One Final Ride

When I finished the Tour d’Afrique in Cape Town, I had cycled 11,915 kilometres. 85 kilometres shy of the 12,000 mark. So yesterday I got my sore butt on the bike one more time and rode to the Cape of Good Hope, the most southwesterly point on the African continent.

When Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias discovered the cape in 1488, he named it the Cape of Storms. And that name seems much more appropriate than the Cape of Good Hope: it rained intermittently all day and the northwesterly wind was ferocious. It gusted at 95 kilometres and hour and threatened to knock me off my bike. Soon after I’d reached the Cape, coastal roads were closed due to the severity of the wind. But no matter. I was finally able to sit at the tip of the peninsula and watch the waves spray huge white plumes against the rocks.

Twelve thousand kilometres. It usually takes me several years to ride that kind of distance, and I did it in four months. A third of a year to travel more than a quarter of the way around the earth. I think I’ll put my feet up for a while.

Njama Safari

Now that our trip is over, I'd like to thank everyone who dropped by the blog to check up on our progress. Knowing you were still attached, even by that invisible thread, meant a lot.

I'll be spending the next month in England and Wales working on a book about the Tour d'Afrique. If you'd like to contact me with praise, criticism, ruminations or accusations, just send an email to:

davidonabike@hotmail.com

Of course, I won't literally be on a bike. I have no desire to so much as look at a bike for the next six months.

All the best, David

The Facts

One rider died. Three riders quit the Tour. Two broke their collarbones, one broke his hip. Two riders were hit by trucks. Riders received a total of 39 stitches, suffered 9 infections and 2 burns.

Personally, I had 33 punctures. I replaced 2 chains, 3 seat bolts, 1 set of brake pads, 2 gear cables, 1 derailleur cable, 1 rear rim, 1 rear tire and 1 derailleur hanger. I broke or wore out a pump mount, a mini-pump, a spoke, a jersey, a pair of gloves, a seat and a tool bag. I lost 2 water bottles, 1 pair of gloves and 1 computer. I took over four thousand photos and wrote over fifty thousand words in my journal. I had diarrhea for 33 consecutive days.

On the plus side, we managed to climb a total of nearly 44,000 meters of altitude. That's equal to nearly five trips to the top of Everest. We saw more wildlife than we'd imagined, we were exposed to more diverse cultures than we could have dreamt. It's fair to say every rider pushed themselves harder than they thought possible. We have suffered and we have grown.

I underestimated the difficulty of the trip. But I even more vastly underestimated the exhilaration that comes with an adventure of this magnitude.

Cape Town

Forty kilometres from Cape Town, I could see Table Mountain looming over the city. I've never seen Table Mountain before, but it overwhelmingly felt like I was coming home. After 121 days and nearly 12,000 kilometres, I was finally home.

I felt, and I'm sure every rider felt, a rush of emotions. Joy, fatigue, relief, sadness. As difficult as the trip has been, it's also been difficult to see it end.

The Bitter End

I naively thought the last couple of weeks would be easy. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The ride from Keetmanshoop to Fish River Canyon was one of the toughest days of the entire trip. The headwind was so malevolent that nine riders got off their bikes and onto the truck. In the past few days, when we haven't had a headwind, we've had hills. When the hills have flattened out, we've had rain. There seems to be no end to the challenges that are thrown our way.

It's been a difficult ride, right to the very last day. And the last day was difficult because . . . well, to be honest, we were pretty hung over from our celebrations the night before. Masochists.

Countdown

In two weeks, we will ride into Cape Town and end our adventure. My butt is happy about this, but my brain resists.

Of the ten countries that we've travelled through, those that were the least industrialized were the most exotic and therefore the most interesting. As we've cycled through Zambia, Botswana and Namibia, we've slowly been reintroduced to all those things we gladly left behind months ago. Like cel phones that ring La Marseillaise and BMWs blasting Kid Rock.

The funny thing is, I already miss all those subsistence farmers, standing at the side of the road, smiling and waving in their torn clothes. I already miss seeing rusted Chinese bicycles laden with firewood and plastic jugs of water. I already miss watching steam rise from the thatched roofs of village huts in the early morning light.

But I do like toilets that flush. And double espressos. Cape Town here I come!

Windhoek, Namibia

This week we had what we hope is the longest ride of the entire tour: 208 kilometres from Ghanzi to Buitepos. It also turned out to be the most boring ride of the entire tour.

Some riders left at 5 AM, concerned about the time it would take to cover the distance. I left at a less ungodly hour and rode with a group of eight riders through Tsootsha and into the Hanahia Valley. The landscape was unendingly flat, and offered up trees and grass and trees and grass. The only relief was from dead Lilac-breasted rollers, the most beautiful roadkill in the world. We turned right onto the Trans-Kalahari Highway and the tailwind appeared right behind us, pushing us out of the Kalahari, out of Botswana and into Namibia. As 200-kilometre days go, it was an easy one.

Yesterday, we crossed the 10,000-kilometre mark of our trip. After celebrating and taking a few pictures, we rode on another 110 kilometres to Witvlei. There we spent the night at a former ostrich farm, across the road from a very popular and very loud late-night club.

Today, bleary-eyed, we rode a century (100 miles, 161 kilometres to you metric-heads) to the aptly named Windy Corner, Windhoek. We've arrived on a Sunday and tomorrow, our rest day, is a national holiday. All the stores are closed. Which means there's nothing to do but wash our clothes and clean our bikes.

Damn.

Kiwis

It’s challenging for sectional riders, who ride only a part of the Tour d’Afrique route, to be dropped into the middle of our group. We’ve been living together nearly four months, and have developed many, shall we say, idiosyncrasies along the way. But three Kiwis, who left us today in Windhoek, did it effortlessly. Brian and Anene, on their zebra-striped DaVinci tandem, and Russell, on his black Giant, joined us from Wellington and managed to fit in comfortably right from their arrival.

Maybe it’s because they’re doctors, and we have a horde of doctors on the tour; maybe it’s just the easygoing nature of New Zealanders. But everyone seemed to enjoy their company. They were unapologetic birders and I won’t soon forget the Blacksmith Plovers, Slatey Egrets and White-fronted bee-eaters we discovered together in the wilds of Chobe National Park. Happy trails, guys.

Conundrum

Anyone who knows me knows how I feel about smoking. But you know the most puzzling thing about this trip? How many riders smoke. There's a coterie of hard-core smokers, who light up in the morning, ride for a few hours and light up again as soon as they reach camp. They smoke with their dinner and after their dinner. I don't understand it in the least. The only time a smoker has asked if I mind their toxic fumes, I was already eating and he was already smoking. So it was rather a pointless question.

Don't let anyone tell you cyclists are a bunch of health freaks. Freaks, maybe, healthy, no.

The Elephant Highway

We find ourselves in Maun, Botswana, after spending the last few days crossing the Elephant Highway. I spent my last rest day in Chobe National Park; although Chobe can sustain 50,000 elephants, the population has swelled to 182,000. There are elephants absolutely everywhere. Bathing, fighting, eating, emerging unexpectedly from the trees. Chobe is also host to herds of impala and kudu, hippos and crocodiles, and dozens of species of birds. The animals wander down to the Chobe River, then wander back past the Land Cruisers and into the trees.

We've spent the last few days dodging huge piles of elephant dung on the road. A couple of days ago, six of us were riding together when we spotted an elephant beside the road. We stopped and drew closer to get a better look at him; a huge three-year-old male with long white tusks. Suddenly, he trumpeted, flapped his ears and took a few quick steps toward us. You've never seen cyclists sprint until you've seen them sprint away from an angry elephant.

Tour d'Afrique Diet

At lunch this week, we had sandwiches with tomato, potato, cheese, avocado, butter and mayonnaise. All in the same sandwich, I mean. So it might be a good time to discuss the TDA Diet.

Jack from San Diego has lost over 30 pounds. Kim has sensitively described his former, heavier self as 'a donut in clothes'.

Allen from Montreal has lost 39 pounds. It's now at the point where he has to jump around in the shower to get wet.

I've tried not to lose weight during the trip; I feared that dropping weight too quickly would make me susceptible to illness. Nonetheless, I've lost 24 pounds. Seems unavoidable.

Nevertheless, the TDA Diet isn't for everyone. Sure, you can eat as much as you want, any time you want. But you have to spend every day cycling for hours, sweating in the blazing sun.

Stomach-stapling, I'm convinced, would be so much easier.

Lusaka

The roads from Lilongwe have been good, so we've cranked up the distances. We covered 500 kilometres in three days' riding, and have crossed the 8,000-kilometre mark.

We've now travelled the distance from Vancouver to St. John's, Newfoundland. Martin from Cochrane and I celebrated with a few Zambian Castle beers, having no Molson Canadian at hand.

I like Zambia. I saw very few Malawians who smiled and I've seen very few Zambians who haven't. The children shout "Howayou!" like a command, and not one of them has hit me up for money.

The Zambian rainy season typically extends from December to April, but we've found ourselves in the midst of a heat wave. The temperature this week rose to 47 degrees as the tall grasses at the roadside hissed in the hot afternoon sun.

More Numbers

Since last time I posted the standings, a few things have changed. Henning De Jager, who was in fifth place, has begun to make more cola stops and has dropped to sixth. Fifth place is now occupied by David Buchanan-Dunlop, a young mountain biker/harp-maker from Edinburgh. The little bastard is chipping away at my fifteen-hour advantage every day. He had the nerve to win the stage two days ago!

When takes fourth spot from me, and I'm quite sure he will, I'll console myself with the thought that I have stopped to take a substantial number of pictures along the way.

Many of those pictures, of course, are of the back of David Buchanan-Dunlop, riding off into the distance.