feel much pain in the legs.

Riding weeks are typically about five days followed by a rest day. Our longest number of consecutive riding days is 7 days while our shortest was 2. Everyone does different things on rest days. I personally find them more tiring than riding days since there is so much to do. I try to get my "chores" out of the way like laundry (yes mom, I have hand washed - rather foot washed - all of my clothes on the trip), fixing things, internetting, etc. first, then head into town and walk around or do any activities I had previously planned. Also on rest days we are responsible for our own food which can be quite entertaining. Farther north, I tended to eat more at restaurants since they were very cheap and the local food was extremely interesting. Lately grocery stores have become more westernized so I can get breakfast and lunch pretty cheaply, then will try something new for dinner.

During the rest days, we are typically camped on a hotel lawn. Some get hotel rooms, but am very comfortable in my tent so don't mind saving the money. During the riding week, we camp anywhere from hotel lawns to campgrounds to abandoned Jehovah's Witness centres to school yards to small clearings on the side of the road to lake shores to places that we have no idea why it is like it is, but we have fun with the locals and pitch our tents. All camp spots have had their appeal. Hotels come with showers (normally cold, but still nice) and we don't have to dig holes for our calls of nature, school grounds came with many curious students that were fun to throw my frisbee around with, bush camps come with the excitement of being in the middle of nature, desert camps came with the beauty of an endless starry sky and unreal peace and quiet, the list goes on.

Logistically, this is a pretty easy way of seeing Africa from a rider's point of view. Our basic needs are catered to and any worries we have are generally superficial since we have support in our health and many other areas.

Now we have less than a month to go with so much to see and do. I keep saying that this trip is like skimming through an African guide book. It is giving me a great overview of the continent so I can later come back and travel some of the highlights more in depth. Once Africa is in your blood...

Impressions of Malawi

2007-04-15T04:15:00.001-05:00

We had an extremely short time in Malawi and unfortunately our cycling did not bring us off of the paved roads. Like Kenya and Tanzania, I feel like life is significantly different away from the pavement so my impressions will undoubtedly be fairly skewed. None the less, here are some observations:

The people:

Extremely friendly! People enjoyed crowding around us, but as per usual for the last while it was simply out of curiosity. People along the route always went out of their way and stopped their activity to wave and shout greetings.
Curious, but not intrusive. Stopped on the side of the road with mechanical problems, taking photos, having lunch or for any other reason, locals would stop and gawk for a little bit, ask some questions if English was in their repertoire, then continue on their merry way. This was in contrast to some previous countries where locals would hang around for what seemed to be an indefinite period of time hoping to score some sort of hand out.

The landscape:

I have heard Malawi described as the Switzerland of Africa. The country's unique feature is the massive Lake Malawi which has some rolling mountains along its shoreline. This makes for some great riding as the scenery is constantly changing and is absolutely stunning.
Once away from the lake, the landscape continued to roll through the mountains and ducked through the occasional river valley.
All of this water of course means that the countryside is extremely green and lush which offered monkey and other wildlife sightings along the road and amazing fruits along the way.

The wealth?:

As mentioned previously, Malawi is known as one of the poorest countries on the continent. However, from the portion we rode through this was absolutely not evident. The road (I believe paved by the Chinese) was in great condition, many people carried cell phones and were reasonably dressed, the villages were (only relatively of course) cleanish, and most of all the capital Lilongwe was extremely developed.
I get the impression that once off of the main route all of this changes drastically for the worse where roads are deteriorated to the point of questionable impassibility, buildings are falling down and local quality of life is diminished. This is unfortunately second hand information.
It is for this reason that I am extremely happy that the Tour d'Afrique Foundation donation bicycles will be used in these unpaved areas where motor vehicles cannot easily travel and where the economy is not very strong.

After this quick jaunt through Malawi, we will cruise through Zambia very close to Mozambique and Zimbabwe!

Dropped to Lake Malawi, climbed to Lilongwe for a bike donation and onto country #7 Zambia

2007-04-10T09:39:00.000-05:00

A dutch rider cycling past a local Malawian boy. Contrast on so many levels!

A Canadian Rider dropping from the heights of Tanzania into Malawi

The bicycle: an amazingly useful tool!

Moustache March podium: First "Snows of Kilimanjaro", Second "The Queen (with the she 'stache)" and Third...see below for my long title (note the purposeful patchiness of the 'stache)

As the distances increase and as the tour moves onward, the countries keep flying by!

My last update was from a southern point in Tanzania from which we had a stunning day of cycling where though we climbed a cumulative 1850 vertical metres, we dropped over 2500 vertical metres. We were shrouded by a thick, low-lying fog in the morning but it soon burned off as we climbed and climbed to lunch. From our lunch stop the terrain kept rolling but in the general direction of down and we were treated to beautiful distant views of the hills rolling into Lake Malawi and the tiny grass huts the overlooked the views.

Once over the border into Malawi I assumed that we were going to experience people like we had in Ethiopia due to the state of the Malawian economy and the high population density; however, I was extremely inaccurate. Though the first 20km to our first bush camp in the country had many locals begging and harassing us, this proved to be an anomaly. We cycled down the coast of the massive Lake Malawi to our rest day at Chitimba beach which looked curiously out of place. It looked as though we had been transported to Hawaii with the blue vast water bordered by white sand.

This is where we had the judging for our "Moustache March" competition where we took the month of March to grow our baddest 'stache. Never having grown my whiskers this long, My theme (pictured above) won me third prize in the competition and was entitled the "Pubescent: I just grew my first 'stache to find that our former mail man had red hair" look. See picture above.

We cycled up and away from the lake and inland toward Malawi's capital Lilongwe. The views were spectacular and monkeys were running across the road in front of me. The locals were extremely friendly along the road working hard transporting their goods, but always waving, smiling or yelling a greeting.

Travelling through the countryside I was creating a suspicion that Malawi's title as one of Africa's poorest countries was in question. The infrastructure seemed to be pretty developed, the locals clothed, cell phones abundant, vehicles in reasonable working order, etc. Dropping into Lilongwe was no different as it seemed to be also significantly more developed than the other capitals that we have travelled through.

Lilongwe was the location of my long awaited bike presentation that I had managed to raise so much money for. The local media showed up as well as a representative from the South African High Commission. The presentation was a success, but will require its own posting. I will do that at a later date.

I enjoyed the feel of the city, and met some neat people. A few riders from a local cycling team joined us for a couple of days of riding and one took me to see the theatre that he and his wife help maintain. I just missed hearing some local drummers rehearsing, but it was cool to see pictures on the wall of all of the shows that had taken place in the 1960's theatre.

The next day of riding had us leave the country which I must admit I did sadly as I really enjoyed Malawi. Over three days we covered over 500km which brought us through the Easter weekend in Zambia, our seventh country. The scenery has been green and rolling, the pavement has varied from beautiful to "hold on tight" but has generally been very good. Our camps have been fun; one night we were camped in a school yard and the school kids hung around our camp to watch our "travelling circus." I took out my Frisbee to play with the kids and was floored at how relatively courteous they were compared with other children with which I threw the disc. Sure there was a little fighting for the disc, but more often than not, someone else would grab the disc back and give it to the child from which it was stolen. The girls were also far more assertive than previous which was cool to see.

We have now arrived in Lusaka, Zambia and have a rest day here. I am privileged to be able to join a German rider who is going to visit his charity project. He raised funds for a school to be built and sponsored a child here. That should be a cool experience.

I am now sitting in an internet cafe in an extremely westernized shopping mall. I feel extremely out of place here! I am happy that I get to spend my rest day tomorrow out in the rural areas!

We have just another three riding days, then we are in Livingstone, Zambia where the famous Victoria Falls are situated. Then on to our next country: Botswana!

Until next time from the adventure capital of Africa!

Impressions of Kenya and Tanzania

2007-04-10T08:46:00.001-05:00

Okay I am a little behind on these, but somewhat on purpose. I really felt like Kenya and Tanzania are better split into three parts rather than two. From the Ethiopian border at Moyale to Isiolo, Kenya where the road is not paved being the first section, from Isiolo to just south of Arusha, Tanzania where the pavement ended, then from Arusha to the Malawian border.

From Moyale to Isiolo: "Shifta" territory

The people:

The area dominated by the highly decorated Samburu tribe
Begging highly accepted and sales people very aggressive. Few tourists travel along this slow and potentially dangerous road due to banditry. Those that do all stop at the few towns along the way where they are hounded by the locals selling necklaces, water, tissues and anything else they can think of. Around these areas, begging is quite accepted.
Between these towns, the population is quite sparse and the few people seen there are quite friendly.

The Landscape:

Once again, beautiful!
It really felt like a hidden jewel. The difficulty of travel made the stunning views that much more breathtaking.
The extinct volcanic activity in the area has really dried up some areas and created lush greenery in others making this area very interesting to travel through.

The road:

I later learned what a controversy the condition of this road is. In a fully loaded truck, travelling more than 10km/h is likely to break leaf springs which is a timely repair job. Even a nimble 4x4 is limited to roughly 25km/h. These slow speeds encourage banditry since it is near impossible to get timely help to the area and slow moving vehicles are easy targets.
The above inhibits trade in the area since supplies cannot be moved into or out of the area as well as keeping tourists away. It seems that the Samburu people have loudly protested the state of the road, but their voices do not seem to carry to the government where their tribe does not have good representation. I will not try to comment on this further as I am on second hand information, but I can understand how this road affects the area.

From Isiolo, Kenya to 100km south of Arusha, Tanzania:

The people:

Crossing the line from rutted gravel road to hard pavement was a stunning contrast. Clearly this pavement has made Isiolo the northernmost extent of common tourism in Kenya. The people in this band evidently see many tourists and all have their sly tactics to try to get us to purchase their trinkets or elaborate begging schemes.

Infrastructure:

Money in the area! Nairobi in particular was a shock to see with park lands of mowed lawns, fountains in the centre of traffic circles, shiny buildings laced with marble, etc. Prices went up through this band seemingly to catch the tourists that come into Nairobi and scoot straight through to tourist central: Arusha. Arusha itself is a mecca of expensive vehicles ushering sun-deprived tourists (funny how you can pick out the new tourists by lack of evidence of sun exposure) out to the sites.
Resources are abundant.

Scenery:

Is worthy of the above mentioned development. Cycling around Mt. Kenya, rolling amongst the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro and the incredible wildlife that lives in amongst the scenery completely overwhelms the foreign eyes. I enjoyed playing non-cycling tourist for a couple of days in this area, though I felt guilty pumping more money into a richer area fully knowing that I was bookended by poorer areas.
So many scenes straight out of National Geographic: the landscape, the picture book animals, the colourful Masai locals, the diverse vegetation, incredible!

From 100km south of Arusha, Tanzania to the Malawian border:

The people:

Very friendly! Once the pavement stopped so did the tourist presence and we fell back into our usual place of the locals thinking "What the heck are Mzungus doing in here and what are they wearing?"
People never begged, only waved with enthusiasm. Whenever our support trucks became stuck, any passer-bys instantly started digging with their own shovels to help. Many smiles and enthusiasm toward our presence there.

The bicycle:

As we have moved farther south along the continent, the bicycle has become more and more popular. Through the unpaved stretch of road where the rainy season turns the road into a brown soup, the bicycle proved to be a powerful tool since it was the only vehicle that could make it through the roads no matter what the conditions.
Our group used to have the impression that our expensive bicycles are essential to travel along such rough roads, but the locals do it just fine on their extremely experienced cruiser-style bikes! Great to see!

The scenery:

I have a soft spot for this type of landscape: high rolling hills blanketed in lush greenery. Travelling through it on bright red African clay roads added to the romance.
Even once the pavement started again south of Iringa, the scenery was again very beautiful as the mountains increased in height.

Next: One of Africa's poorest countries, Malawi

Bicycle Presentation Ceremony in Lilongwe, Malawi: TOMORROW!

2007-04-04T09:56:00.001-05:00

Exciting day tomorrow! Tomorrow is the day that I as well as many others have been waiting for. Thanks to a generous outpouring of so many donors to the Tour d'Afrique Foundation through myself, I will personally be able to present 24 bicycles to a health care organization here in Lilongwe, Malawi. Malawi is known as the poorest country in Africa and is an area that has been heavily hit by the AIDS epidemic. These bicycles will enable these workers to care for a greater number of people by cutting down their transit time.

As I have experienced in my time along the roads here in Malawi thus far, the bicycle is extremely well used here. It is great to see so many other two-wheeled pedalers on the road! That also means that there is a good repair network available for the donated bicycles so they can be useful for providing health care for years to come.

Once again, many thanks to all of my donors!

For those who have not yet donated, you can still do so through my website. Your donations will result in bicycle donations where they are most needed during the tour next year.

Thanks!

Game Safari, Mountain Biker's Dream Roads, Another Stage Win and hitting the 6000km Mark, oh my!

2007-03-25T10:06:00.001-05:00

A leopard hanging out in a tree as per usual; this is a pretty rare sighting!

On the rim of the amazing Ngorongoro crater

Bikes can get through, but motor vehicles have a pretty tough time

Hanging out with some kids after eating some ugali while waiting for our support truck to get through the at times impassable roads.

Crossing over the 6000km mark on my way to my second stage win! A surge of over 50km/h down a gravel hill got me the distance I needed and held it for the remaining 70km of the 95km day.

...and they pile them even higher! (note that Rémy in the blue shirt is 6'4")

Where is my tent? At the end of the rainbow of course.

Broken record statement of "wow, such amazing things keep happening!" I left off while typing in a small pub in Arusha, Tanzania with jumping and flipping dancers performing in the background; too cool.

The following morning we boarded our seven seat Toyota Land Cruiser on the first of our three rest days salivating for our taste of an African safari. Safari is actually a Swahili word for "journey" but us westerners tend to associate it with game viewing in this beautiful continent. We left the rat-race that is touristy Arusha bound for some rougher roads. Still on the main highway we were greeted by some zebra and giraffes snacking on some foliage. Just beautiful how they move!

We finally got away from the mandatory curio stops where our vehicle windows were ransacked by sales of bananas, bead work, paintings, tissues and whatever else the locals thought that us "mzungus" wanted to spend money on. Our vehicle climbed away from the plain below and onto the volcanic escarpment where the famous Ngorongoro crater is situated. We finally arrived at the gates of the Ngorongoro Conservation area where the pavement ended and the entertaining driving on the rough roads began. We continued past the crater toward Serengeti National Park. Similar to our last couple of days of riding, we were in the thick of Masai land and were were constantly passing Masai with very decorated ears, beautifully coloured dress and welcoming smiles. The Masai are the only ones allowed to live in the Conservation area since they only feed on their Masai cattle and do not harm the wild animals or the terrain.

We arrived at the gate of the park and learned that Serengeti is actually a Masai word for "endless plain" which is extremely appropriate for the area. About 80% of the horizon was completely flat and the remaining 20% was extremely distant mountain ranges. Along the road we were stopping to photograph numerous types of gazelles (I love the extremely cute and active Thompson's Gazelles!), zebra, giraffes, wildebeast, and a cornucopia of unique birds. The park office is situated on one of the only hills in the area which offered an incredible view of the plain. We continued on toward our campsite as the clouds prematurely darkened the sky. We were able to watch the storm brew from kilometres away and occasionally see the sun setting behind it. We finally entered it and our vehicle was pelted with hail and surrounded by crashing thunder and lightening. We arrived at our campsite and set up camp in the relenting rain and enjoyed a delicious dinner cooked by our guide. We duly noted the sign in the middle of our unprotected campsite "CAUTION: DO NOT GET OUT OF THE CAMPSITE. ANIMAL MAY ATTACT HUMAN BEING." Needless to say we got the message and didn't stray far from our tents during our nocturnal pee breaks. During the night we heard a bunch of wild sounds not far from our tents. The idea of camping in the middle of the Serengeti was certainly invigorating.

We awoke early the following morning and set out in our Land Cruisers and our guide opened up the roof for better game viewing. We saw a few more of "the big five" along the way. These five animals (elephant, leopard, lion, buffalo, and rhinoceros) though not the most dangerous around are noted for their potential danger to humans. Sighting highlights included hippos fighting in a shallow creek, jackals slinking about, wort hogs charging away, female lions strolling about, and many others, but most notably a leopard sleeping on a high tree branch.

After lunch we drove around looking at more and more amazing animals, each time dropping my jaw as I couldn't believe I was laying my naked eyes on these unique creatures, then made our way back toward the Ngorongoro crater. We later laughed that at home none of us could picture ourselves standing in a Land Cruiser with our waist and up sticking out of the roof whilst screaming down a rough gravel road at 80km/h, but here we didn't really question it.

We camped on the rim of the crater and nature treated us to an amazing show of another colourful sunset as another thunderstorm rolled around the rim onto our site.

Early the next morning we descended into the crater that was then covered in a thin blanket of low-lying cloud. Even the guides said that they had never seen it like this. Once under the cloud the visibility plummeted, however the keen eye of our guide did not slow our game sightings. We were constantly surrounded by grazing gazelles, wildebeest, zebras, and buffalo. My highlight of the trip was seeing a male and female of my favourite species, the cheetah. They were lying in the grass watching the approach of some spotted hyenas slinking by to see if the cheetahs had any food. The hyenas kept their distance, then loped away disappointed by the lack of easy food.

We continued around the crater floor as the fog lifted and we saw a male lion, some elephants, some monkeys, some hippos both in and out of the water, and some rhinos among many others. Just amazing!

Our vehicle climbed out of the crater on the steep access road and we finally sat back down in our seats after having our heads out of the roof for the majority of the past three days.

Back on the bike the following morning was refreshing since I had been missing it while "on vacation from my vacation." During the day's race, I stopped for a long while and checked out the nearby Snake Park. I sauntered through the Masai Museum where a bunch of questions I had accrued over the previous week or so of travelling through Masai country. I then toured around the snakes where I got to come face-to-face (okay, through a pane of glass) with a cornucopia of Africa's famous venomous and non-venomous snakes. One of the cobras and the black mamba went into attack position as soon as they laid eyes on us. My fight or flight reaction was oblivious to the glass; what an experience!

The following day the pavement ended and the fun began for the trail riders of the crew. Now in the rainy season the roads had turned into a brown soupy mess and motorized vehicle became slower than bicycle. At one point a river had washed away a 100m section of road, but was easily passable to our cycling crew. The finish line was shortly after a section of extremely deep and sticky mud that had grabbed two trucks, blocking the road. We cycled back to that location and set up camp there since there was no way any vehicle was going to get through before morning.

The next day the fun continued and though the roads were drying we still passed a couple of trucks that blocked the way for our support trucks. I had my own share of mechanical trouble that day. My borrowed rear tire (without SpinSkins unfortunately) pinch flatted once again, then about 6km before our lunch stop the side wall blew with the sound of a gunshot. Needless to say that local that I was play racing with at the time got quite the shock. Instead of playing around trying to fix it, I ran the remaining distance to lunch. Instead of playing with my tire, a staff member lent me his bike for the remaining distance. Unfortunately, 100m into the afternoon's ride, the front derailleur cable housing frayed so I rigged it to stay in the middle ring. about 10km later I got a flat that I had to patch since he had already had a flat that morning. The valve failed so I patched the spare and was on my way. Another 15km later I flatted again and each patch opened up another hole in this faulty tube until the tube exploded with a 10cm hole. I then put my inappropriately sized tube in the tire and it seemed to hold. Fun stuff in the heat!

With all of that, the highlight of the day came about 5km later when about 10m in front of me I saw a ~2m long black snake sunning himself upon the narrow road. Once he felt I was too close, he raised his head to about 1m off of the ground, then decided that he didn't want to bother with me and darted off into the Tanzanian bush. Noting the markings in the seconds in which this all transpired as well as his behaviour, I am fairly certain it was a black mamba; one of Africa's most aggressive venomous snakes. Wow!

Our support trucks managed to make it through the slop and to the village where we stopped by 9:30pm which was an incredible feat! The African Routes staff performed some incredible work that day freeing the trucks from impossible fixes and avoiding other certain jams. Just amazing!

The next day was a non-race day and had some beautiful scenery along the road that lead us into the capital Dodoma. Unfortunately, due to a late arrival and the large amount of maintenance that had to be done I didn't get a chance to see the city that much except as we were cycling through.

The following days wound us through the now dry roads toward Iringa. I had realized that I had fallen into "two-speed mode" where my only two speeds are moving and stopped. I decided that to break out of this I needed to try for a stage win. On our second last day of dirt, I managed to stay with the lead group for the first 25km of the 95km stage until I noticed that I was more comfortable descending on these "adventure race style" roads. At 25km I broke away on a winding descent where I exceeded 50km/h. I managed to stay in front until our lunch break at 60km. We had a relaxed lunch, then left together, but the others decided that they weren't going to catch me and I rode to my second stage win!

That same day, we crossed the 6000km mark at lunch. It was a funny experience since we all feel like we are drawing toward the end even though half of the kilometres remain in front of us. This is a good feeling because it acted as a reminder to continue to enjoy and take advantage of this incredible opportunity of traversing this beautiful continent by bike.

The next day showed us some stunning scenery as we climbed up the mountain range bordering the rolling valley through which we had just travelled. Shortly before Iringa we hit the tarred roads again which was an odd sensation after a week of fun and rough roads. To complete the Snows of Kilimanjaro section, in a mock sprint for n-th place, I broke my chain. I was going to change my chain the next day anyway so I scootered the final 5km to camp.

The last couple of days have been back on the "black silk" (a.k.a. tarred roads). I was really enjoying the rough roads, but reaching road speeds with relatively little effort is a pretty strange experience!

Now in Mbeya, we cross the border into our 6th country Malawi; the poorest country in Africa. It is for this reason that I am very excited that through my donors, the Tour d'Afrique Foundation will be able to donate 24 bicycles in the capital Lilongwe! I am extremely excited for this presentation ceremony. I will certainly post more about this as the time approaches.

Bring on the higher mileage and green bushy scenery of Malawi!

Rolled away from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, rattled throuh Marsabit, Kenya and dropped into Arusha, Tanzania

2007-03-14T12:54:00.001-05:00

A beautiful sunrise over Lake Koka in Ethiopia

The beautiful green rolling landscape south of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia

Now THAT is a terminte mound; I'm not short!

We racers gather on the rough Northern Kenyan road where we will do our daily battle of ~85km or so.

Sandstorm! (it got much worse)

I was welcomed to the Southern Hemisphere by blowing a side wall about 300m south of this sign. Too funny!

I could have watched these drummers/dancers all day; amazing!

Surprise, surprise way too much has happened since my last update in Addis Ababa! Here goes an unbelievably long-winded update. My apologies, but it has to be done!

We travelled south along a major shipping route from Ethiopia's capital toward Somalia and Djibouti, but managed to keep out of harm's way. At one point we were travelling faster than the congested traffic and a European gentleman inquired out the window as we passed where we were headed. He laughed and started taking pictures of us when we replied "Cape Town." Too funny.

We had a couple of camps on some lakes where we saw a variety of wildlife including Cranes that stood nearly 1.5m tall and had the most amazing wing span! I also saw an ostrich and lots of other unique wildlife along the way. What a difference it was to be travelling and camping beside lakes after all of the arid conditions we have travelled through.

We moved into the lush hills where we were climbing again in amongst banana trees and broad leaved, very green bush. Days became hotter once again and evenings ceased to cool off with all of the humidity in the area holding the heat. Unfortunately, we had another rider-local accident where a little girl ran out in front of a particularly contentious rider of ours. Both were okay, but sustained some cuts and bruises. The bike's front wheel taco-ed and his helmet was...well
ceased to be useful. Our medic went quickly into action and our Ethiopian staff member was translating to tell the little girl what the medic was doing and telling the girl's father what was happening.

One day, our scenery began with the lush green that we had become accustomed to, then suddenly changed to coniferous forest that reminded me of Northern Ontario in Canada, then suddenly to dry, arid,
scrubby desert all within our 120km ride! As Ethiopia drew to a close, the condition of the road became worse and worse. In places, the area of the potholes exceeded that of the remaining pavement. The pavement quality was diminishing such that my 1.25" slicks at 100psi were no longer rolling efficiently over the rough surface. On our third-last day in Ethiopia, I decided to give up on the pavement and
tried the parallel dirt road that suddenly appeared. I had a blast rolling quickly over this rough yet far more entertaining surface where I was dodging sand pits, cattle, camels, rocks, locals, thorn patches and other obstacles. I was keeping up with some other riders that were sticking to the rough pavement dodging and jumping potholes. The other joy of this was that I knew that it was going to be my last
day on my Cannondale.

I decided that the crack was just getting too big on my frame, it tended to fish-tail a bit once I got over 60km/h and it was getting stupendously noisy! In Yabello, I moved all of my components over to the frame and fork of Henry Gold (tour founder; what an honour!) that we have been carrying with us as an extra. The advantage being that I could ride without fear of my frame breaking catastrophically, the disadvantage being that we were heading into 6 of the rougher days of the tour on a straight-tubed, thick-walled, rigid aluminum bike (i.e.
no suspension). It took some getting used to since it is a completely different geometry than I am used to (it is a touring frame and mine is a stretched out racing geometry), but I am still riding and it fits me reasonably well so I am pretty lucky and happy to have it!

Crossing the border into Kenya meant a number of things: moving over to the left side of the road where we will stay until Cape Town,
bidding farewell to pavement for a while, bidding farewell to crowds and rock-throwing, but also bidding farewell to a beautiful country with some very friendly people. The riding started fast, but slowed down once the corrugations became more violent, the winds turned against us, the heat increased and the sand-storms began; it was awesome! The day into Marsabit was particularly tough and took me
just shy of 7 hours to complete. What a rewarding day to complete! Needless to say, my wrists enjoyed the rest having rattled over the terrain without suspension.

My SpinSkins have been working out great and Northern Kenya was great proof. I was not able to fit my large rear tire in my borrowed frame so I was lent a smaller one that would fit. My front tire with the SpinSkins had no problems at all even though the volcanic rock was shredding the exterior of the tire. The back tire without the Kevlar strip in it did not bode as well and I pinch-flatted five times in
four days on the rough stuff (even at 80psi; lose some weight Andrew!). Two of those were in the >45°C heat of the day into Marsabit.

Camping in Marsabit National Park was great as we had baboons playing above our tents and elephants strolling through our site. I managed to avoid the falling primate feces until just as we were leaving; almost too lucky.

The next three days saw us along more rough corrugations, but the scenery was absolutely stunning! Mountainous terrain with light climbing, fun downhills and of course the beautifully decorated Samburu people along the way. The colours that these people wear is absolutely amazing and the effort that goes into their bead work and piercings is astounding!

Reading National Geographic articles about bare-breasted African tribes people seems like something that would be off the beaten track; however the rough road from Moyale to Isiolo seems to be off this track enough. The scenery, the wildlife and the decorations of the people made me feel like I was living in a magazine. Just amazing.

Though I am a mountain biker and enjoy being off the tarmac, I must say that it was a great feeling to hit tar in Isiolo. After averaging less than 20km/h over a day of pushing, cruising easily at 25km/h felt surreal. To top it off, we found some fridges and freezers stocked with yogurt and ice cream. The population also exploded once we left "bandit territory" that surrounds the rough roads so our quiet, starry bush camps had expired.

We had a luxurious few days of riding into Nairobi, with riding times dropping, average speeds sky-rocketing, camping becoming far more luxurious and most of all treated to some amazing views of Mt. Kenya, Africa's 2nd highest peak. I can't wait to come back and climb that one; it is beautiful!

In Nanyuki, we had our half-way and equator-crossing toga party. I am very proud to say that I was awarded "best toga" for my olive wreath, silk toga (good ol' sleep sheet) and of course Salomon tights. Crossing the equator early the next morning was a cool experience, however 300m into the southern hemisphere I blew a side wall in my
rear tire. Once I realized that I was not being shot at, a staff member lent me his tire for the rest of the day.

Riding into Nairobi on my birthday was a fun experience. I was stunned by how developed the city is! It was somewhat unfortunate to see some lavish infrastructure (beautifully tended lawns, intricate architecture, fountains centre piecing traffic circles, etc.) considering the condition of the road that lead us from the Ethiopian border. Apparently the three tribes of the northern area have never had a representative in parliament and have not had their voices heard. Not being a man of politics, I will leave the facts as I have heard them there.

Being the conclusion of the third section of the race, the awards were distributed and I received the "How many other ways can I think of to
destroy a bike" award. What an honour. I guess after three bent chain links, a cracked derailleur pulley, a jimmied seat post, a pile of pinch flats (none with SpinSkins), a cracked frame, a bent chain ring and two blown tire side walls, I had it coming to me.

Unfortunately, I was also bit by the birthday bug and like many others on this trip fell ill that night. To keep a gruesome story short, I was fine until about 9:00pm, then went to bed because I just wasn't feeling right. I was up more than ten times during the night (who really keeps count after that?) with both diarrhea and vomiting. I was amazed at how much liquid my body could contain! I was
disappointed that I was not healthy enough to look around Nairobi (and of course was not able to update this website), but was happy that I did not have to ride a bike.

Luckily, a press conference was held at our camp for a couple of reasons: Douglas Sidialo who is a blind Kenyan rider going from Cairo to Cape Town on a tandem spoke. His sponsor Nestle showed up and set up an impressive display of banners and samples. Many people gave speeches promoting Douglas' various causes ranging from the UN Safer cities program, promoting disabled athletes the power of sport in Africa.

I also got to witness the first presentation of bicycles from the Tour d'Afrique Foundation! This presentation was to two women's groups within Nairobi that will use the bikes to further their ability to provide health care to women in their area. There were thank-you speeches from the women as well as a thank-you song from some children who live in the area. Very precious!

Our exit from Nairobi was lead by a group of 25 or so inline skaters and roller skaters promoting a "Stop Malaria" movement sponsored by a new Belgian rider of ours. They were all over the street, hanging onto our support vehicles, doing tricks and making a lot of noise drowning out the din of Nairobi's morning traffic.

The two riding days away from Nairobi were beautiful and some highlights were some vigorous native dancing and drumming at our lunch stop (just awesome!), travelling through the famous Masai country, crossing into Tanzania and of course being treated to some clouded views of the stunningly massive Mt. Kilimanjaro! Though my health is taking its time returning making the 140km days in the heat difficult, the scenery and the smiling support of people along the road is enough to get me through.

Here I sit in Arusha which feels like the tourism capital of Africa right now. We have three rest days here so I am taking full advantage and am doing a three-day safari through Serengeti National Park and the Ngorongoro Crater where I will see a world of wildlife only
familiar in magazines and on TV screens to me before. I can't explain my excitement to witness savage Africa!

Once back on the bike, bring on the rainy season mud of the Dodoma road!

Impressions of Ethiopia: 13 months of sunshine!

2007-03-05T08:40:00.001-05:00

I found some unexpected internet access in Marsabit, Kenya so here is a little update. I haven't had a chance to formalize these yet, so I may update them a little later on.

To explain the title; Ethiopia uses the Julian calendar which means that they have thirteen months in the year, it is currently 1999 (they are very excited for their upcoming millennium) and their time is offset by 6 hours. 0:00 happens when the sun rises: makes sense.

The people:

In one word: "amazing!"
Densely populated! From when we crossed the border in Metema to when we crossed out of Ethiopia in Moyale, I feel like there were people absolutely everywhere. No matter how rural of a place I felt I was in, if I stopped for whatever reason (including answering nature's call) there was nearly instantly a group around me. If I stopped in a town, it would not be a surprise to have a crowd of up to 100 (confirmed by rough count!) surrounding me just staring at what just breezed into town. I can't say I blame them, I would probably do the same. While travelling along the roads, there were constantly calls from both sides of the road yelling either "You, you, you...", "Where are you go?" or "Farangi!"
Misunderstood?: I would make an estimate that 99% of the people here are super friendly and enjoy greeting the strange people on bikes as we crawl through their towns. They enjoy staring and touching our strange skin and trying their limited English on us even if they have no idea what they are asking. The remaining 1% (which considering the number of people by the roads leaves an apparently large number of people) which seemed to all fit into the male 5-18 age category have different ideas of greeting. For our suspected but not confirmed reasons of economic jealousy, our lack of effort to communicate in a language they understand, the fact that adults control children like their livestock (throw rocks at them, hit them with sticks and whips, etc.), the children in turn treat us foreign looking creatures the only way they know how. Whether they realize the pain an severity of injuries they are able to inflict by their actions remains a mystery to us. As a side note, I am surprised that the US doesn't send Major League baseball scouts to Ethiopia; the speed, distance and accuracy that these surprisingly small children can hurl large rocks is incredible!
People tend to locally work together more. Though neighbouring communities compete and disagree, within a community seem to help each other. This was in contrast with Egypt where two salespeople would in tandem keep lowering their prices to make the sale.
Begging: how different it was after crossing from the Sudan. People of all ages (though predominantly children) have no shame in begging. Though they take diverse approaches from the pouty face look, to the yelling in anger, to simply holding out the cupped hand, to the intellectual long story of how they are a student with little money, it is a very accepted practice. Unfortunately, it doesn't get many conversations off to a good start. After having a pack of kids pester me for pens, money, sweets and other goodies for a good half-hour of monkey watching, I turned around and started playing with a ball with them and the next thing you know I am playing soccer with a bunch of them. They taught me a little Amheric, I taught them a little English, all was well. It really is unfortunate how accepted agressive begging is.
The people are as diverse as the rapidly changing landscape (see below)

Landscape:

Beautiful and stunningly diverse! To summarize all of the landscapes that we travelled through to any degree of accuracy would take some time. Our path travelled through a dry and lightly forested area, then into jagged mountains, tree-less high-rolling hills, green lush bush around Lake Tana, swampy hippo-inhabited areas, greener mountains, flat lands dotted with lakes, very green and very lush banana areas, re-forested coniferous forests, back into dry desert with towering termite mounds and scrubby, thorny bushes that manage to suck enough water from the dry soil to survive, and more!
Many are very hard working! I saw people (mostly women) hauling a huge amount of goods over large distances (often greater than an estimated 50 pounds (23 kilos) and over distances up to an estimated 10km. The donkeys here also haul huge loads on their backs and with carts. It was common to see a single donkey with an unfathomable load behind it huffing and puffing its way up a hill. It was also common to see a group of women hauling large loads with a single husband strolling beside them carrying a stick.
Everyone carries sticks. Not much depth to this comment, but the "stick trade" here seems fairly extensive. They are used for scaffolding, mud-structure building and for carrying. As a rider keeping a close eye out for potential stick swings in my direction (or the direction of my spokes), it is easy to note how so many carry sticks. They use them for any combination of hitting their donkeys, help carry the load on their head, controlling children, "encouraging" their horse, or of course swinging at passing foreigners. Relative to the others, the latter is likely the least common.

Public health:

Do take this section with a grain of salt as I am nowhere near qualified to talk about things like this so I'll just state the facts. It was interesting to note that once we approached Ethiopia and the entire way through the country, a large portion of our group had some sort of stomach sickness to some degree. Our poor tour nurse with limited resources was treating bacterial and protozoal infections and watching potentially viral infections pass through. The water we drink is treated, but will bacteria etc. still get through? Is it from the quality of ingredients that is used to cook our food? Is it from contact with others? Is it because every surface around has donkey/goat/cattle/camel/human feces on it? We found it tough cycling the distances we do every day while the body is fighting off a multitude of infections even with our defence line of modern medicine, abundant water, quality foods, etc. Imagine having that same sickness with little food, no clean water and exerting yourself in a similar manner hauling goods around just to survive.

That is all I have for now. The incredible amount of experiences I have will likely add to more of these, but I am still mentally digesting them. Beautiful place Ethiopia; beautiful place. On to Kenya!

Amazing results of Tour d'Afrique Foundation donations and Canada.com article; exciting stuff!

2007-02-21T05:11:00.001-05:00

I heard word the other night that with the astounding current total of $2400USD (and counting...) that everyone has helped me raise for the Tour d'Afrique Foundation, I have raised the most amount of any rider of any year for this charity. Thank-you! The tour director was whetting my appetite as to the excitement of some of the upcoming presentation ceremonies with the number of bikes that we will be able to donate! I hope you'll join me in this excitement! More to come.

In other news, I have appeared along with some other great Canadian names on Canada.com. You can check out the article at http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/sports/story.html?id=02607988-2cd9-45b8-8991-6b8fd8386efa&k=42835. Congratulations Ray for hitting the Red Sea yesterday! Take a look!

Two sections and 3500km done!

2007-02-21T05:00:00.001-05:00

If I stopped in a village, people would crowd to this density 270° around...just to look

These kids were watching us eat dinner, then without cue started singing and dancing in unison like they had rehearsed it. These are the same kids that throw rocks, obviously it is not malicious.

The amazing Blue Nile Gorge! ~1300m deep which we climbed over ~20km on gravel roads. Incredible!

We safely made it to Ethiopia's capital city Addis Ababa; safely being the key word here! Not surprisingly, a world's worth of interesting things have happened since my last update in Bahir Dar. This computer will (once again) not allow me to post pictures so I'll have to be crafty with my text...again.

Since leaving Bahir Dar, we have had some long days with some significant climbing. Thought the road surfaces have been good, distances have been as high as 160km, each day's cumulative elevation gain has been through the roof and one day we finally climbed above 3000m above sea level (above 10 000 feet for the imperialists among you). Even the Swiss among us were saying that they had never been that high on a bike before!

The scenery has been absolutely beautiful. Though we have been climbing high into the mountains, the landscape is still quite green and lush. Some really interesting large-scale rock formations have revealed themselves in the mountains. To accompany this lush green landscape, for the first time since arriving in Africa, we had rain! We had about five minutes of light drops whilst on the bike one morning, then two nights in a row had heavy rain throughout the entire night. The first night of rain we were camped in a field with thick, clay-based soil and the lot of us spent a minimum of ten minutes trying to find our pedal cleats on the bottom of our bike shoes.

Speaking of scenery, we finally bid a triumphant "farewell" to the River Nile. The second section of this tour is appropriately named "The Gorge" which is named after the Blue Nile gorge that we cycled through a few days ago. Though the distance on the day was short, it was an incredible day of cycling! We started with a quick 15km of paved road to where it felt like the earth ended. Suddenly at the end of the village, the pavement ended and the soil before us dropped about 1300 vertical metres down to the Blue Nile below us. The rough gravel road wound an 18km route switching back down the side of the gorge face with trucks, locals, donkeys, and many other obstacles to avoid. Over the 18km I think I did a total of about 20 pedal strokes, and that was just for entertainment value; talk about mountain biker's dream! Due to the rain the night before, the dust that usually clouds the view of the gorge was not present; however it was replaced with mud. While this was no problem for us bikes, two large trucks got stuck in the mud (each on opposing sides of the gorge) which cut-off large vehicle traffic through the bottom of the gorge. Race management still managed to get one 4x4 vehicle through the blockage so we were still able to hold our 22km long time trial up the 1400 vertical metre south side of the gorge! I had been looking forward to this climb since I heard about the trip long ago. I had set a goal of 2 hours in the climb and was extremely pleased when I stopped my clock for the 5th best time of the day of 1 hour 53 minutes!

I mentioned in my previous update that the culture gap between the Sudan and Ethiopia was vast, but it proved even more so over the last five days of riding. First let me say that the vast majority of locals are very kind, very friendly and genuine. Unfortunately, a small majority of young males are not following this trend. I must admit, I have an extremely long fuse; however a few days ago that fuse became much shorter. I had a number of incidences where I would wave with a smile and greeting in Amharic (local language), but as soon as I passed would face a barrage of rocks being thrown at me, sticks thrown at me, whips being cracked at me, fists being thrown at me, just to name a few. At first, rocks were being thrown along the road where they would do only a little harm. What really got under my skin was when these violent acts were stepped up, the rocks got bigger, the aim of the rocks got better and toward more vital parts of the body, sticks weren't used simply as threats but rather swung with intent to hurt. The only defence we have is to stop, single out the perpetrator and follow them when the run home and inform their parents (in interpretive dance of course) of what they have done. A few times, the parent took the child away and an Amharic argument ensued behind opaque walls. Other times, parents shrugged their shoulders and differed responsibility. To curb the length of this post, I will omit the long discussions that riders have had about these happenings and the symbolism of it and simply say that it is a minority tainting the image of the majority.

On the note of image, it seems to be standard fare when locals under the age of ~15 see white skin, they respond with yellings along the lines of "gimme pen", "money, money", "1 Birr, 1 Birr", and so on. If you stop and speak to them, they give up on that pretty quickly and enjoy your company. I had a 45 minute soccer game with a group of children that opened up the "conversation" by pestering me for money.

Overpopulation is quite noticeable here. I can't say that I came to that conclusion immediately, but soon realized that no matter how far away from civilization we felt along the country roads we were travelling, stopping quickly for nature's call was never a private affair. Locals would appear out of nowhere and start asking the question that I have heard more than I can imagine since crossing the border "Where are you go?" Cycling through a town is never a quiet affair where people of all ages are yelling from 50m away from the road as well as from on the road "you, you, you, ..." , "where are you go, where are you go, ..." or combinations of "you, money, you money, you pen, you pen". Stopping in a town means an instant crowd of 50 or so children staring at the alien that stands before them. I must admit, in local context we look pretty strange; I would probably do the same thing.

From here to Nairobi, we have 1600km to cover over paved roads through Ethiopia's famous Rift Valley, over the harsh volcanic rocks of the deserts of Northern Kenya and more. Unfortunately for this site, I will not have internet access until we hit Nairobi again so I will not be able to post until then. I can't imagine the length of THAT post when I get there!

Now, off to "Africa's biggest market" in Addis Ababa!

Bahr Dar, Ethiopia...so much to report!

2007-02-14T08:27:00.001-05:00

Stunning mountain view from my tent door. The picture just doesn't do it justice

The girl who tried to jump on my bike so I could bike her back to Canada, and she wasn't the only one. I honestly tried, but my mountain bike is really only designed for one (Photo: Rémy Benois)

Typical lunch scene. The locals love staring at us so we put up orange ropes around the site so we are not mobbed. I can only imagine what we look like to them.

I can't believe how much has happened and changed since my last update. Where to begin?! Firstly, happy Valentine's Day! This is good for some more point form I think.

Had a good rest day in Khartoum. It is a special city because it has the amenities of a bigger city, but because of the amazing nature of the Sudanese it has a small town feel. Cycling through traffic and over the Nile to the market, camping beside the well-defined line showing the confluence of the Blue and White Nile (of note: apparently Ethiopia has been dry lately and Uganda a little wetter and as such the confluence of the rivers has moved eastward), sitting enjoying my felafel watching the life of the city pass by, being treated to an evening out by the Sudanese Cycling Federation a the curiously fancy "Police Home" were some highlights here.
The three days leaving Khartoum saw me catch a bug that has been making its way around the riders (typically happens every year around this time) and just completing the distance every day was challenging.
The scenery slowly changed from the desert that we had become accustomed to toward more greenery and light hills in the terrain.
Since we turned eastward, our tail winds became cross winds. One morning an extremely strong gust blew a half dozen riders in the lead peleton (including myself due to my location at the time) completely off the road. I wanted to take the picture of a pack of riders all leaning about ten degrees to the left to offset the wind, but I really didn't want to take a paw off my handlebar.
Being in a different tribe's region, the housing turned from the mud-packed huts and homes toward grass huts. Very picturesque!
With more greenery around, we actually began to see wildlife! Until now we have only seen domestic animals, but now the air is alive with sounds of wild animals.
With more moisture around, the evenings have been significantly warmer and the days have felt far hotter due to the humidity. I had ridden the vast majority of the tour in tights and long sleeves, but now I have broken down and regularly wear shorts and short sleeves (complimented by plenty of 30spf sunscreen of course!).
Roads were paved all the way from Khartoum to about 10km before the Ethiopian border at Metema.
I understood that the last day in the Sudan was to be paved with little to see along the side of the road and since my health had returned, I went for a race day. The short story is that two riders broke away at 5km and myself and two other riders hung on. After another 45km of high pace riding, the two tour leaders broke going down a hill and my mountain gears struggled to keep up with the 70km/h pace they set, but I hung on. The three of us worked together until 140km when a few attacks started. I held on until about 2km to go when the anaerobic nature of the now unpaved roads dropped me back. I came in 1 minute behind the first two riders who had to sprint through a heard of cattle that was in the process of immigrating into Ethiopia.
The first two days in Ethiopia were tough, but absolutely amazing! The first day was 95km of gravel roads that ended with what I would have called a long climb up to our camp. We climbed to an elevation of about 2300m and the views of the mountains were beautiful!
Most riders found the day pretty tough and more and more riders were catching the bug going around so unfortunately many elected to ride the truck the following 114km day over the same roads with far more climbing. Though it was a challenging day with a cumulative elevation gain of about 2400m, the views and the feeling of accomplishment was fantastic! Highlights of the day were the fun descents to start the day, the 18km long climb where I used my granny gear for the first time and occasionally dropped below 5km/h, seeing huge amounts of locals walking up the mountain to the village of Aykel carrying the fruits of their labour (produce, lumber, whatever else they could sell) over huge distances (I estimate up to 8km) up massive elevations, stopping in a village to purchase some bananas and instantly having a crowd of ~30-40 curious people around, having one local girl try to set me up with her friend only to turn jealous and wanted me to take her to Canada on my bicycle (she tried to get on my seat until she realized that it almost reached her shoulder, then she got on my top tube. I tried to pedal away, but...well it just wasn't going to work), climbing up to our mountain top hotel (no exaggeration) in Gonder to conclude the amazing day were just some of the highlights. I took it easy over the day but didn't doddle and still didn't make it to camp until 5:00pm. Incredible!
Two rest days in Gonder. Our Ethiopian contact tried to organize a flight to Lalibela, but didn't have success so offered a hiking trip to the Simian mountains, but there were not enough takers so we stayed around Gonder.
I didn't send and update from Gonder because the internet was just not going to work for me...sorry!
Did some errands, saw the town, had a blast having the locals make fun of us, recovered from some residual sickness, some food poisoning (a little too much local water in the amazing avocado juice I had...it was worth it!), and the previous days of riding.
We only had two days of riding from Gonder to here in Bahr Dar where we get another rest day. Many people are still recovering from some sickness, so this is a welcome rest. Though the roads have been paved, the views and the climbing have still been awesome!

Well, this has raged on pretty long. I'll try to post again soon with some fun stories about the locals, me riding three mountainous days with only one brake working and some details about the day-to-day routine of the tour.

Tonight: the P-party! We are to come dressed as anything that starts with P. Tonight I will be the Patriotic Peddler with all of my Canadian garb and tattoos. Mission: make an a** out of myself!

...well more than usual!

Impressions of the Sudan

2007-02-14T07:08:00.000-05:00

The real jewel of the Sudan, the Sudanese!

The biggest thing to mention here is the people:

The Sudanese people really are amazing. The whole time in the country I always felt welcome. The only exception...see below
It seems to be in their culture to offer to strangers/travellers what you can. While travelling along I lost count of the number of times I was offered tea and/or food.\
The most stunning example of their generous tendencies is that on multiple occasions I was offered Sudanese currency (the Dinar) by children less than 10 years old. These are people that really don't have that much in the way of money, and they wanted to give it to a complete stranger. (aside: yes, the joke was made later that they wanted to give me money so I could buy some clothes, my bike shorts not hiding much)
After being accustomed to haggling in Egypt, I quickly found that it is not done as much in the Sudan. People set their prices and that is where they stood. I like it.
On the side of the road there were many who went nuts when we went by. This time it was not because they wanted money or sweets, but rather they ran out to greet us because they were just really curious!
People seemed generally curteous to each other; not just us weird looking tourists.
Though there were times when there was a great deal of traffic passing us by, the drivers were extremely curteous. Large trucks in the midst of long journeys (we were cycling along the road from Khartoum to Port Sudan) would wait patiently until they had plenty of room to pass our entire group. We were often honked at, but it was generally accompanied by a big smile and a wave from the vehicle's window.
Great people, great people

Impressions of people in positions in power:

Unfortunately, I cannot paint as rosy of a picture under this subsection. To summarize, the rich are rich and the poor are happy.
At check points of various types (border crossings, police check points, etc.) we were made to perform trivial tasks for questionable reason. We had to make sure that every single piece of luggage including our bikes got a sticker on them and were subjected to a 5 minute speech about how important this was (no exaggeration) and they were never looked at again. We were all asked to pay a $50USD fee per person at the border to "register with the police." Other travellers were asked to pay $35USD. Our tour organizers were asked for our passports numerous times throughout our journey for police registrations and occasionally asked for fees, but we got away with just showing our passports. Our gear truck was stopped at police checkpoints and asked for passports and money, but the driver is used to this and always talked his way out of it.
Throughout the country, we generally had to keep our cameras concealed. Pictures of anything remotely government related (bridges, airports, large buildings, even roads) was not permitted. A few riders almost lost their cameras.
From Khartoum to the border, we were joined by some riders from the Sudanese Cycling team; this was very cool! This also meant that some politicians followed us and took every possible opportunity to make a long speech saying anything from "thanks for coming through the Sudan" to "we are peaceful people" to "spend more money in the Sudan" to "here are a bunch of charities that you should tell your home countries about" to "tell the media in your home countries that we are peaceful people" with emphasis on us going back to our home countries and setting our media straight on what sort of people we saw in the country.
Apparently the magazine "The Economist" ranked the Sudan as the 3rd most corrupt country in the world. From my position I cannot really judge this, but it is unfortunate that a nation of such friendly people is under such leadership.

Overall, travelling through this country was amazing! Thanks Sudan!

Sensational Sudan Nearly Complete!

2007-02-03T14:27:00.000-05:00

Now in the Sahara, we are seeing more sand and less rock. Talk about flat horizon here!

The camel train we encountered. Too cool!

How many camel heads fit in a small bucket? Don't worry, the 6th guy in the background finally made it in too.

The Sudanese Cycling Team posing with our mechanic and the tandem bike of Douglas and Joash, a blind rider and his pilot from Nairobi, Kenya

I feel like this will be a recurring statement but with the huge pile of things that have happened since my last update, I am at a loss of where to begin. I will start with some facts which will bring on some stories and thoughts and then this post will likely rage on far too long. Well, you can read it in stages I guess!

I had a great day doing some washing, then wandering around Dongola. I enjoyed some freshly pressed mango juice, then some flame broiled chicken and wandered around the dusty streets, waving to the locals looking curiously at what was walking down the street before them. I enjoy the challenge of trying to convey what I am trying to say to very confused locals. I really do feel bad for not knowing more of the local language, but locals seem to get entertainment from the interpretive dance I end up doing to try to supplement the few words I do know in Arabic.

We left Dongola in a convoy and off into the desert we rode. Now on the west side of the Nile, we are in the eastern extents of the famous Sahara desert. I was expecting another five days of some rough roads, but it turned out to be two days of riding on roads in various states of construction and three days of riding chiefly on paved roads with some sections still under construction. I found this a little unfortunate since I was looking forward to the challenge of the tough roads and heat that the Sudan has offered previous Tour d'Afrique riders, but accepted it and rode with my slicks on for the the last three days.

Most days, I have started with the pack just to get warmed up and let some kilometres pass with the fast-moving group, then happily dropped off when the pace surged with attacking racers. From there, I enjoyed a combination of riding easily on my own, riding easily with others, watching the scenery pass by continually repeating "wow, I really am riding in the Sahara", stopping and quietly taking pictures while enjoying the sounds of the desert communities, stopping with some groups of locals and doing my best to have a "conversation", riding peacefully with one other rider enjoying the scenery and pointing out interesting observations to each other, enjoying good conversation between riders, and of course there are the more off the wall stories!

Riding along one day along a sandy road, we went to go up and over an irrigation canal stemming from the life-blood Nile out to the depths of the desert and noticed a bike helmet on the other side. We wondered why Tom V. (Canadian) had stopped until we rose slightly more to be greeted with about 50 camel heads! We quickly stepped aside since we had already spooked the heard and gave them right of way over the narrow bridge.

Another day we were riding along in a larger group (about ten of us) and noticed a great deal of action happening about 50m off the road. We decided to go and check it out and came across two families concurrently getting water from a large communal well. They would drop the bucket down the well and fill it, then attach the rope to a donkey with a small child on top, then the donkey would tow the water up from the depths. Repeat process...until we showed up. Before we knew it, we were hauling up the water whilst the donkeys had a well deserved rest and drink from their share of the water. We let them ride our bikes, they put a rider up on a camel and took her for a ride, we helped them hitch their water tank cart to their donkey, we played the "take your picture and show it to them on the back of the camera" game, all the mean while they were laughing their heads off and having a great time! We can only wonder what they were thinking when a gang of spandex-clad foreigners came over and started hauling their water up, but we hope that this particular day will be a water-fetching experience to remember!

One evening there was a particularly large hill behind our site, so a couple of us trudged up to the top of the ~30 vertical metre rise. The vastness of the desert was that much more apparent from atop the hill. Aside from the similar hilly features that dotted one side of the landscape, the horizon was the only limit to the vast dry landscape that was before us. Small bushes here in there somehow managed to draw whatever small quantity of water the surrounding sand would present to keep a light green tinge upon its thorny branches. The wind scoured and packed most patches of the landscape and deposited its dust on the leeward sides of any features (including all of our gear of course) in delicately carved smooth and wavy lines. The desert is a beautiful place!

The people we have come across have been great! Everyone has been very courteous, kind and very friendly! Unlike in Egypt where every time you answer the "where are you from?" question with Canada you got a response of "Canada Dry" and requests for tips for their witty lines, you are greeted with more curiosity, more questions, more smiles, more and more handshakes requests to have you take pictures of them, offers of tea and/or food and general good spirit.

The other night we were treated to a few speeches from some fellow riders about the fund-raising initiatives they have created by pedalling along with us. The stories of time, effort, energy and resources backed by their commitment of pedalling across this continent were going to causes that put back into the countries here that would like help, however too-large organizations are not efficient enough with their funds to reach the more needing cases, a rider dissatisfied by a career of selling high-tech equipment to people that have now using his marketing talents to get a list of corporations to help him build a school, medical facilities and other growing initiatives in a community that we will pass through in Zambia, a rider who lost a friend to ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) a number of years ago pledged that he would ride this tour to raise funds and awareness for this fatal and cureless disease were some of the presentations we were given. Many others have their own initiatives including the one off of this website doing our best to help this land that we are quietly rolling over with our 2-cylinder glycogen-powered vehicles.

Today, we had a short time trial of 18km followed by an escorted entry into Khartoum. What was really neat about it was that the Sudanese Cycling Team assisted in blocking traffic for us as we wound through the busy streets of the sprawling city. Talking with them, they were very enthusiastic to help us out. When we arrived at our camp, the President of the Sudanese Cycling federation and the General Secretary of Sport in the Sudanese government both offered speeches welcoming us to their country and to their capital city. I was very taken aback by their deep appreciation for our presence in their country. They both repeatedly mentioned that we should bring back exactly what we have seen in their country to the media of our home countries. They wanted the message to be spread around the world's media that Sudan is not a country of terrorists, but rather a country of peaceful, friendly people as we have witnessed.

My original goals of accomplishing the athletic challenge whilst enjoying the local cultures, helping improve local lives through Tour d'Afrique Foundation fundraising initiatives and hopefully proliferating the bicycle as an alternative to combustion-powered transportation are in the works. I am now realizing that simply our presence here and our group's collective willingness to press down on a pair of bike pedals across the continent is potentially opening up an entirely new set of doors.

From here, I get to wake up tomorrow morning to my tent's view of the confluence of the Blue and White Nile (as shown by a solid line of white sediment entering the Blue Nile's stream; quite stunning!) and then get to saunter around the city for the day taking in its unique sights and sounds, then back on the bikes en route to Ethiopia. Only five riding days left in Sudan. Too bad!

...oh yeah, to close this raging report off, yes the rumour is true, I did crack my bike frame. Uh-oh. It is okay, potential solutions are at hand!

Hello from Sunny Sudan!

2007-01-29T08:13:00.001-05:00

My first stage win! One goal for the tour complete

Curious Sudanese kids posing with my bike. One of the smaller ones was able to ride my big 21.5" bike (of course he came back).

The loose sand and corriguations of Nubian Desert roads that made this section really fun!

Making our way through the Sahara desert now at the end of a 9 hour, >45°C day

I am at a loss of what to write since there is so much I want to pack in here. Once again, I won't be able to post pictures this time. I should be able to do it from Khartoum after another 5 riding days. Here goes some point form again:

Riding in convoy to the ferry in Aswan was pretty funny. They shut down the road over the Nile dam for us to cross.
Getting on the ferry, then watching the ferry being packed from the boat was absolutely hilarious! Picture 40 people trying to get over 100 heavy bags and 40 high-end bikes onto a boat while being trampled by people with massive bags of potatoes, car parts, textiles, you name it also trying to get on the boat. People (I'm assuming were officials) would occasionally close the gate to the boat, but would let us climb over and/or around it with our payload. The neighbouring barge was also being packed to enormous heights from trucks that were packed to double the height of the cab. No words can describe, absolute mayhem! I can't believe that this happens every week.
While on the ferry, I met some guys that I met in Cairo from Iceland and Sweden that decided to head to Sudan. They were going to try to head to Khartoum by camel, not sure how that will go.
Getting off the ferry in Wadi Halfa, Sudan was pretty much the same. This time however, we had be to "inspected" by customs. The official (my guide book warned me about) wanted us to unload the truck, put the bags from the square that they were arranged in to two lines, have all of the bags open, started to call from a list of names, inspected one bag, asked if we had a doctor, asked the Swedish rider whether he had medication for his wife's stomach tumor, after a long awkward discussion, decided ex-lax and immodium would do the trick and accepted some, told everyone to bring their bags to him, told everyone to put the bags back in a line, was fed up inspecting bags so put an "inspected" sticker on all of them, etc., etc., etc. You get the picture. I think he was getting some entertainment from all of our weird gear.
The biking in Sudan has been awesome (note this is coming from the point of view of an adventure racer that doesn't like paved roads)! Though most days have been on the order of half of the distances we were doing in Egypt, the effort is far higher. I seem to start my daily journal writings with something on the order of "Amazing day, just amazing!" Washboards have been abundant, violent and seldom avoidable, but makes the arrival at camp extremely rewarding. Taking off shoot roads has varying success, but occasionally warrants some great riding! I am very happy to be one of the riders that is on a mountain bike with wider tires and a suspension fork.
Some have noticed, I got my first stage win! The first day in Sudan, we discovered that though all roads go the same direction, some lend to faster riding. Jan and I came into lunch first the other day even though we thought we were 4th, 5th. I waited for the top riders to arrive and was going to wait for them to leave until I noticed that the tandem bike snuck away from lunch without my noticing. I left about 5 minutes behind them and decided that since there were no towns along the road, I would push that day. I eventually caught them and was the first rider to arrive. Not the sweetest stage win, but I got my stage winner plate none the less.
Since then, I have slowed a great deal. The scenery through the desert is amazing and surprisingly diverse! I have stopped in many villages along the way. A few times I was offered a wife. She didn't seem to accept when I offered to take her back to Canada by pointing at my bike seat. The Sudanese people are extremely friendly and generous! I stopped in one town along the Nile where a Swedish rider and I were given a massive platter of bread, pasta, beef and dips. It was very good! My limited Arabic (to the effect of good morning, hello, water, thank-you, and a few other basics) entertains the locals as English is not as abundant here. We have gone through pockets of a Nubian language as well. I only know thank-you and hello in that one.
Now I'm in Dongola, half-way between the Egyptian border and Khartoum on a rest day. Even though I have been taking it much easier over the past couple of days, the longer time in the saddle and more riding in the heat of the day takes a lot out of me.
Overall, having an absolute blast. This whole experience from the fun stories, to waving and talking with locals, to riding some great terrain, to passing through some amazing scenery, to enjoying the incredible desert night stars is far too much to explain.

Thanks so much for your comments! I will try to reply when I get to Khartoum and try to incorporate some questions that have been asked.

On to the Sahara desert!

Reflections of Egypt

2007-01-29T07:33:00.001-05:00

I thought I would try to write a few words about each country after having ridden across the part that the tour covers. The first of course is Egypt:

Noise:

It seemed that Egyptians love noise! In traffic drivers always have one hand on the horn. Many bicycles are equipped with air horns that are louder than some truck horns.
Prayer songs occur 5 times per day in the largest of cities and smallest of villages. The speakers they use are always cranked to their max (as judged by the raspy quality) and are atop the mosque towers so the voice travels far.
Brake lights in some cars are accompanied by a catchy electronic Arabic tune that I long thought was some one's mobile phone. You can imagine what that is like in Cairo.
Emergency vehicle sirens are drowned out by so much other noise.
Our wake up call while with our Egyptian tour company that supported us for the first leg of the journey consisted of a number of loud horn blasts from the buses, accompanied by a whistle, banging of pots and pans and occasionally the fire truck siren when it was there (I am still not entirely sure why the fire truck was at a number of our camps).

Children:

It was interesting to repeatedly note that children were often shoo-ed away like dogs.
Children are also very independent; parents are seldom seen. The kids not only get a good "street-wise" education, but apparently receive good schooling as well. Most could speak very good English and some spoke decent French as well. Economically smart in the interest of future tourism I guess.

The dichotomy of time:

On one hand, there is an expression of "Egypt time" where things will happen eventually. Generally, it is pretty laid back which I don't mind. For example, after ordering some pita bread from a place where there were many ready and many were piling out of the oven as we were standing there, it still took a great deal of time to have someone actually take our money. Much in Egyptian life seems to work on this schedule; it works.
On the other hand, the second anyone is behind the wheel of a car, they are in the biggest rush of their lives! I thought traffic in Cairo was pretty entertaining, even in more rural settings people still try crazy things just to move a little faster. Incredible!

Tourism:

Needless to say, there is a gargantuan amount of ancient history in Egypt. As such, tourists are in abundance all over. It seems that most towns have the touristy front to it where you can be quoted some incredible prices (like the equivalent $5USD for four oranges), then have a section slightly removed where locals frequent ( i.e. $1USD for four good oranges and some bananas as well).
Since tourism generates an incredible revenue, the police are unbelievably abundant and have check points frequently on the main roads. Foreigners are only allowed to travel these roads in police-escorted convoys that stop all traffic when they pass at 90km/h. I have met some along the way that easily overcame this with bribery though.
Photos are not allowed to be taken of any ancient historical item for claims that the flash will degrade the artifacts. Some places will however sell you a permit to take pictures of these artifacts for a high price.
I noticed first in a town, I was seen as a walking $. Everyone wants to help so that you will offer a tip. I biked by a guy that pointed to a mountain then asked for a tip for doing so. However, once you have been there for a bit, they seem to treat you as one of the locals. I enjoyed this since I could observe typical life unfold from a fly-on-the-wall point of view.

Very friendly!

Once you were not seen as a source of money, people are very friendly. I was walking back to camp from a temple in Luxor and had a police officer jump out from behind some bushes to try to scare me. He laughed hysterically, then introduced me to all of his co-workers while making fun of the few Arabic words I know. The Emeco staff (tour company) were not only always friendly, but highly entertaining as well. Many other fun stories about fun interactions with locals!

Thanks Egypt! I had a blast!

Thanks Tree Huggers!

2007-01-21T09:55:00.001-05:00

A shorter post here to extend many thanks to Tree Huggers Adventure Racing team! With a little help from some friends, a huge amount of hard work and donating their own resources, they have raised an additional $400USD for the Tour d'Afrique Foundation! This along with some other generous donations puts my total up to a stunning $2200USD which means that at least 22 new bikes will be donated to communities along our trip. Amazing! Spread the word and help spread this to even more communities across the continent.

Thanks guys!

Egypt (1032km): Done!

2007-01-21T09:47:00.001-05:00

Sitting in the Valley of the Kings surrounded by tombs including Tutankhamen's

Riding with the locals on a non-race day. This guy kept up with us for quite a while; impressive on that bike!

A view of the waterfront in Aswan

Well, it certainly feels weird saying this, but the first country of the tour has been completed! Okay, to be exact, we have a 40km convoy ride to get to the ferry here in Aswan, then endure the gong show that is the actual embarking of the ferry, then sit on the ferry for 24 hours. Why the ferry you ask? We will sail the length of Lake Nasser not because we are sallies and are trying to cut distance off the traversing of the continent, but rather because Egyptian officials enjoy the monopoly that the ferry has for access to the Sudan making it the only place we can cross the border.

To recap the last couple of days, we had a fun rest day in Luxor where we saw a bunch of tombs in the Valley of the Queens and the Valley of the Kings (including King Tut's tomb), then saw a few different temples, walked around the city, enjoyed showers, did some laundry and the usual exciting stuff. The next day was deemed a "non-racing" day because of all of the traffic ( i.e. car, truck, bus, donkey, tractor, bike, train, etc.), police stops and other stuff. I enjoyed the decision and took our time to interact with the locals, with the kid that kept up with us at 30km/h, the other kid that used his rear rack as a seat (and the cringe that we all had when we thought he was going to sit on the bare seat post), and all of the other usual entertaining stuff. We camped in a soccer field in Idfu which was another entertaining town where we got to walk around.

Today, we had a race day again. Though I thought I had hung up my racing hat, the police insisted that we stay as a group en route to Idfu and it seemed that today was going to be the same so I stayed with the front group. We hit some roads under construction (or not ever finished, not sure which) about 25km to the end so there was a break of 6 people that I hung with. Once we got into Aswan, the finish line was unexpectedly at the far end of town. We would race for a bit, but all slow down for each other when the traffic got a little more hairy. About 1km from the end, the police shut down the road for our little group and we got to have a good sprint. I had stuck with these guys all day and still didn't have a stage win to my name so you bet I was giving 'er! I was the first to spot the finish flag so I broke and managed to open up ~20m behind me. I was pushing pretty hard (heart rate 97% max) and thought I had it, but Adrie (the current tour leader) caught me with a few metres to go and beat me by half of a wheel to catch his 5th stage win (of 7 stages so far). Well done Adrie!

We had fun this afternoon walking around Aswan and enjoying the sights that we flew by on the way in. The Nile is beautiful here with tall limestone craggy islands and sandy dunes on the far side. We also entertained ourselves with a quest for food since we need to provide our food for the ferry. We got 12 pita breads straight out of the oven for the equivalent of ten cents Canadian. The plastic bag they came in was just as expensive as the breads! Mmmmm...are they ever good!

I'm sorry I was not able to include any pictures, there is no USB access here. I will sign off for a little while. Internet access in the Sudan will not be as readily available. This is where the tour gets way more fun, hard, hot, different, and most importantly, more memorable!

Wish me luck in the Nubian desert!

Egypt almost done!

2007-01-18T13:12:00.000-05:00

Me...desert. Too cool!

A bunch of Egyptian kids posing for the camera. That poor donkey hauls many loads and apparently gets used as a jungle gym!

We left Safaga the other day showered and excited to hit some climbing. I wore short sleeves for the first time because we heard the day was to start with a 40km long sustained climb. We left camp in two groups and the Egyptian Police escort (they won't let you go anywhere here without a police escort; it is to secure the tourism industry) decided that they knew a shortcut to where we were going so 5km out of town, they turned around the 2nd group and took us back into town to go the other way. Luckily, we ended up meeting the other group at the intended spot and no one was worse for wear, but the poor tour organizers had a little stress added to the morning coffee.

The reports were right, we did start with a 40km long climb, but as it turned out the grade wasn't too steep and we had a tail wind (again) in certain spots. We were averaging around 25km/h on the climb so it didn't turn out to be too stressful. Once at the top, we enjoyed the ride winding through the mountain tops and out on to the desert plateau where we stopped for a picture of the first natural tree we had seen in a long time! Myself, Patrick (South Africa) and Rémy (Montreal) eased our way along as a threesome until we caught another group in the last 30km where we worked as a team to fend off our first head winds.

We camped at an oasis that night. What an oddity it seemed! The landscape was the barren, desolate, dry desert we have become accustomed to, but we were in a small circle of greenery providing us with a commodity we had become foreign to: shade!

The next morning (this morning) we descended back down to the Nile again at Qena and turned south toward Luxor. My original plan was to stop with some others in Qena and take a look around, but once we arrived there, it was clear that the police wanted no part of that. I then decided that this would now be my last racing day since I figured there was nothing else to see along this road. Wrong was I!

Luckily (in an overly optimistic sense), I bent a chain hammering to catch up to the lead pack. I and some others got a little left behind when a pothole surprised us, I hopped it, others hit the brakes and went in the dirt, but no one went down. I cursed at my decrepid chain, repeatedly, then went to fix it watching my draft and my vie for a stage win spin into the distance. Whilst fixing my chain, a few locals came by to see what was going on and to try to earn some tips by offering assistance. I got going again with Patrick whom came back for me when he realized I wasn't in the peleton and with Rémy who had a flat on the start line and just caught up as I was finishing fixing my chain. We went along at a comfortably quick pace which in retrospect was a great way to spend the day. Now out of the desert and into the fertile and populated band surrounding the Nile, we were bombarded with "Hello!" "Hi" "Welcome" and the inevitable "Money, money, money,..." from what felt like thousands of people on either side of the road for the entire ~60km between my chain failure and Luxor. I can only imagine how alien we must look to them using things that they don't see often like sunglasses, bikes under 50lbs. and colourful spandex. Poor Dean, our mechanic who manned the lunch table alone had a large gaggle of ~20 kids around constantly asking for money or food from the table. We stopped for a little while to talk to the kids there, took pictures of their asses (there were two donkeys there) and the like. Remi had his multi-tool stolen from his under-seat bag without any of us noticing. We made the feeble attempt at spanning the language crevasse using the few Arabic words we know to ask who may have taken it. That was when the men with rifles yelled something at the kids and they all took off. Oh well, it was only a multi-tool.

We have our first rest day tomorrow in Luxor and we have some tours planned of the Valley of the Kings (incl. King Tut's tomb), Valley of the Queens and other historic sights. We only have two more riding days in Egypt, then we finally get to put the knobby tires on and hit the "roads" of Sudan. I am very excited for that since cruising at 40km/h along pavement doesn't make for too much challenge.

Next time from the sands of the Nubian desert (well, figuratively of course)

Getting to the start line is half the challenge!

2007-01-16T06:41:00.000-05:00

Me at the start line. Half the challenge is done: I made it here!

The whole group at the start line in front of the pyramids.

The peleton this morning.

Arrived in Safaga tied for 2nd on the day. I'm camping on this beach on the Red Sea!

I had planned to post long before now, too many other things on my plate! I'll put them in point form to help out:

Even though I have been preparing for this trip for months, it still came down to a sprint to get to the airport in time. I didn't even have time for a shower. Sad really. I still managed to get there with everything necessary. Thanks for the ride Linda!
I had a fun walk around Amsterdam for the day on my 12 hour layover. What a cool city. It was a very appropriate stop over before this trip since there are bicycles everywhere! That was great to see a city that thrives on the bicycle!
I arrived in Cairo and was VERY happy to find that all of my baggage had arrived safely and with me. I payed way too much to get a taxi downtown and stayed in some dodgy hotel, but found a cool roof-top hostel for the next couple of nights.
Walking around Cairo was absolutely hilarious. Apparently traffic laws were only adopted in 2000 so there is very little order to the madness. I walked around and saw many streets and markets around downtown. I felt like I slowly started to blend in and got to watch life in Cairo from a fly-on-the-wall perspective. ...well, blending in as much as someone with an orange shirt and a Salomon pack-vest can blend in that is.
Bikes are well used around Cairo. I saw one guy cycling with a 6 foot ladder on his head and both hands on the handlebars. I saw so many riding with a gargantuan basket of pita bread on their head and weaving their way through the insanity that is Cairo traffic. Too cool!
I finally made out to the hotel from which we were starting the day before the Tour. It was very strange to all of a sudden be around gear, fancy bikes and people whom are not trying to sell you something. It took me a little bit to adapt to that. I got to get on my bike and try it and my legs out since I wouldn't dare venture out on my bike in downtown traffic! The bike felt awesome; I was extremely excited to get started!
My alarm didn't work and we didn't get a wake-up call so myself and another Canadian rider had to get ready to leave on our bikes in all of about ten minutes. Gong-show! continued!
We rode to the pyramids and had an opening ceremony on a plateau overlooking the great pyramids. Pretty special!
We convoyed out of town and the Police closed down the east-bound lanes of a four-lane freeway for us. A little extreme, but appreciated.
Once out of town, the convoy was stopped and the race started. I pulled myself instantly back from the peleton and rode at a comfortably quick pace with some others for the first day of ~120km. I was a little tired, but overall felt pretty good. We camped by the side of the road in the desert; what a strange landscape!
The next day was a big day at 170km. The stage started downhill so the peleton stayed together for much longer. We were still ~15 strong all the way to lunch at 90km. We then dropped down to a group of four and slowly dwindled to the finish line where I finished 6th on the day. With the massive tail wind and the beautiful scenery of the Red Sea beside us, that was by far the easiest (and likely fastest with an average speed of 35.6km/h!) 170km I have ever done.
The following day was a shorter day at 140km: fast, fast, fast! The whole day was along the red sea and the wind was pounding at our backs. I averaged 44km/h over the whole distance! Though the landscape is pretty barren, the few people that we do see wave with a tonne of enthusiasm.
Today was another fast day. I decided that since the landscape was going to be the same, this would be my last racing day with the peleton so I started with the front in mind. The incredible tail wind was there again on this 110km shorter stage. A group of four of us broke off of the front but were unable to catch a Swiss rider that broke off early in the day. We hit 85km/h on a very slight downhill; a testament to the tailwinds! We ended up with a five way tie for 2nd place on the day.
Tomorrow we head uphill back toward the Nile. The day starts with a 40km long sustained climb. I will probably stop for more pictures along the way.
I have been getting to know the riders and there are some amazing people here! There is a blind Kenyan rider that is doing the whole tour on a tandem bike. They are extremely fast! There is a South African rider that has never ridden more than 25km in his life and many others that bought their first mountain bike for this tour. There is a South African girl that only found out about the tour on December 27, 2006 and she is here! The list goes on. Every single rider here has a pretty unique story and though we are all looking for something different out of this tour, we all have the same goal of cycling our way toward Cape Town!
There is the extremely shortened version of what has been going on so far. Thanks to a long line of extremely generous donors, I have raised $1600USD toward the Tour d'Afrique Foundation. Many thanks!

Now in Safaga for the night, I'll go back to my tent on the beach of the Red Sea and sip my soup from the bar. Not bad!

Promotion of Cycling in Canada and Happy Holidays!

2006-12-24T17:17:00.000-05:00

For those in Canada reading this, take a look at this link: http://www.gopetition.com/online/10170.html. Though these solutions may not address the most pertinent issues that prevent more people from using a bicycle to commute to work, it does raise awareness for the bicycle as a commuting tool. Though the entire document is a little long, there is a summary at the bottom of the page (i.e. the actual petition statement). Give it a sign if you agree with its statement.

Happy holidays! All the best for a fun, active, adventurous and healthy 2007!

Ottawa Outdoors Magazine spreads word of The Tour

2006-12-11T19:44:00.000-05:00

For those in the National Capital area, you can pick-up your FREE copy of Ottawa Outdoors magazine (Check out their site at http://www.ottawaoutdoors.ca/) at a number of locations around the region (including Bushtukah of course!). If you flip to page 35 you will find a great write-up previewing what is to come. They have highlighted a great picture taken by female winner Joan Lowrens during last year's tour of some of the tough riding conditions I will face. What a great picture Joan!

I have been continuing on the preparations, running between embassies to make sure I have all of my visas valid during the proper times, making sure I have enough resources to keep my digital camera happily snapping away en route, and of course continuing to acquire more and more bike parts. I am prepared to mangle and pulverize a good deal of metal.

I have also prepared the most important piece of my bike set-up: my new stem-mounted motivational message. It formerly read: "PUSH! Come Monday you will wish you had!!" This was a great reminder during races that no matter how good/bad I was feeling, how far in front/far behind we were, or how stuffed/starving I was, I was always able to push harder. This creates a very satisfying, yet stiff feeling at work on Monday morning. In so many ways this is not appropriate for this tour, so it now reads: "Remember: You're in AFRICA!!! Enjoy it!" Even the most spectacular journeys have their down moments. This is a good way to remind myself that this is a very special experience and this reminder will bring smiles to my hardships.

Less than one month to go before my January 8th departure!

The excitement spreads to Get Out There Magazine!

2006-11-30T18:05:00.000-05:00

A neat story about my preparations for the tour just appeared in the Ontario version of this week’s “Get Out There Report” put out by the good people at Get Out There Magazine! You can read the online report at: http://www.getouttheremag.com/report/Nov30ON.html#racepreview Keep an eye out for their next print magazine!

I continue to be in a flurry of preparations for the tour. Daily, I gain confidence that I will be prepared for just about any eventuality that I can come across. Extra parts that almost amount to a new bike (minus frame and wheels), a small pharmacy in case I get any of a number of infections that I have difficulty pronouncing, and most importantly all of the extra pounds that this holiday season can offer. I currently eat like a champion and have never been concerned about body weight, but historically people have lost a great deal of weight over this tour despite having eaten enormous quantities of whatever they can get their hands on. The more I eat on the tour, the healthier I can stay. Bring on second helpings of …well everything!

This certainly provides a stark contrast to the places we will ride through. Locals who have difficulty finding enough water and food for them and their families to stay healthy. Good thing we are going to be able to donate bicycles to the local health care providers with the donations to the Tour d’Afrique foundation I have been receiving! Many thanks! That means less community money going towards expensive fuel!

Just over a month to go until the big day!

New Sponsors on Board!

2006-11-06T23:24:00.000-05:00

I would like to welcome and greatly thank some new sponsors.

Holistic Clinic, Ottawa: They have always taken great care of me and now they are ensuring that all of my musculoskeletal issues are in check before the start of the tour. Considering the gross quantity of repetitive strain that I will be encountering over the 12 000km of the tour, making sure I am stretched out and activated in all of the right places is imperative and they are doing a great job of that. Thanks Holistic Clinic!

Bushtukah: They are helping me acquire some of the mountains of bike and camping gear that I am going to need to stay moving and stay comfortable along the journey. Bushtukah is a perfect fit since they are able to help me with both good quality bike components and reliable camping gear; there aren't many places where you can do that.

Koobi Saddles: Needless to say, my posterior and surrounding area will take quite the beating over the washboards that define all washboards on the tour. Luckily I will have one of the industry's best saddles between me and my machine. The Koobi PRS (Personal Ride System) offers breakthrough tunable suspension right in the saddle while still being light, stiff and efficient. A Koobi saddle is a welcome addition to any road or mountain bike.

I have now bought a flight, paid the full entry fee and have made a weekly pilgrimage to the travel clinic to be immunized from a book full of diseases. With each step my smile grows bigger with the anticipation of getting to spend four months on my bike.

Cairo keeps feeling closer!

Excitement is brewing!

2006-09-13T19:01:00.000-05:00

Now that I have received my registration package and have read through it, my excitement for the trip has increased ten fold. The list of gear items to acquire is growing furiously. Many questions I previously had have been answered by the information package; however the many more rhetorical ones remain: ...is my bike going to make it? ...how much sunscreen am I going to use? ...how many hard drives am I going to fill with pictures?

...how emotional is that finish line going to be?

Registration - done!

2006-09-12T11:54:00.000-05:00

That is the first hurdle and is often a larger one; putting your name on the dotted line (or more modernly, in the appropriate online box) committing to an event. Though I am still perplexed by the plethora of chores to be completed and gear to be acquired, the biggest question of "should I do it" no longer takes up memory space. By simply registering - which took me all of five minutes (including the pregnant pause while hovering over the final "OK" button) - I have shifted completely away from "should I really do this" and am now on board with "awesome, I am really doing this!"

I am now about the same amount of time away from the start of the race that the congratulatory hugs are from the first pedal stroke in Cairo, but I feel like the race starts tomorrow and I barely have enough time to get things together. With most races I have done, getting to the start line is half the challenge; in this case, it seems more than half.

The biggest step has been taken, I have registered!