WHO'S WORLD OF FANTASY WILL YOU DIVE INTO NEXT?

IF THERE IS one thing I particularly enjoyed during the Cycle4seas it was the frequent water and refreshment points. I mean, never in my life have I ever participated in a cycling activity that had refreshment stops. Amazing! And that was thanks to our sponsors, particularly the USN, who provided us with sufficient supplements…

Another thing was the easy, social ride. The idea of the Cycle4seas was that it would be just that: a ride, not a competition. Thus, distances of approximately 100km were covered in even upto 8 hours. Fantastic!

None of it would have been possible without the help of our sponsors, especially the Tamarind Group, Sandstorm and the Safari Collection who sponsored both the Safari Simbaz’s and Kenyan Riders’ cyclists. Kudos!

Now, about the trip:

The idea was to cycle from Kajiado to Watamu over a period of seven days in an effort to raise funds to start cleaning up our oceans and rivers, and to spread awareness on their importance… It was mainly going to be on dirt, and we would be as much as possible following the Nairobi River as it snakes its way into Malindi. Awesome, right?

So, on day one, just at the start, I realised that I did not have one rear brake pad, which meant that I only had half the rear brakes. The previous day I’d bought two pairs of brake pads to be used specifically during the ride, but I guess I’d failed to tighten it enough.

Ok, cool, I could survive with half the brakes, right? And since the front ones were still intact, I was ok. Better half a loaf than none, or so they say.

At the end of the first day, I found out that I had lost the other half, meaning I literally had no rear brakes! I had mistaken the sound of the falling pad hitting the spoke as being a stone hitting the spoke. I officially then had to survive the next six days on front brakes only…

Another thing was that the bike I had was in no way suited to the terrain…okay, maybe a little. It was a rigid, steel-framed, hybrid, tubed bike with a front tyre that was actually getting worn out, and a rear tyre with a tear on the side.

The hardest day for me was day 4 because of all the punctures I got on that ride. That was the day we rode from Voyager Ziwani Camp to the Taita Hills Lodge. It all started when we were getting onto our bikes:

My front wheel had a puncture. I quickly set to work to repair it so as to leave with the group. However, something peculiar happened… When I inflated the tyre, it soon got deflated. That was weird, but I got the same result even after the second round of inflation. That would have meant going through the whole process of patching it up….

I decided to ride it as it was, because I had already been left and I did not want to keep them waiting. Thus, I rode with a flat tyre, caught up with the group (after pedalling almost twice as hard as I normally would have done), and rode with them for about 10 minutes before someone noticed it and asked me to fix it. I did.

We chased down the main group and caught up with them about 15-20 minutes later, and all was going well until I realised that my rear wheel was flat. Oh crap!

I inflated it and rode ever so carefully, but soon my front tyre also gave in. This was definitely getting out of hand. Luckily, though, we were at the refreshment stop by then, so we set to work repairing the numerous holes in the tubes.

The next 60km were on tarmac, thus the going was easier. In fact, I did not get any more punctures that day.

Come to think of it, I suppose the bike was suffering from withdrawal effects because each time we were on dirt away from the tarmac, a puncture would occur. Take yesterday for example. When we got off the tarmac and onto the 3-kilometre dirt stretch to Kulalu Camp, I got a rear puncture.

All in all, the trip was concluded successfully. Though nothing on the trip could compare to the gracefulness of the giraffes, or the sight of the young elephants at the elephant stockades, or even the sight of the pride of lions yesterday on our way out of the Tsavo Park.