Tour d'Afrique - Cairo to Cape Town by Bike

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!