Tour d'Afrique - Cairo to Cape Town by Bike

The peleton this morning.

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

• 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!