Mzungu Eriki on a bike

My favorite bookshop

2012-02-13T07:54:00.003+03:00

I thought all Arushan's knew this "bookshop", but Friday night I found Thomas Mbise didn't know it. This is Massawe's book shop on sidewalk the center of Arusha, just around the cornor from the main post office. He buys and sells and must have boxes and boxes stored somewhere as the selection changes every week.

Whenever I walk down that street he waves me over, scans his display, and says "These are what you need today."
I always say " But i will have to go to the bank, as your prices are so exorbitant, I dont carry that much cash." Seven out of ten times I leave some cash there.

But 9 out of 10 transactions he makes a good selection. He knows I like Dick Francis but I have most of his books now, so rarely does he make a sale on those books. But he introduces me to new authors.

I wonder what it would be like if he had a four wall shop?

Kilimanjaro ride

2012-02-13T07:08:00.003+03:00

In actual fact we rode 1/2 way around Mawenzi peak, which stands next to Kilimanjaro and is only 5,000 meters.

That is Mawenzi peak ahead of the riders. It blocked Kilimanjaro for most of the out and back ride.

There has always been a rough gravel road around Kilimanjaro, about 240km but now they have paved a section from Marangu , where most climbers start, around the eastern slopes and along the Kenya border to Rongai on the North side. We are always looking for new tarred roads.

Unfortunately it was 140km of driving to get there. We were about a dozen, bikes in a pickup and people in a stretch landcruiser. It took about 2 hours to get there. We had heard that there is one short stretch not paved in the beginning but as we drove it looked so good we started riding between Marangu and Mkuu.

Vincent had come and was about ahead of us.

I was a bit suprised that we could see Mawenzi all the time, I thought it would be blocked by ridges and trees. The road contours around the slopes of Kilimanjaro / Mawenzi, we started at around 1380m and went to 1800m , but it was rolling so we had another 400m. So we climbed about 800m. The group ahead of me went further.

I rode up to the beginning of the national forest. A planted agro forest of the government.
I was told the riding was even better in the forest, lots of up and downs and curves as the sign warns.

Turning around I was suprised by the open view, I hadn't looked back the whole morning.

Internet

2012-02-03T13:45:00.002+03:00

"The problem with Internet quotes is, you never know if they are authentic." -Abraham Lincoln-

The Internet can be cool, informative, and entertaining. It can also be non factual and a waste of time.

Invisible

2012-01-31T09:45:00.003+03:00

Today I was invisible to one driver. He was waiting to turn onto the road and looking down the road, but he never made contact with my bike on the shoulder. It was not close at all but I had to slow a kph or two to stay clear. I didn't like being invisible.

Later I wished I was invisible when I was noticed by young men who like to call out to me. I want to be invisible. Not sure what the joy is in getting my attention, or is it something else.

I think riding a bike in Arusha is a humbling experience. Riding a bicycle makes me less "important" or significant to people in cars. Friends don't see me, drivers think it is no problem to cut me off as I am going slow anyway and I am not a threat of damage to their car, and their business is more important than mine. I think it is healthy for me, gives me some balance in life. I have too much power over some people, but on the road I have little power on my bike.

Which a few times has gotten me thinking, how considerate of cars and drivers am I. Can I ride a bit different so I make their drive time easier. How often do I make them wait for me to pass?

Me of all people

2012-01-20T17:15:00.003+03:00

I am the one who says "ride to the ride" and "lets scrap vehicle support". The vehicle support saved me from an unpleasant trip back to Arusha.

Our club decided to do a two day mtn bike tour with one vehicle. (in actual fact Thomas had a visitor who he owed favors and didn't want to risk a trip without a vehicle bailout).

We leave ngaremtoni/tpri on that road and make the blue line. We gain and lose 800m before mid morning break in Monduli town. Fantastic track.

Laizer stops and does some ploughing with oxen while others ride by.

Rollers and rollers up to the forest and then more rollers.

Finally we get to scream fast into monduli town.

After food we climb 400m up to monduli juu on a big graveled road. We are spread out over the climb. So we have to wait at monduli juu village and it is market day.

After setting off i notice my pedal is funny, and find the pedal has stripped out of the crank arm! I get a spanner from the car that has joined us here and it seems firm. It loosens in a few meters. I put the bike on top of car until we finish the last few hills.

then i coast and am pushed by two riders on the short uphills. The rest of the ride to camp is down hill and i zip tie my pedal on.

Without support i would of been sitting in small buses for the rest of that day. Instead I went to camp, showered, drank beer and tried to superglue the pedal on with dental floss packing and ashes. It was guaranteed to work but it lasted two pedal turns.

The next day i sat in pickup following my buddies to a water point and then they went off cross country into an unknown area to us, and we in the landrover pickup drove back to arusha.

Sigh.

Off topic

2012-01-20T17:12:00.002+03:00

I should be writing about last weekend's bike tour.

Instead I came upon this. Beats me why i wanted to read about Gerald Ford, but on wikipedia I found this:

"In 2001, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation awarded the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award to Ford for his pardon of Nixon.[65] In presenting the award to Ford, Senator Ted Kennedy said that he had initially been opposed to the pardon of Nixon, but later stated that history had proved Ford to have made the correct decision.[66"

and

"After Ford left the White House in 1977, intimates said that the former President privately justified his pardon of Nixon by carrying in his wallet a portion of the text of Burdick v. United States, a 1915 U.S. Supreme Court decision which stated that a pardon indicated a presumption of guilt, and that acceptance of a pardon was tantamount to a confession of that guilt."

I think Nixon was indeed tricky dicky. Should he have been prosecuted?

2012-01-14T08:30:00.003+03:00

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/13/showbiz/hackman-accident/index.html?iref=NS1

One of my favorite actors was riding a bike. Too bad someone bumped him but seems he is okay.

One ride short

2012-01-03T13:58:00.008+03:00

I failed a clean sweep of 5 rides, as in Amani Mtns I missed a ride, but I managed 4 great rides on our week of holidays.

If I had a better way of carrying mtn bike on the pickup I could ride more. In order to ride it entails unloading half the camping equipment to take the bike out.

Ride I.
We celebrate Christmas Day in Bernice's home village Suji, in the south Pare mountains . Boxing day I jump out of bed at first light, tired of my brother in law's snoring. I also needed a good ride before the long car drive to the coast.

Pare Mountains has gotten rain and it looks lush and green.
I ride a contour road out through the other side of the valley through Gonjanza and slogged up to the pass going to Bwambo. It was an exhilerating ride I am glad I did not miss, despite it being a repeat ride.

I have another agenda on this ride, to photograph rock masonry buildings like these. I post more on my building blog here.

A church above and CCM building. (CCM being the ruling political party)

I look back to my father in law's house. Suji valley looks so good when green.
And if you focus differently like below you see Mnt Kilimanjaro.
I shower and we drive for hours, ride a ferry....
and get to paradise on the beach, hot and lazy paradise.

Ride II
We are invited for the week to Dave and Trude's place on the Indian ocean coast at Pembe Abwe, south of Pangani. It is hot as expected. The next day in the late afternoon Thad and Mike take me up to Pangani ferry but it looks like rain up the Pangani River so we check out a new beach lodge and ride home. Smooth flat sandy roads and good riding buddies.

Ride III
We stay 5 nights at Pembe Abwe with Daudi and Trude and I do a beach ride the day before last. The wind blows me south for an hour or so and it takes twice as long on the return into the wind. Beach riding is mostly easy, but there were stretches where it would go soft on me but I learned to go closer or in the water at those moments.

Missed Ride
In Amani we arrive to late for a ride. It is New Years and we watch the news in the guest house and crash before 10 pm.

I get up early the next morning but dont want to mess with unpacking to get to my bike and the reverse process for a 2 hour ride. We check out our property and house. We now have a road up to the house. Now we need a bridge over the river and we can drive up to the house and stay her e. I am gathering granite stones, good shapes and will build a rock walled brick arched roof and we will live happily ever after.

Ride IV.
Back to Suji. I get messed around with a tyre repair on the pickup. So much easier fixing my bike by myself. I have no idea about tubeless radial and am at the mercy of a punk at the service station. I choose the wrong place , but the worst is that i have to listen to and spend an hour with a punk who cant see the bigger picture of life. In the end he asks for employment! I really should tell him that he is cutting his own throat, but I don't think the idea will get accross. He can't self evaluate, he only sees he wants more than what he has, and thinks there is a short cut.

I get up but eat breakfast and then take off for Tae. They have done alot of work on roads, still very steep on the other side and rough but check out these retaining walls.

Normally i ride through that pass and then down, but this time i see what looks like a new road and i ask primary school boys and they say it is a shortcut.
the hill behind Babu's house and on the ridge you see the road going up to suji.

Fantastic single track, i only snapped a shot when it leveled out. Here it is a road but only used by feet , and motorcycles. very fast here.

I wear stuff out

2011-12-21T06:42:00.006+03:00

Bike gear wears out in my use.

Mostly it was planned to wear out by the manufacturer. Not true of the lock on my father -n law's house. I bet this lock is from before I was born and still in use daily! Now that I think of it I wonder how old it is.)

I return from last trip and my rain coat is in taters, one pannier the waterproofing is gone, brake pads are worn out, pump hardly works, and it bums me out.

And we wont even mention the drive train of the bikes and tyres and tubes. Especially tubes and chains.

Is it just the Norwegian protestant in me of does this bug the average consumer?

But hey don't get me wrong here. I AM THE LUCKIEST BICYCLIST IN THE WORLD. I am only pointing out that I am fine tuning my kit. Because of the best family in the world I am going to get closer to perfection on my bikes. It might not be light and sexy or flashy, but i think it might last longer than i need it.

I have to get some of the stuff from literally half way around the world, so it is a big deal and a hassle. It almost seems like I spend more on maintenance of my bikes than on our car.

This brings me to the idea to simplify the bike thing even more. The reason I don't want a "modern bike"is gear wears out fast. I want stuff to last and feel good. I want panniers made of cotton duck and not nylon with sprayed on waterproofing.

The last trip I wore tyre sandals and platform pedals. You know how much bike shoes cost? You know how long they last on bush trips?

Trip stopper: MUD!

2011-12-20T20:33:00.010+03:00

We made it across the mud flooded "graveled" road and spent 30 minutes washing the bikes in a brown flow of water. It had just poured on us for an hour, and there was water everywhere. One of those rains " that is the biggest down pour ever". On the other side of the low lying valley the road was adobe hard and sandy and we rode into Murongoine village. We were happy to not be suspicious and leery of the road ahead of us.

We are nowhere near where we wanted to be at the end of the day. I ask a shop keeper with a bicycle how to get to Losinyai. It turns out both to the north and south the river is flooding the road and the big sand trucks cant get through. As more people eavesdropped our conversation, they wondered how we had even got to this village, locked between two rivers. " Well , where did you come from then?"

This is how we got there.

Henry and I decided to do a short trip Saturday to Tuesday, but we both needed Saturday to get stuff together for the trip.

It has been raining a fair amount, and I was looking at options where there would be no mud, we need sandy or hard tracks.

Certain mud sticks to the tyres, then more mud sticks to that mud, then it gets caught on the frame and the brake arms and then the tyre wont turn and the bike weighs twice as much. It can be a show stopper. Getting closer to the day it seems it hasn't been raining so much and Henri says south of his house it is dry.

We plan to ride to Lolkisale , then along Tarangire National Park and then East to the big Kiteto road and back home.

I meet up with Henri at 7am. Riding south it is good and dry for about an hour. Suddenly we have some mud but it doesnt build up on my bike. Henri has fatter tyres and his clog up and he is stuck. A show stopper. No smiling on his face at that moment. You find a stick, you scrap in hard to get at places while your partner stands around being impatient. Then you turn around and find another way, and then smile.
We turn around and decide to check the road further west that has some gravel on it, or go up and over monduli mtn and a completely different trip. We will decide when we get there.

An hour later we are in Kisongo on the highway and asking several people and they say. "No problem , this road is okay all the way to Lolkisale, no rain out there, they put gravel". We trust them and cruise out the road. Life is good, we are finally on our way away from town.

The road is good for an hour and then we come to this seasonal river. The water and rocks aren't an issue but the mud on both sides is. We both carry one bike at a time. The water is to our thighs. Zoom in on Henri's front tyre. 3o more seconds in that mud and it would be caked up to the brake arms and locked.

We cruise further away from town on our way to Lolkisale and sandy roads. The soils around Mnt meru it is clay soil, a bit lower patches of black cotton soil.

We cruise on and hit a few mud spots in low lying areas where rains have covered the road and left thick soupy clay . Henri has worse time than me.

This mud was just shy of covering the road.
Spoke too soon and before we realize it we have ridden halfway into a hopeless frustrating quagmire. It takes awhile for it to buildup, then it is glue. No happy campers. The masai walking by ask what we were thinking riding out here today. They say we are in the middle of this bad section, we might as well continue as the road is okay further on.

Pictured below is after making it through and cleaning the bikes for 1/2 hour. No pictures of the before as I am too hassled to think about a pic, and my hands were all muddy. We eventually hired people to carry bags and bikes to get to this point. Several times I felt it was completely hopeless, seeing mud in all directions and my tyres locked up.

This was a nice group of boys. The little one enjoyed looking at the bicycles and asking questions. He wasn't' so helpful as he was more into playing with the bicycle.

It is now clear we cant get through to Lolkisale mtn, the road is worse after Moita we are told. So at Moita we will head over to a major gravel road heading towards Terat and Naberera. Then we might swing over to Lolkisale. Everyone pretty much agrees that we took the wrong road, yep.

We stop for lunch under a shady tree. Half way through my p&b roll a guy on a bike rolls up from same direction we came. I am amazed that he has made it through. Seems he is amazed also. He stops under the tree to commiserate with us. We compare notes about how hard it was. He also is glad to be through the mud. I wonder if the bald narrow tyres help, or the fact he has no loads. We share our food, and then set off together.

He moves fast! We talk while riding, He is going same way as us after Moita. We stop in Moita to buy water and have a coke. The road is mostly good now, occasionally we freak out when we see dampness on the road and monitor how much mud sticks to the tyres, ready to stop. Our fellow traveler is surprised people in Kisongo told us road was okay.

From Moita he says we should take short cut, that it is okay, trust him. There is rain coming from the east and we are riding SE. I realise that i was on this track with Thomas once.

All goes well and on the level ground but it is hard keeping up with our guide. We are going south on the edge of a rocky escarpment, eventually we will drop down the escarpment and across a valley to the graveled road.

We lose our guide on the long rocky down sections. Then it started to rain. I mean pouring rain. There was water running everywhere. Click on the picture. The track Henri is on has 5cm /1inch of rain, and then we come upon streams running across the stream we are riding in.

We finish the steep slope and it is still pouring. Stupidly we start riding on the flat valley and get bogged down. We turn around and the rain washes bike free immediately. Rain is good and bad.

What to do? Set up a rain fly? stand in the rain? go knock on a door of a hut? We do the later. In the boma we find all the doors closed and locked from outside (we think) . So we stand under an eave on the leeward side of a house for a few minutes. I look at the door again and notice it is just closed, not locked so i knock and yell "hodi". A young women opens and then slams the door! Eventually she nervously agrees to let two white, wet, freaks into her place and we drip water on her mud floor. She knows little kiswahili. We sit on plastic buckets and ponder where to camp. I take this picture when it starts to decrease.
Again download picture check out the 3cm of water running through their compound.

The rain lets up and people stir from other huts glancing nervously at us. I talk to a woman my age and she says we turned down the escarpment too early , that the improved road across the valley is further along. I insist we get escorted to that road and she sends her daughter in law, the young woman who let us weather the rain in her house. She carries her young child on her back in the light rain.

She shows us a track on top of the ridge, but the neighbors all argue with her and then she changes her mind and shows us another track, realizing her mistake.

We ride that track and come to a wide improved gravel road running east west. I vaguely recollect this the longer we ponder which way to go. To the west we can hear a torrent of water in a valley, to the east we can see the road going through the valley and it looks muddy. Back the way we came will now be impassable. There is a boma off to the side and they say the torrent is impassable and then mud all over. The valley has a "short" section of mud. Maybe half a km we can see. We discuss with them a place to camp, they can't see that, and we can't see sleeping in one of their 3 huts, together with the crowd of people that is probably only half who stay there as they are all women. They say the mud is short sections.

We ride down to check the valley and true to their word it is only short sections flooded with mud. We cautiously go through. Henri locks up twice but we are across and on hard sandy improved road. We thoroughly clean the bikes now as related in the first paragraph and ride into Murongoine Village, to be told we are now stuck between a river and another river.

We don't fancy staying in this squalid truck stop, so ride north out of town towards the intersection with main road going south. It is 6pm and we need to find a place. I unwisely tell Henri to go check along the roaring river if we can camp there while i fix my loose crank arm. He gets bogged down and comes back to the road. We start talking to a guy, who starts with. "why did you ride out into that mud" I unabashedly ask where his boma is and he points back a few hundred meters. He says no problem we can put up our "tents" as his place.

Tents in this situation are easier to place. Trees are few and far between or in the fence line, making hammocks hard to place. We manage. Henri ends up outside the fence.

Once the tents are up we move into his small hut and sit and heat up our sauce. All of the children spend the evening outside the door watching us. By the end they are all crowded in the doorway. Laizer joins us for some coffee. We have a pleasant time sipping whiskey and talking with him.

We have not gone far today. I doubt 60km but basically we were on the move from 7am until 6pm. I sleep really well until 2am. then I am awake and it seems like the music from the village is really loud. I turn on my phone and it shows even the trees my hammock is attached to. then i read some news and try to sleep again. At 4am the music stops and I fall asleep until 6am.

We have some coffee and granola and pack up. That is Laizer our new friend and his children in the bright morning sun.

I advise aborting the trip. We ride home in about 3 hours on a big gravel road.

Note the pannier on front of my bike. That worked really well to put loads on the front of the bike. much better than on the back only.

The way home.

The jury is still out.

2011-11-25T11:50:00.008+03:00

DRAFT (come back later)

What bike should I commute on, touring bike or mtn bike?

This post is for my benefit, but the ten readers might find this post interesting or useful. ( This blog originally started as more of a journal of my trips, it has changed, but not sure what it is right now.)

Above is 1970's Raleigh Grand Prix touring bike.
Plus:
-skinnier tyres, so faster , easier on smooth roads
-fenders
-fewer gears, yep you read right and I will explain below.
-light (see below)
-Many hand positions

Minus:
-No racks yet, harder to mount the front rack, will need brazing
-high off ground
-skinny tyres not good on rough roads, sand , mud
-mud sometimes cakes inside fenders
-No granny gear for the really step roads

Above Trek 6500 ~year 2000 Mtn bike
Plus:
-Racks front and back
-Fat tyres for rough road
-low gearing
-shock in front for rough roads
-tyres thicker, less flats

Minus:
-No fenders yet, harder to mount the front one.
-No light yet
-fat tyres slower on paved roads
-fewer hand positions

A bike is a bike right? Well, sometimes but I am a bit complicated, I could get by with one bike (i have 3 now). But I could see owning more also . The bike setup for overnight bush bashing is different from the bike for a 4 hour mtn bike ride. Road riding with club is specializied.

I have points to make about a commuting bike:
-Is weight important? Not all that much as I carry loads anyway.
-Was the theft of my old bike a good thing? NO but I have had a wider experience with bike setup and types, and it is pointing me to a better bike. Like something is different about the raleigh. My hands dont go to sleep! With my expensive road bike they do. Why? Curved fork, narrow handlebars? different fit?
-gearing. It is way overrated having lots of gears, wide range and properly spaced is what i need . On the Raleigh if i could have smaller front chainring it would be great.
-Weight should be in front. I have read that proper touring bikes are more stable when there is load in front. So far i find it better than just the rear.
-can I get by with one bike? Yes but I will have several.
-Fenders!!!! yeah. They are important, but there is the issue of caking mud. But fenders going to work are required now.

The Trek mountain bike cost me $200 from the Goodie's used bike and spare shop in town. (His operation is a blog post in itself). Then I spent a few more dollars for front and rear racks. I dug around for bar ends and new cables. It needs some partial fenders and shifter and rear cassette are not quite compatible.

After riding it a few days I looked at the bike more. It is a Trek 6500. I am not a weight weinie. I add on so much stuff to a bike that it is senseless to buy a bike for lightness, when i am going to permanently add:
-front and rear racks
-frame triangle pack
-fenders
-light mtns

However I noticed two days ago the frame says "ultralight frame" . I have been wondering why this bike seems faster than my old bike.

It also slows down faster and smoother. The brakes are really smooth.

So I had pretty much decided that my commuting bike would be the 1970's Raleigh, a heavy large framed road bike with full fenders. I haven't managed to get racks, and am tired of a backpack hung over the handlebars, so i have ridden the mtn bike as a commutter and now i dont know what to do.

I do know now that the commuting bike should :
Full fenders. Even the standard fenders are not long enough, especially the front, it should extend way far below the bottom bracket. This stops spray on the shoes and keeps bottom bracket drier. The mountain bike, i could figure out full fenders, but what happens off road? fenders get clogged up with mud.
Lights
Simple. few gears, less maintainence.
Lots of cargo capacity.
Front Rack. I finally have a front rack on a bicycle of mine. Yes it is better. Jan Heine publishes the only magazine i subscribe to, and he says start putting weight there.

Simple is better. with the raleigh i could get by with the 5 rear gears. I never use the large chain ring commuting to work.

wheels. The road bike might be slightly faster on the paved roads, but i have 1 km of trail and rough dirt road, where the mtn bike excels.

LIGHTS
I found this dynamo and light at the used bike store. It is setup to be one unit but i split it.

Tonight I try it out on the ride home.

Free Dress day for a commuter

2011-11-25T11:43:00.003+03:00

The younger bicycle commuter has free dress day today at school. As long as you pay your 1000 shillings and follow the theme you get a day off from the school uniform. Today it is mismatch day.
It is another excuse to show off how cool her commuting bike has become. She is also a cool kid.
Normally the commuter looks like this below:

Number 25!

2011-11-21T16:31:00.004+03:00

http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/african-continental-championships-2011/elite-men-road-race/results

Hamisi, finishing number 25 works at my company, full time. Hamis and #42 and #44 are all in Arusha Cycling Club and on the Tanzanian National team. Juma is from Zanzibar

#25 doesnt sound all that hot place to finish unless you know this:

-There are 10km laps, if you get lapped you are out. 30 were dropped
-The winning time was 44kmph over 140km. That is speed of top European races.
-elevation is 7,000 feet
-At that speed if you lose contact you are out.
-I would venture that all but 10 in that 50 are professional or fully funded by their governments
-All the other coaches later told our coach they didnt expect our team to hang on.
-Our coach was never able to get water to our team, as we didn't have domestiques and our car was 12 cars back. They did that on their one water bottle.
-Our guys work jobs and ride in their off time.
-Hamisi had to take his vacation days for this race.
-Afterwards, the head of UCI (middle second pic) , MacQuaid says he will give Tanzania 5 high end bicycles, slightly used by pros in Europe.
-There are pros who ride for big European, Austrailian teams in this race.
-The wheels, bottom bracket and crank off my low end racing bike were on Hamisi's bike.

The coach for Rwanda, Jock Boyer, called our coach on the last lap and said our boys are doing great, right with them. Jock Boyer was the first American to ride the Tour de France in the 70's.

right now they are at Tour of Rwanda for 8 days tour.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/tour-of-rwanda-2011/stages

Passing the baton

2011-11-21T07:59:00.006+03:00

Last week two of my age mates schemed to ride bikes up mtn meru, then do a recce by foot on "old routes" up the mountain.

We tried to get their 20-30 year old boys to come, one my godson, but they opted for clubbing the night before. I think the real reason is they know we are old, and we are slow. We thought different at the time.

" Yeah we can do it"
" Yeah man , instead of straight up 7 switch backs, lets go up on West meru plateau with bikes."
"That means we can ride bikes higher"
"Yeah then we can be above tree line fast' "
"Yeah"
"Yup"
"Dude lets do it"

So Tadayo, Maiko, and the usual meet before dawn my house and ride in the dim light. No mechanicals but my tyre needs pumping twice before the slime takes over. (BTW I can buy slime in a couple of different shops in town now! Way cool.)

Where was I? Oh yeah, so we cross the ngaremtoni river canyon. Complaining about how steep and rocky it is . you carry and lift the bike. Suddenly the green turns to dusty forest and we slog up the logging road. Luckily, there is no traffic.
We stop for our first view, below, but as serious adventurers we keep going to breakfast up on top. You have read of my physical deficiencies, but other people have one year old fake hips, and another has a leaky heart valve.
Lousy phone camera. I need a camera mom! The last one Bernice (mom) bought was really nice, shock and water proof and took better pictures than I can snap.

I swear Thadayo is on that road over there. We take this contouring road to avoid passing through a forest gate up on the plateau. It is also fun to ride level and look down on Lengijave and Kilima Moto hills.

We get back in to a rain pattern and pass a peach grove. Yep you read right. Unfortunately we are a month early. Peaches grow fairly well up here and worms seem less of a problem.

We pass back into national forest that has been clear cut and planted with potatoes.

Now I know why the 20 year olds opted out. They know we are damn slow. They will party all night wake up at 9 am catch us at noon. We are moving pretty slow now and keep checking if the brake is rubbing or there is a flat, or a buddy is holding onto the seat for a tow. Something is making the bike heavy.

We had stopped down there in this valley. Just to catch our breaths but ended up laying down and eating some snacks. Not breakfast mind you. We are serious and need to keep going. I adjust my rear deraileur so that the 7 speed shifter shifts on the higher 7 gears of the 8 speed cassette. Confused? I needed the smallest gear. I was pretty impressed, I was able to do that in about 30 sec.

Ffinally up on the plateau in a short section of native forest. Mike carrys his hiking gear in a backpack! I have everything on the bike.

The plateau is still plenty of uphill, infact mostly up hill. Even the flat started to be hard work. Bionic man is suffering understandably. Time was he was the crazy fit one. This is him below, on a flat stretch trying to coast. We now have turned the cornor and are in heather country. Old fire cleaned out the trees. Moor land is fun to be in except we are now 2800m.

Finally we stop for breakfast about 11;32 am. We carefully put our bikes aside and sprawl on grass. Grass about as cushiony you can imagine. It is like sitting in a bean bag chair. We talk about our aches and about how tough and strong we are. We change the objective from "walk above vegetation line" to "Lets walk for about an hour or so."

Thad remembers from 20 years ago that you have to whack through here and eventually get to animal trails. We bush whack, back track, and eventually are on a old faint track that sometimes seemingly dissappears.

We walk up on top of one ridge and about 1300 decided we should wisely turn around as even coasting down might be difficult in our state.

Once on the bike it was about 90 minutes to Ngaremtoni, 95% coasting, 1/2 on bone jarring rocky road. It is tiring on the arms. My headset losens up.

We cycle through the trashy urban sprawl of Ngaremtoni, unfortunately this is what Africa is like folks. It isn't so much filthy, it is dust and trash that has blown around on the roads. There is a huge sea of humanity on these roads. Get the picture?

We make it home around 1700 and the boys arent too keen to start driving and loiter over a glass of koolaid and a look at Bernice's rock garden. Tadayo takes a cutting and discusses plants.

Bothering me

2011-11-12T08:33:00.002+03:00

"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing about." -Benjamin Franklin.

Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/b/benjaminfr133951.html#ixzz1dSySRyyY

I am bothered by the second one. I don't write that well, but I used to do stuff worth writing about. I have gotten to busy building around the house and then losing my mountain bike put a spanner in the works of doing "something worth writing".

Tomorrow, tomorrow, i will try to do something worth writing about.
i
I rode the "new" mountain bike to work yesterday. There are some kinks to work out but it promises to be a good bike. It feels smooth and i swear it pedals easier.

2011-11-07T13:31:00.003+03:00

For awhile I thought I would never be back to normal, back to my normal . I am talking about losing my bicycle , lights, rain gear, pump, bags, etc to a &^*@$&^ thief and my reaction was to freeze, unable to cope, at least for a week.

Another week and I will not miss the bike, I am still way bummed about losing the stuff, like camera, pump, lights, and rain gear. It is not convenient to acquire here. And finding all the extras for the bike is taking awhile, like good bell, mud guards and fenders, bags.

The 1970's Raleigh (previous post) is turning into a great bike. I have changed to aluminum rims and lengthened the front fender since I last wrote. I am finding it is a superior bike for commuting, so even if i got my bike back this is my commuting bike. This bike is much faster and cleaner to ride to work. It has pretty fat road tyres so the rough road to the highway is not a problem.

For last Wednesday's club ride I was unable to use my modern 20 speed road bike. I rode this old touring bike with the 4 Tanzanians going to the African bike championships in Eritrea today. ( Some of the parts from my bike were on one of their bikes, extremely light carbon frame.) That is a story in itself. Remind me to go on vacation next time our club gets into something like this. I have spent way too much time for someone else's dream.

They of course start out in Zone 3, at 60% and I had no problem until just before the police post at Oldonyo Sambu. That was after about 500m of elevation gain. My point is the bike is not that much different than my new one. I performed about the same.

I also notice my hands did not go numb, and my foot maybe a bit better. I rode 2+ hours without stopping. I wonder if the narrower handle bars is the reason.

What I really need for this touring bike is a front rack and maybe full frame triangle pack, and of course the lights.

Over the past week I have been in charge of getting the bike's ready for the Championships, and in the end we called in the best mechanic in town. We were done and he saw me messing with the truing of my touring bike and like that he did it up for me. I think now I can ride no hands. I will use him more often for fixing some stuff.

A week ago I sprung 330,000 shillings or about $200 for a used 8 speed Trek hard tail mtn bike. Maybe 6-12 years old. The second hand shop fixed it up fairly well , it works but I have been spending a week rebuilding it. I still have a ways to go but it is starting to get there. Yesterday I found that a bearing race in the headset was upside down, and I got the racks on firmly and some bull bars. At 6pm i road around the neighbor hood and was shocked how much better it felt than my old bike. Could this be, or i have just forgotten?

Hopefully I will now have some bush adventures to write about now.

Yet another bicycle

2011-10-11T12:17:00.003+03:00

The old mtn bike is not cutting it.

I had a 1970's Raleigh hanging up, not ridden in ten years.

I stripped that on Sunday and added fenders.

Yesterday it was raining when shesha took off on her bike for school so i tried to see how it was. Needs some fine tuning and more stuff, but no mud got on me.

Today was the maiden voyage.

Shesha thought it was cool to ride to school in the rain. Was glad she had rain pants on. Good job Mom for buying those.

New commuting vehicle

2011-10-05T10:47:00.004+03:00

Yesterday I was in my workshop at 0630 and by 1030 I had a temporary commuting bicycle. I specifically needed fenders and a rack. I used Bernice's' old bike that had been dismantled waiting for spares some years ago . Actually this is the first mtn bike I had, it is a Everest mtn bike, no shocks, 7speed.

It is too small for me, which kind of surprised me as when i first started riding again in the 90's it was on this bike. I just didn't know it was too small.

I put on a small front rack and tried a pannier on one side. hardly affected the handling, so now i know. Today i took a computer bag and stood it up on the rack and it wasn't as good but less bike geeky looking.

Picture tomorrow.

New Philosophy. stay away from bags that look like they have a computer in them. So i wont use this bag. Looking for a gunia (gunny sack) to use.

2011-10-05T10:44:00.002+03:00

A year ago this guy won the Vodacom Mwanza race. I think 150 km. He broke away and no one wanted to take the energy to chase him down and it got too late and he won the 1.5 million shillings ($1,000).

Being support of another team this should not happen and an embarrassment, but on the other hand way cool.

Steal anything but my commuting bike!

2011-10-02T23:58:00.002+03:00

Thursday night at 8 pm my mtn bike / commutting bike of 13 years was stolen at the shoprite complex.

I always lock my bike. Somehow when we moved from Empire club after a meeting for Elvis's around the world trip to a wine bar I didnt lock it. I put it right outside the door, and was only going to stay a few minutes. Maybe it was the 2 beers before.

Anyway GONE. I was so shocked and pissed. the next morning I could not function. It had all my commuting kit i have been acquiring for some years. Rain gear, lights, pump, tube, reflective sash, etc.

So now i am commuting on my race bike until i can figure out another bike.

Kind of a bad time for it to happen as I dont have excess cash right now and my credit card dont work so i can't order the lights and stuff on line.

Oh well, it is just a "thing" and maybe i have too many things.

Is bicycle commuting dangerous in Arusha? version 4

2011-09-15T17:43:00.002+03:00

I changed my mind. It is dangerous and risky. I was scared about 6 times on the 20 minute ride to work. I yelled 3 times, once when a motorcycle speed around me then veered off the road in front of me.

But I am still going to do it.

Driving a car scares me also.

Mika am waiting for you to ride to SA.

2011-09-13T14:47:00.004+03:00

What's it called when you tick off one of those items from the "To do list before I die"? This is Mika Peterson who helped me tick off climbing the big diagonal crack on Longido. I need him to help me do the ride to South Africa. Not becuase I need his physical help but because he will just someday say, "Okay we go next week" and we will go. That is what happened with Longido crack.

Mika is about as cool a godson an old man could ask for. He is ~23 now, strong as all get out, dred locks to his shoulders, likes the bush, and is so mellow. His only drawback is he is too sought after by women, so he is not always available.

If you climb far enough on Mnt Meru you get to ride in this.

And then of course you get a screaming single track through trees, but we have only a few weeks left as the soil turns to dust..

Another commuter in the family

2011-09-09T10:56:00.003+03:00

Nashesha has been saying for a year she is ready to switch from bus to riding her bike to school. I kept thinking the coordination of an escort was complicated.

We live in a town that is mostly safe, but a 12 year old girl riding alone might be tempting thieves. And she has to cross two crazy highways and then ride through some secluded areas. My son Seth did it when he was twelve but that was 15 years ago and he is a boy.

School resumed Monday and we informed the bus that Nashesha would not ride the first week of school in the bus. Today we will tell the bus we thank them for their services but we don't require them anymore. So that means we have another commuter in the family, she has made the commitment.

I rode the first day, and the second day morning went with Paulo and Nashesha, but Paulo met her and rode shotgun on the ride home. I left word she should call when she got home, so i would know she wa safe. She called but thought i was crazy.

The next day I text her in the late afternoon, "Mambo? How was the ride home?"

I get response back "Fine. Im grown up now! ok?"

I have to stop worrying about her commuting to school by bike.

We still have the issue of when it is raining, what to do about feet and pants but have some time to figure that out.

Today is friday, and I need to be in office early, and she is fun to ride with so i ride with her to school just for fun. I leave her at the road to lock her bike herself and ride into town.

Which is another story. I pass long long lines of slow moving traffic. How do you put up with it people? I figure i spent 25 minutes from school to my office and people in cars 40min.

Bicycling clothes

2011-09-06T12:29:00.003+03:00

Sometimes a cartoon fits. This is my philosophy about bike clothes for most commuting rides.

Babati tour

2011-08-24T07:46:00.011+03:00

I needed another people tour, so I went went to find people to ride with, like this guy.

Bernice and Nashesha were going to Nairobi to get Bernice a visa for Thailand. I decided it was a good time for a short tour. Again I announced a trip on email but only got regrets for responses.

I could not figure out where to go until the last day when I decided to go on road bike to Babati Town and check out the new road from Minjingu to Babati. New in that it is now tarred.

On Sunday morning I leisurely packed, went shopping, checked email and did nothing much, so I was not able to leave until 3pm. I carried light camping stuff, hammock, sleep bag , sleep pad, wood stove, teapot, and breakfast for the two days and one dinner. I carried a change of clothes for town, some tools and spares, novel, snacks, lights etc.

Sunday

Right away I noticed the load was strange and had to retie the back bags in one km. Then on the road I noticed there was a dramatic shimmy when riding no hands or even one handed. I thought briefly about turning back and changing bikes, but I decided to live with it.

As the day was on the tail end I needed to keep moving as fast as prudent. As I rode I got motivated more and more, not to ride fast but enjoying the ride. The shimmy just meant no riding without hands.

The wind was at my back but it was only at Mti Moja, 45 km out, that I started to really fly and between there and Makyuni my average speed increased from 25 to 29 kmph. The rolling hills passed quickly and at 5:15 I rolled into Makyuni for a meal. Little did I know that would be the same type meal every meal every day. I was surprised how early it was as I was fixated on watching the average speed slowly go up. I added some water and snacks and pushed on by 6pm looking for a road into the bush to stealth camp.
Here is my loaded bike outside the restaurant.

I found a track and rode off the road for 2km and then saw a small ravine with trees and rode carefully to there.

There was a breached dam and elephant crap all over but none recent. It is too dry now for elephants. This picture shows my tracks around some elephant spore.

It was blowing still and the hammock needed the side rope. I finished diluted coke and biscuits and read for an hour into the dark.

I noticed a smell of rancid fat, like you smell in a masai boma. I must of got it on my jacket because it is still there.

Saturday

I was awake more than a few times and wide awake at 530. I got out at 545 and made a fire in my cook stove and made tea while I ate granola. I packed up and was walking out of my camp by 7am. On the way to the highway I passed a young giraffe.

It was cool but not cold like Arusha and I enjoyed the tailwind through Minjingu village and cruised on.

Just before Vilima vitatu I came up behind a cycle tourist. Rode up next to him and we chatted away.

Andy is cycling from England to SA for charity of some sort. www.kop2kop.blogspot.com

The wind changed to head wind and we stopped for a cup of I had a donut. Andy can talk! We had allot to talk about also.
I was not pushing it but not going slow either and he was staying right up with his heavy loads.

Before Magugu someone called my name and it was Lucas. He lives around here and saw me go by. He used to race bikes and come to Arusha. He rode with us most of the way to Babati.

Andy got on well with Lucas and gave him $2 for some new spokes and respoking as his back wheel was all over the place.

I did not think too much about that until later when i learned on what a tight budget Andy is on.

Babati is up in some hills, so we had some climbs and it became less desolate. We rolled into Babati mid day and took the first guest house. 8000shs for Erik for self contained and 6000 for a shared bath for Andy.

The manageress went and got two beers and two plates next door for us and we kept on chatting.
We were joined by another boarder, and we talked with them also.

After showers we took a walk of the town. On the first day of this trip I realized I could do some work while in Babati by checking out the town for possibilities of us doing business here. Babati is now a regional Headquarters for a new Region and Habari Node Ltd staff are thinking it would be strategic to start operations here.

I noticed this sign, with the habari.co.tz domain!
That made me feel important.
Not alot of big businesses although it is a big sprawling town.

Mostly friendly town, not many yelling kids.

The sun came out and I got slightly affected by the sun. by 4pm we were suddenly back at the bar / restaurant next to our lodge so we sipped beer and chatted away. Several guys came by that i knew and one bought a round.

We had same meal for dinner that we had for lunch and called it a night. I watched some news in the common room and then read in bed.

Tuesday.

I woke fewer time than in my hammock but less comfortable, as I am not comfortable on sheets I do not know about and there was some noise.

Andy made me some tea to go with my granola at first light. I gifted him all my left over food supplies but snacks. We said good byes to manager and Andy and was on the road by 7am. Andy was still packing. Now I realized Babati is considerable up in the slopes of a mountain. So I had some fast downhill runs and I had to add a light pullover. The shimmy was a bit better but still can not ride no hands. I still don't know if it was front or back causing it..

When the build the road they need enormous quantities of fill and so dig mountain sides and sometimes big holes like this one that fill up with water. They were also burning bricks with rice husks on the other side of the pond.

The wind stayed the same so I was able to stay 30-35 kph on the flats. By 9am I noticed Lucas on the side of the road at his village and he flagged me down.

We went for tea at his house and he prepared to ride with me to Arusha. He has 6 kids!

Sitting in his living room drinking tea and looking at his old racing pictures I noticed some small shoes behind the door, then I notice there were feet in the shoes. His laughing dad took him from his hiding place crying. He eventually got used to me and smiled and laughed.

They grow "Ufuta" for cooking oil, a programme of Farm Africa. He is going to ride with me to Arusha, about 100km, take his bike to mechanic, then sleep somewhere and return the next day. He tied a spare tyre below his seat. No water bottle, no extra clothes, maybe some tools but no pump!
Compare with my bike and it's load.

Now I was going 35 to 40 in Lucas draft! I gave up taking a turn in front. After 30 km I had to tell him to slow down as I worried I would tire.

Makyuni by 11 am and the same meal as everywhere. rice, meat sauce, bean sauce, spinach, cabbage, fruit. We both had milk tea and I had a coke at the end to perk me up. Usually I start with the coke as the sugar helps my appetite.

We stopped maybe 45 minutes and then did several long climbs 2-3km each and then through the rollers. Had some soreness on my hands and neck. I was wish the seat was my mtn seat, which is softer, wider and broken in.

Lucas lead less. After Mti moja the pain in my toe flared and I managed to deal with that while riding. We made the last hill quickly up to Monduli corner in the big chain ring! We stopped at Meserani for another coke and more water.

Speaking of water, check the amount of water this guy carries on the way back after he drops the extra person.

We are home at 330. 170km in 8 1/2 hours, which includes two big stops of 1:45 and one short one!

Need to figure out the shimmy and get another seat.

happy trails!

Spotted on the side of the road.

2011-08-16T16:47:00.004+03:00

A few weeks ago I stopped to take a leak and here was the cool rock house.

Is bicycle commuting dangerous in Arusha?

2011-08-16T16:41:00.002+03:00

I think not.

However at a small dinner gathering of 7 adults 3 were very vocal that it was dangerous, and only two of us thought no more than driving.

But it is interesting that none of them had actually tried bicycle commuting in Arusha.

The other rider did admit that he has slowed down in the heavy traffic, and i must admit i have also.

Someone had a good ride yesterday.

2011-07-24T07:17:00.004+03:00

Cadel Evans!

Today is being declared a national holiday as Cadel Evans is the first Australian to win the Tour de France! He has taken over the yellow jersey decisively in the individual time trial on the second to the last day of the tour.

I have been following the tour for 15 years and this is the best one by far. The other races have also been very tightly contested, young rider, points, king of the mountains, and the daily winner. Every day was exciting.

Slowly over the past years one starts believing everyone is doping and when someone wins we say "he got the dope right". This tour I get the impression it is pretty clean and it made for a hotly contested tour.

And my favorite rider was instrumental in getting Cadel Evans a win. Way to go George Hincapie! Cadel gave all his teammates their due, and said " When a rider like George believes in you it is hard not to believe in yourself." This is George's 15th tour finish.

It was a tour to feel good about. Motivates me to ride my bike more. Get out and ride your bike.

Backwards

2011-07-21T11:29:00.002+03:00

Saturday a motley crew joined up here and there and were all together in Akheri. We road last mtn bike race backwards. It was like riding a new route.

So much of the time you are screaming down hill seeing very little. I enjoyed making our way up the East Meru slopes. Somehow we recognizied the turns.

It was a mellow ride but with climbing 800m my legs felt it.

Adventure in the Dark

2011-06-17T11:25:00.002+03:00

I rode my bike to a funeral in the Usa River area a few Saturdays ago. I ran over someone on the way home.

A funeral entails 2-5 days of people sitting around everyday. The people I wanted to offer condolences to were not there when i got there mid day but showed up after 430pm. I wanted to head back home ( 35km uphill) by 5pm to make it before dark. Then I got in the middle of a discussion about proper procedures and it was after 6pm when i left.

Not to worry as I had carried my lights and reflective band. Dusk started after Usa River town.

It was at Makumira that I ran over someone! It was dusk moving towards dark and there was a ton of traffic. As I was on the mountain bike I started using dirt trails on the side of the road. In Makumira area I saw something black on the trail 100m ahead. My first thought it was a human and then i realized it was probably a disintegrated tyre, so i figured I would just ride over it. About 10 meters before i then realized it was a man lying across the trail! The trail was in the middle of the road embankment so swerving was not an option. Stopping was not an option so i tried to jump the man.

I was not very successful so i ran right over him! He was obviously drunk and sleeping. Well riding over him woke him up and he yelled something.

I figured stopping would only make everything worse for me. So i just pedalled on and he lay back down to sleep.

Now it was dark and i realized by batteries were on the weak side. Headlights in my eyes and cars zipping by added to my discomfort. It made the trip a bit longer but i managed.

Not sure what to think of this ride.

2011-05-30T17:27:00.004+03:00

I text Thomas Holden : " Do U have plan for Sunday Ride"

He sms's back : " come my house 0645 and we will make one, coffee ready at 0630".

I text back a bunch of questions but he is not chatty at all. So I go unknowing but prepared. I take a thermos of milk tea, a water bottle of mango juice, a bottle of water, 2 pbj sandwiches , some dates and more tools and spares anyone would ever need and ride down the mountain.

I arrive at Thomas's house and find two bikes upside down outside his workshop and Thomas busy fixing something. That is a bad sign, more than likely there will be mechanicals.

Despite being five minutes late but I am offered coffee anyway. The coffee I am told is on Thomas's work bench. I find 10 empty cups and a big pot of coffee. Hmmm. "Thomas! how many people are coming? "

Thomas mumbles "Well maybe 7 or 8." and sheepishly continues to work on his bike.

Hmmm. The amount of time actually riding goes down exponentially with the number of riders on a ride due to mechanical failures. The curve gets steeper depending upon the experience of the riders. The names include a fair number of unknowns, and some knowns but not regulars.

But the list includes my buddy Wes Krause. I haven't seen him for half a year so I figure it "will be a good one" if he is along. If I could chose a mtn bike riding partner it would be him.

As expected there are mechanicals right away. See the loop on the map. We go 2 km, and then have to start over. It is issues with Thomas's bike all day that keep us from riding constantly. The stops turn into social times and so the day is a good one.

My phone runs out of charge so I miss mapping the last hour or so. Need to figure that out.

State of some of the trails.

In the middle we drop the bikes and hike up Oljoro Hill. Pretty steep but the views are pretty good over my shoulder.

Just about to reach the top.

A ride in between

2011-05-28T10:35:00.005+03:00

Being a parent bit into my biking activities last weekend .

Normally, Saturday morning is the best day for a " good one", which means a long ride in a new place. However Nashesha, the kid, needed to get to school and back on Saturday for a training hike in preparation for a class trip climbing Mnt Meru.

I wanted to work on our unfinished 25 year old house on Sunday, and if I ride long then I am too tired to do much ruling out a long ride on Sunday.

I worried about this dilemma / crisis all Friday and saw no alternative but to take the kid to school by 830 am and pick her at noon. I figured it is easier, cheaper, and better to ride bikes to her school and she is willing. I will ride in between drop off and pickup.

We have a lovely ride to Nashesha's school, through suburbia, along a major highway, through a forest, and then a coffee farm, before arriving early at the school parking lot. We lock her bike and Nashesha demands a hug and I ride away.

I haven't a clue where to go, or what kind of ride I should do. I don't have excess energy so I try to think of someone to go visit. I either don't have their number, or they don't answer, or I don't feel like bothering them. I am forced to stop in the middle of the coffee plantation and spend 20 minutes on the phone with work stuff. I have a new phone, a smart phone with more than you need including a GPS. So I turn that on and decide to do a Monduli Mtn loop we did for the last mtn bike race, the first part only. I doubt I have the time, but I can double back instead of doing the loop.

As usual, once I get going instead of going slow and smelling the roses I ride harder and harder. That doesn't mean I am going fast.

The trails and dirt roads are mostly hard but there is some mud. I do the math, I started riding seriously at 9am so I need to be on way back to school 1015. I make it to the forest and commit myself to the loop. I stop and take a picture with the Android phone. It is the first time on this track there is no lose dust .

I haven't eaten or drank so I stop for a nutritious coke and water and a rough building of wood. I talk briefly with the shop owner, but take no picture, and cruise to the highway and down to the school. As I get off the bike I am a bit stiff, and I realize the guards watching me probably think I just rode 3 km from my house, and not the 45km and 900m elevation gain. I stumble and sigh a bit, hehe. I am early so I check out the map made by the gps on my phone, and its features, like elevation and graphs etc. Pretty cool.

Although I was once a bit of a hacker, and I still can figure stuff out, I can't be bothered with end user stuff, so am not sure when I will post a map.

Eventually the kids straggle in , in different physical states. Nashesha is one of the bouncy talkative ones. I find out that John of the UN ICTR has a daughter in the same year, different home class. He is top dog as our biggest client, so that is cool.

I turn off the mapping and we ride home, mostly uphill. Nashesha does well except when I forget she is behind me and am riding up long hills. Eventually she complains and we slow down. Great kid! How can I be so lucky?

Wow

2011-05-16T07:57:00.002+03:00

Found a new trail/road. Unfortunately my camera battery was dead.

Thomas Holden and John Course came around Saturday morning and we road up from my house, crossing ngaremtoni river, and turned up the West Meru Plateau road. We stopped 1/2 way up for breakfast and I sent Thomas on a small track to see if it looked like it contoured around.

In the past few years I now feel like I am a mzee. So I feel no guilt or loss of pride to send someone else to check something out. why should a mzee with grandchildren work as hard as younger people?

Thomas returned saying it didn't go down. So we tried it. It did go down after 10 minutes but not much so we kept going. Eventually it lead us up onto the plateau on the other side of the forest guard post. So now we know how to by pass the gate if they ever start asking us what we are doing in the forest.

The views were spectacular contouring around the plateau. Then the road goes up a ravine and we climbed into thick fog. We came out on top at a water tank and wondered where we were. Vaguely it looked familiar, and then i figured the big road we had come to could only be one on the plateau, so i figured we were 500 meters beyond the gate. We rolled down to the gate, which was open.

A man was asking why we were passing by without stopping, in English. So we stopped and I was thinking " ok, it is starting. We will now need official permission and permits , etc." He was as friendly and cordial as could be and we chatted a few mintues.

Now we had 15 km and 1.5 km vertical to drop. I couldnt keep up with Thomas and John on their full suspension and younger bodies. It was technical the first part, and the second part was just plain fast. I think it only took over an hour to get home what took 3 hours to climb.

It is raining again.

2011-05-12T15:50:00.000+03:00

It is not a problem riding to work in the rain. I have refined my technique again and wear sandals and change in the office to shoes.

The problem is 90% of the cars come from roads that are mud, and then on the main road the mud falls off and finds its way to the side of the road, where i have to ride part of the time.

Damp ride

2011-05-08T09:42:00.003+03:00

Two weekends ago Thomas and I agreed to do a long mtn ride.

Typically , the route wasn't fully decided until we started riding.

I enlisted Paulo to escort me through town at 5am so I could meet Thomas at 530. As I was approaching the rendezvous corner I saw a light coming up his dirt road and fell in just behind him. I thought his light was a car.

We planned to ride up the Monduli Coffee estate road and up and over the farm, down to Monduli town, then up to Monduli Juu plateau and then west on the plateau and drop down cycle across open grassland to the highway and slog home into the wind. I was a bit concerned about crossing the grassland as it has rained at night and there are sections of black cotton soil. Black cotton soil stick more than any other soil to tyres and can then pack the wheel, killing a ride.

We cruised up the Monduli estate road . It is "improved" so nothing was sticking to the tyres. we realized we cant ride through the estate so we tried a track to the side and within a few hundred meters we were starting to get bigger tyres, because of caking mud.
we back tracked and went higher and then tried to ride along their fence, which was like riding down through ploughed fields and grass. At the bottom it did not look good so we pushed the bikes back up to the improved road and it started to drizzle.

We started to be more realistic and even if they let us through the farm, the track down to monduli would be slippery, sticky, and might be unrideable. I mean bike carrying fun. The low clouds seemed all over.

I was starting to have a muddy drive system, but had some extra oil along.

We coasted back looking at conditions on the tracks cutting across to monduli. We ended up riding back to the highway and all the way around to monduli town, and then up to Monduli Juu. The road is more than improved and we road in the drizzle to the top.

The clouds started parting and we rode to the highest point before it drops down into the rift valley and Ketumbeine.

Turning around we could not quite let the bikes go as sections were slippery, but it was still fast enough. We opted for some tea in Monduli town as the village of monduli juu was full of sticky looking mud.

Some clods of sticky mud fell into my drive chain and I now had a red chain lubricated by mud. What i needed now was a torrential down pour to clean it up before I lubricated. Instead the occasional clod spun off my tyres onto my chain.

More fast rolling and a number of cars coming up who didn't move over much. Soon we were in monduli town and tarred road and we found a small restaurant run by pleasant people. They had about a million donuts on the counter for sale and we had a couple and some milk tea.

As we were leaving we met a bunch of small kids who i snapped a few pictures of.

Now we had a familiar 38 km ride home.

How far to bicycle from Arusha to find a non Swahili Speaker?

2011-04-17T08:42:00.007+03:00

Two hours.

Two hours is how long I bicycled to find someone who does not speak the national language, Swahili. Before I explain that , let me list the alternative titles for this ride post:

1- I seem to ride alone on weekend rides. I send out on a biking mailing list but no takers. Is it my company? my reputation for going far? everyone busy? or what? I don't mind going alone, and sometimes prefer it , but it would be nice to ride long rides with someone. I am going to stop posting invites myself and ask others to do it.

2- Still more adventures out there. There are some trails/roads within riding distance I haven't found yet that are pretty cool. I was thinking because of leaving mid day that I would not go anywhere interesting or new. Not true. I need to be more innovative in exploring some blank areas, like today. One hour and I was on an interesting track in the bush.

3- I broke my brooks saddle rail. Breaking a seat could of changed the ride dynamics. I was able move the seat forward and it held. Still wondering what to make of it. My beloved Brooks saddle that is conformed to my sit bones. Can I weld it? I fretted over the cost.

So here is how the ride panned out. I was lazy and sat around with the family all morning. It was not until 1pm that I started off . I figured I would not get anywhere interesting as I only had about 5 hours of riding time.

The first hour was a "transport stage" north up the highway to Lengijave. "Transport stages" are sections where I ride the bike purely for transport to get to the "beginning" of a good ride. The road north only has a few km left of gravel as it is being redone. It is interesting scenery except i have seen it a zillion times. I am riding this just to get somewhere else.

Normally I go around the north side of Lengijave mountain and down the open grassland. This time I rode up a valley on the south side. Iit has been ten years since I have used this road, not since family Guzinski lived up here in the 80's and 90's

I ride up the valley and through this small pass.
It is still transport stage.

After the pass, all of a sudden I have this vista.
My camera lens is not smudged, that is a light rain falling. I will ride down on the left.

The road then contours a ridge leading up to Monduli Mountain. The view is spectacular. However I want to see what the plains below are like.

It sprinkles a little while I scrutinize the slopes below for a trail to take down into the plain. I ask an old man the best way down. After convincing him that I don't need a jeep track, he shows me the best track.

I ride the brakes as it is bumpy and loose sand. In a few minutes it is less steep and smoother and I can almost let the brakes go. I am doing 40kmph. There are no houses but herds spread out here and there.

Now in the picture it is still downhill but only slightly, enough i only coast.

I have come down from up there.

I decide to check out the crossing of the korongo before turning back home. I can almost ride the whole way down, but I do one endo in that shady part. I remained standing while the bike did the endo. (what if i broke a leg ?)

The other side has too much soft sand in places so I walk. Half way up the far side I start riding again and I notice my seat feels crooked. I stop and notice the rail is broken on one side!

I panic for about 5 seconds, and am bummed out for longer that I will have to buy a new seat. ($100). I take out my tools, slide the seat forward so the clamp is clamping both sides of the rail and eat some trail mix.

I deliberate for a minute whether to continue going farther away from civilization. As the real ride only started 50 minutes ago I choose to continue. The wide trail suddenly becomes a path, and a small one at that.

I come to another canyon, with 5 foot drop offs on the rim (picture on left). I find a place to climb down (below the cloud) and lift the bike down. I have to walk the bike down and up the other side. I continue on the small trail into a clump of trees.

Here I find the first non Swahili speakers. Two 8 year old herd boys. Swahili is the national language. It is exactly 2 hours riding time, 30km. I try to give them some trail mix but they are afraid to come close to me. I ride on towards the forest I can see a few km ahead. I come to several bomas on the edge of another big korongo. I talk to a teenager about the way across.

I can see the seven cornor road up to Monduli Juu. Maybe an hour away if I can find good tracks. Definitely the fastest way around Monduli mountain. The last time I circumnavigated Monduli I looked back on this route. Now there is just a small blank spot to figure out.

I ride to the edge and check it out but figure I better turn around.

I backtrack through the two canyons. In the second one instead of following the way I came I cut straight across. It is a bit of a scramble and bike carrying. I make a mistake and go through a side canyon also.

Once out of the canyon I cant find any track, so I ride over the grass clumps for a few kms in the direction I know a track exists and find the track going up to Lengijave. This time I take the right fork, where only foot traffic passes and i think it is better.
I can't find the embed tab on you tube.

I ride through the weird cutout.....

and onto the upper Lengijave plains together with 20 separate herds all going home. I swallow their dust as I pass one herd after another. at 6pm I am at the highway and buy two cokes in a jiffy and jump back on the bike. It is mostly downhill home. I had opted not to wear a helmet and now I wish I had as the speed is sometimes too fast and there is traffic.

I am home by 630. Happy I was able to have a couple hours adventure out in the bush.

Trash cleanup by Arusha Cycling Club

2011-04-15T12:07:00.005+03:00

Last month Arusha Cycling Club together with Kilimanjaro Initiatives, Global Bike Team, and students from Arusha Modern, ISM, and Braeburn schools cleaned up some road side trash. Pretty cool. We filled up a 7 ton lorry and The road looked great.

I spent my time with kids from Arusha Modern. Afterwards we had a few words, with the best speech from a student from Arusha Modern, who picked up on the " Make a difference" theme.

Note we used biodegradable reusable woven grass baskets to collect the trash.

Raspberries!

2011-04-15T11:11:00.003+03:00

Last month we had a mtn bike race that went up and down Monduli and Meru Mtn slopes.

While riding the route the weeks before the race we had a hard time to not stop racing in this section. All of a sudden people would stop and start foraging on wild raspberries. Eventually someone come to their senses and we would ride on for a few minutes before we could not resist another patch.

What non bikers give bikers for christmas.

2011-04-15T10:46:00.006+03:00

Let alone that I bicycle, which makes me odd, I am also simply eccentric and crazy, so take this post with a grain of salt.

If you know me, you know I ride a bicycle . Every day. To work, home from a bar, for recreation on the weekend, to clients during the day. One of the reasons I ride a bicycle is it's footprint is small and another reason it helps me to consume less resources. I don't believe in buying stuff unnecessarily and I fix stuff if possible.

So I fail to understand why I got this for Christmas from a relative:

We exchange names in my wife's family, so I get one gift from someone, and this is what I got last Christmas.

It has batteries in the trunk and the legs and back tyres go round and round while playing some "hindi" music. Oh yeah, and a flashing red light.

I prefer another beer mug.

The idea that my life is NOT about consumerism, but is about small footprint just doesn't sink in to people, as this is not what I think money should be spent on. I like bicycling, but I don't have non functional bike paraphernalia on my desk and wall.

As long as I am on a rant, non bicyclists should not attempt to buying any cycle thing for the bicyclist. Nothing.

"What should I get Erik?" "Something for his bicycle" So off they go to a bike shop and find something like a water bottle, the cheapest one, but they know nothing about a water bottle, that cheap ones don't work right so it will go unused, wasted.

South Masai steppe tour

2011-02-08T11:53:00.021+03:00

I asked Arusha Bikers mailing list about joining me for a short tour. In the end no one could go, so I went alone. Alone is good too.
I had a plan of "finding" this mountain pictured above, called Landanai. It is there on the map, and it is pretty big and all, but maps are pretty sketchy on location of roads , vague, outdated, roads change,etc, so I figured it was still an adventure "finding" it from the north.

Despite starting to get ready Thursday after work it wasn't until 11am on a Friday when I took off. I was tired the night before and started doing maintenance, greasing the front hub, finding some bad bearings.

As I started out I planned to take the old gravel highway east to Usa River and then the tarred road to the Kilamanjaro Airport turn off, then small tracks to Chemka. Due to the late start I decided to keep going east on the highway to Boma Ngombe and then turn south to the Masai steppe, passing the Chemka springs for a swim.

I had an auspicious start through town.

There was no apples in Sakina so I stopped in Kijenge fruit stands for some apples. The guy would only sell me a bag of 8 apples for $3.25. We got talking and he is from Engasumet! Engasaumet is where I hope to reach after Landanai. He confirmed there is a road from the Chemka springs to Landanai. Yes! I was feeling assured that I could easily find a road up the escarpment from Chemka, which was one of the blank stretches on the map in my head and paper.

People were friendly on the gravel road. The occasional vehicle stirred up dust. At Usa Town, as expected, the young guys were bothersome, but a frozen litre of juice tasted pretty good and restored my mood.

At Boma ya Ngombe I needed food and drink. It was hot and I had gone 60km pretty fast.

I made the mistake of asking the traffic cops hassling motorists for a recommendation. They sent me to some place as lazy as traffic cops. Before I parked my bike I asked if there was food they said yes. I carried the 60lbs of bike and baggage up stairs and walked far inside past staring waiters. I sat at a table in a big room for five minutes, watching staff walk back and forth. Finally I yelled at the girl for service. She sauntered over, said sorry she thought I had ordered, and said there was no food ready, but it would only take a few minutes. "Yeah right". I stomped out and back to the highway.

I found a nice , smaller, place right off the road with attentive staff and food ready. No traffic cops eating there. Unfortunately all the veranda tables were taken so I sat inside where there was less breeze. I ate rice and beans and drank coke mixed with water. People cleared out so I had another coke on the veranda and recovered. I talked to someone, but I can't remember if it was waitress or a patron. I need to learn to take pictures in these places. I can't remember what we talked about but I remember it was mellow.

I turned south on a rough gravel road and into a strong wind . I followed another bicycle for awhile. After 20km and an hour later it was late afternoon and I decided to skip the swim as it was late afternoon and I wanted to get out of the populated areas and into the bush . The track through Chemka village got small but everyone knew Kiteto District was "that way".

A vehicle track took me to another unnamed village with a group of wazee (older men) busy doing not much. I was now confronted with a million paths and tracks, the wazee gave me good directions and passing a bridge over a fast flowing river. I took a quick refreshing wash and cycled on. Now I passed through the hills jutting out of the escarpment that marks the springs.

I ask directions from a motorcyclist passing me and he mentions villages to pass through. I only retain Marungu. Luckily I can follow his tracks and as he stopped in every village and I catch him and we leap frog on dusty. Someone is looking out for me. I lose track of him when I turn up the escarpment.

But I get another motorcyclist. This one is Kanunga Mkubwa and he insists I cant sleep out. "you can sleep out and we do if we have to, but my boma is just at the top, so sleep there."

It is too much work to argue. He tells me to ask for him at next village, Lengasti. To this day am still not sure the village name.

This is about half way up the escarpment, looking back to Kilimanjaro massif. It is not steep but continuous slope. I meet Kanunga coming back down again. He says he is going down to pick someone so he might be a bit late but they are expecting me.

I am still trying to figure a way to sleep out in the bush, a way to avoid Kanunga.

I reach the top and find a plateau, kind of a valley with a bunch of buildings out in the middle. It is just before dark but in a few minutes Kanunga comes by with a mama on the back and I follow him down a track through the shops to some block houses.

This is Kanunga's house and tractor. His house is pretty impressive. I was taken aback, as I was expecting a mud/wattle hut or simple 2 room block house. His brother has similar sized house. We greeted his wives and kids and sat out in the dimming evening and got to know each other. He has some gemstone mines, does some farming, and has the traditional cows and goats.

Bernice, my great supportive wife, had sent me off with some chapatis and sauce for dinner. Kanunga's wife heated them up for me. He ate "chakula ya kawaida" "normal food", which was some left over meat.

There came up a strong wind that he said could get worse, so don't open the window as your room will fill up with sand. I was shown a 4x4 room with a double bed with clean sheets. I figure that is his room.

DAY TWO : Through the basin
I slept well but woke alot. The wind blew 1/2 the night. Kanunga's wife took my UHT milk and made me some chai, and I had some granola. We talked some more , then Kanunga had a business deal to rent his tractor to a charcoal dealer.

Kanunga's directions to Landanai"
"Go around those fields and then veer right (good he told me). follow the road to Mouram, then to that distant mountain Loisoito, there you pass to the left, next is a desolate area that is hot and no people and then before Landania is Lorbene village. Ask directions there."

Directions varied during the day to perfect like this to totally worthless.

Most of the road was like this. I was feeling great and the bike was running smoothly.

The road was hard and smooth, occasionally some deep sand.

Mouram is actually a bunch of mines next to the road. What the miners dig up looks like mouram.

I looked into some mines like this one.

There is Loisoito 10 km in the distance and I quickly reach there.

I am shy about taking out the camera with people around, too bad, as they are interesting people and lives.

I talked to a couple of miners and a man herding goats. All the houses in the village were closed up and people out digging in the mines.

I pass through the Loisoto ridge and see this view.

Because of the dust, sand, brush the road sometimes splintered and came back together. At one point I should of gone left as the right one circled around this basin. I stopped here and took a movie you can watch at the bottom.

Just before Lorbene village I searched out a shady tree and stopped for an hour, about 11am. I took out my sleeping mat and lunched on an apple, snickers, peanut brittle while reading my book. It was pretty hot now.

Lorbene village is a bunch of bomas and shops spread out with confusing roads and people. I probably could of made it to Landanai village on the other side of the mountains if i would of gone west around the mountain in a 2 hours.

Instead I rode through the mtns and got off any road there was..

Here is what happened. The first person I asked was a girl of about 13 who said to take this road going back north. I road north for 5 km and said this cant be right and road back. By that time there was a mama who showed me a path east into the mountains,into the middle. That looked good..

The trail became a vehicle track.

A young masai told me in English this road went right to Landanai.

I followed some bike tracks on the road and pretty soon I was on great single track. It was great riding surrounded by craggy mountains. I didn't see anyone for hours. The track got fainter and fainter until it died in a boma (group of huts). However there was the bicycle that made the tracks. The bicycle owner said I was hopelessly lost and missed the track.

I was directed "up to those big baobab trees".

Soon I was on this "road" that was actually a cattle track but was ride able.

It was ride able for awhile anyway. The trail started to climb through the mountain and now I was in thick forest. The coolness was appreciated but the riding became more technical.

Root were one thing but long rocky sections was another thing. It meant wrestling and lifting the bike up and over boulders and ledges.

I started to think I was going on a dead end. The path sometimes was over grown.

I was tired and anxious and was not being careful. My cotton shirt caught on a branch and it tore the arm badly, then a few moments the back of the shirt opened up fully. I parked the bike before a rocky place (the bike is in the middle of this picture) and scouted ahead on foot. It got good for awhile and then rocky. I would start to go down and then the trail would find another ridge to go over.
I should of been enjoying the thick forest but I wanted to be "found" instead of slightly lost. I continued on up mostly.

Suddenly I could see the rock face, which meant I had gone around the mountain. There was a big water tank and 3 small kids. They showed me two options down to the water tap.

I found 50 masai women and a few men watering cows.

I was shaky with fatigue and relief and just wanted to cool off. I started to wash in the cattle trough.
A very kind woman decided I needed help. She commandeered a wash basin and filled it with clean water and directed me to go bath in the bushes. It was great bath. I changed shirts. What made me bring two shirts i don't know. I gave the nice woman the rag shirt and she was pretty happy. Then she told one of the girls to fill up my water bag. I gave some kids some ginger snap cookies.

My spare shirt is a Royal Robbins active button down shirt with collar. Royal Robbins was making very good climbing stuff when I was in college and somewhere along the line started making high end "active" clothing. Never could afford his stuff. Anyway the last time in USA Bernice bought a bunch of shirts at goodwill (and a ton of other stuff). I wore this shirt a couple of times and one day in a meeting I was looking at the button (why did i do that?), and was shocked to see it was a Royal Robbins brand. I now noticed it is very comfortable and well cut. The shirt moved from my office shirts to my biking clothes shelf.

Back to my trip.

The water tank is on the right slope in this picture. I needed to get to the village now for food. I got directions and took off, coasting down a trail I came to a big sand road. Unfortunately I didn't know if village was left or right! I waited a five minutes for someone to happen by. It was quiet so I rode 1/2 way back to the tank and asked which way.

Landanai is a big village spread over 1 km. Alot of mining types and masai all milling around. It is a squalid town with trash , eroded roads, decrepit buildings, and people everywhere. I found a hoteli saying they had food and went around back into the courtyard. The proprietress was lying on a bench and she would direct her waitress to serve me. A miner followed me in to talk. I bought him a soda and had rice and meat and a couple of sodas.

At 5pm I rode out of town. The miner told me 5 km out of town I would see a sign to Naberera, and I should go left. This was my first road sign. Naberera 24km. There were farms here and there but few huts.

I stopped with plenty of daylight with a view back to my trip destination. Now i would swing south and then west the next day.

I decided that stopping a bit earlier (instead of dark) would be more relaxing. I strung my hammock, gathered some wood, took a few pictures and then still had time to read of few pages of my novel.

I splurged and took a shower, of sorts. I used 1 litre of water from water bag in a thin stream and rinsed off my body. ahhh, felt great and I wasn't sticky at night.

I didn't cook until about 8pm. only 90km today.

DAY 3 BIG ROADS

In the morning the camp looks the same. It is not the kind place you would want to sit around in all day, but for a stealth camp it worked. I sit on mwhile cooking over the littlebuy sleep pad while cooking on a little bug wood stove.

I got out of the hammock at 530 and was ready at 645. Then i caught up on the journal until 730 while looking at Landanai and Kilimanjaro mountains.

Some notes here. Yesterday I was scheming about having a styrofoam cooler as beans had gone bad yesterday.
The alcohol for my pepsi can stove must be diluted too much with water, as it takes more to boil 2 cups water and long to start.

In 60 minutes I was in Naberera and I decided on another breakfast. I had 3 cups of milk tea and mandazi. I talked to the owner, a young guy from Kondoa of Mrangi tribe. We talked about his duka, hoteli, hilux pickup, and gemstone dealing. The other people in the shop then started talking trying to figure out why I am riding my bicycle out here.

East African biking paradise.

This is for sister Byrna. Have no idea what they are but there was a fair amount of them.

Man, have roads changed in recent years. I figure I could ride my road bike here.

Road is now really good. Not what I remembered from 20 years ago. Wide , cambered, drainage system, and very smooth. I came accross piles of mourram ready to make it even better.

My pannier has a big rip in it. Remind me to get it sewn.

Cool looking rock up on Naberera mountain. Naberera mountain is more interesting than Landanai.

I went through a big korongo that was even labeled as Oljoro. After that the road was like lami. At noon I stopped for over an hour and had the last apple, ginger snaps, snickers, and water.

I thought about how I could lighten my load. Wear sandals, less snacks and buy along the way, the padded chair thing is nice but i could live without, only one pot, buy cooked rice in the evening and carry to camp, smaller or no leatherman, handle bar bag is heavy, no lock or a lighter one, less tools? and spares?

Routine. Start earlier, ride 6 to 10am and find a chai shop. 1030 to 1pm and then under a tree for 2 hours. 3-6 ride. write in the evening. Nice to break under the tree mid day.

It has been remarkable how few vehicles and walkers I am meeting outside of the villages after Naberera.

For some reason I did not touch the peanut butter, honey, or fruit/nut mix during this trip.

I see more game.

Not sure why I uploaded this picture.

More zebra. Ho hum.

I was a bit tired but went on to Terat for dinner. There is no alternative anyway. I saw the Loiborsoit road but went the 5km to Terat and had some rice & beans, water and cokes.

After backtracking I was on a track and was seeing more wildebeest zebra and gazelle.

There is a shallow korongo and you branch right for Lolkisale and loiborsoit.

I am on a track now, unimproved and heading towards rain clouds.

I am through the plains and into forest again.

Sped through Loiborsoit. It was getting late and I waited until I hadn't seen a field for 1 km, then road 500m off the road. I was thinking i would not be noticed but as I was setting up a masai comes walking by. He said there were bomas all around and later at night as it got still i could hear them. I cooked up some Ramen and soup.

100km.

Day Four
I got out of the bed at 510 and a cow ran through my camp. The wood stove works great if you put in sticks slowly.

Lovely campsite.

It was cool and almost going to rain for the final section to Lolkisale.

I stopped here and was told tea and chapatis were almost ready. I waited 30 minutes as the day warmed up.

I didnt feel like eating chapati but I did. As the clouds burned away I put on sunscream, bought 3 litres water, and more chapati.

The road is hard, smooth, and downhill off of Lolkisale mountains. I missed the "short cut" as I was going so fast I didnt feel like stopping often to ask.

It sprinkled a bit making riding even better. At the bottom the sun came out and I slogged up the other side.. The rivers had water and one was actually running. I put some dirty water in a bottle for pouring on my head. I stopped stopping now and by 10km to home my foot was hurting so I had to stop in burka and deal with that. i rode 90km

What i would do differently.

Better maps.
Plan water better and carry less.
Try to carry less food and buy more mid day for evening.
Less weight.
wide brimmed hat for shade all sides
cotton shirt.
sandals
check conditions of panniers
If just me less spares.
more suncream
3 water bottles and 2 3 litre bags.
camp seat was nice
book was nice
apples nice
more granola
One pair shorts
one clean shirt

Going alone was good. Always ask directions 2-3 times.

Uphill both ways

2011-01-28T07:38:00.005+03:00

Between Christmas and New Years we drove to the coast at Bagamoyo for 4 days and one day in the Amani mountains. Of course I had the bike in the back.

One morning I got up early to head off towards Sandani National park to experience the road to the Park gate. I can't remember what exactly what it was, but it took more than an hour to fix something, so I got a bit of a late start. Not so good for tropical coast weather.

I rode away from the coast for 15km and then turned north on the Sandani road, which was recently graded, in great shape, and almost no traffic. The road started by going slightly up for the 3 kms I could see.

After about 3 km I looked ahead it was still slightly uphill, not steep at all, just slightly uphill as far as I could see. No big deal, it will be downhill coming back. As the kms went by I was looking forward to turning around and having a long slight downhill, as it was 99% slightly uphill. This went on for 20 kms , and due to family waiting for me to return, I turned around .

Looking ahead (going back now) the road stretched on slightly uphill. Huh, must be just here, so I road a few km, always going slightly uphill. No way. And it just kept going on and on uphill

I stopped and took a picture both ways.

You tell me, i wasn't in a valley, but both ways look uphill to me. And I never got to coast or pedal easy, it was, well uphill.

So i rode slightly uphill, AGAIN, back to the main Bagamoyo road completely puzzled and disappointed in missing a downhill. At the junction I had a soda at an unfriendly bar with music blaring and a group playing pool.

Any theories out there?

Half a bike ride

2010-12-06T08:17:00.011+03:00

A week ago I was biking with some buddies up against the native forest on Mount Meru and discussed climbing the mountain from that point.

The plan was to ride bikes up to the end of the planted forest, stash the bikes some where in thick bushes, climb the 15,000ft mountain, unstash bicycles, and scream on the decent home.

I have climbed Mnt Meru many a time from this side but not very often in the last 15 years, and probably not for a half dozen years. I have also never biked to the start. Walked to the start a couple of times from home, but not in one day. But I figured it was doable.

Wes has been using a slightly different route from the same starting point so I was hoping to learn a new route without having to do trial and error on the route.

I suggested a early start before light but was over rode for a 6 am start from my house. We were Thomas, Jon, Mika, Joshua to climb the mountain and Wes and Kambona to do the bike and a hour of the walking part.

Of the climbers the average age is 1/2 my age and all fit, making me a bit nervous about keeping up on the steep forest and scree slopes. Here we are about 2/3 up the bike part.

From the start we had mechanicals and Thomas ended up borrowing Paulo's rigid mountain bike before starting. Then we had a broken chain, all easily fixable but made us 1-2 hours later to the end of the road than thought.

I had no problem leaving some of the youngsters during the bike part, so forgot about worrying keeping up with them on the hike part.

We found some thick vegetation beside a small trail and locked up the bikes at 10am at 2,225m (7,300ft). We started on a faint trail. It turned out the start of Wes's trail and mine are a bit different and in the end we did a variation on my route.

The route (above and below) goes straight up a steep slope onto a small plateau complete with a small water hole. the trail was faint and steep. You learn to keep your hands close to the body as we would find stinging nettles here and there.

At the top a faint trail continued along the edge instead of moving over towards the mountain , as I remembered. I figured we would adjust later. The plateau was thick with vegetation.

Thomas informed us that his GPS showed we went in a circle! That shocked me. It turns out we had walked around the edge of the plateau. We couldn't see the mountain only the vegetation around us. We found a break in the trees and clouds and got our bearings and believed the GPS and found a trail and the water hole.

There was sign of elephant everywhere now but weeks old. The trail had stinging nettles and we started to get stung more often than not. Then the trail petered out and we found ourselves in the middle of a huge nettle patch and no trail. Argggh. Even to go back meant more pain. We stood there for a few minutes feeling sorry for ourselves.

PART II. THANK GOD FOR ELEPHANT TRAILS
I was about to suggest giving up and going home. Gritting my teeth I went up a rise and there was this large elephant trail. whew.
The trail felt right and we moved along a wide ridge at a gentle angle. The river didn't show up and the elephants were moving up a ridge so we followed their trail instead of going to the landmark river. The trail would alternatively end or zig zag or split 10 times only to become one trail later.

The ridge became narrower and steep.

As i get up to take this picture someone asks. "what is sticking out of your leg?" I pull out a pencil sized stick that is a bit sharp out of my shin. Funny i was hardly feeling it.
These two pictures above were not the norm. There were only about 5 places that were open at all, mostly the ridge was thick .

In a few hours we were in the heather and then the sand and heather. I was having no problem keeping up.

We popped out of the heather into the tundra and time was running out. we decided to try for 4000m and turn around.Walking in the sand and gravel above the tundra.
Stopping it got cold quickly and started to rain a bit. We stopped at 3,900m (12,830ft) at 3pm. I started with a thin pullover, then a rain jacket, then a heavy fleece and I wished I had taken a wool hat.
Like I said I haven't climbed a big mountain for awhile but up to this point it was a walk in the park.
As soon as we turned around the boys hopped and slid and were 5o meters down the slope as I took a couple of painful steps down. I was shocked. Going down I now could not keep up. i could not hop on the scree like the old days. Every step meant absorbing the drop and it was painful. The slope was small stones, gravel, sand on top of hard base. occasionally soft, occasionally solid rock. Now the boys were having to wait until we got back to the heather. I was embarrassed, the weak link, the one everyone was waiting for.

I recalled the days I could run down as that was easier than walking and would have to wait as others waddled down in pain. Now I know what they were feeling. Occasionally I could jog and absorb with my legs but not often.

There was one section of soft sand and I could let go and in the heather it was less steep and more stopping to find which split in the trail was best, so i could almost keep up. In the forest I would only fall back slightly and catch as they cast around for a better trail. Having the GPS was a new experience for me and we could leave the guessing and take the shorter paths, and not worry if we were on the right ridge.

The solid nettles patch was by passed but the occasional nettle was there the keep the legs warm.

We got back to the bikes about 530 and installed the front wheels back on. By 550 we started for the 20km (?) down. Although it was easier riding I was feeling stiffness in my legs, and general fatigue of being moving for 12 hours.

A chain came off and ruined the skewer and as we couldn't tighten it up an so we had to slow down the last 1/4 but we made it to my house by 7pm.

I carried about 4 litres of fluid. That would of been about right if we had gone to the top, I ended up giving a litre away. I needed the fleece, extra jersey, and rain jacket when we stopped at 4000m, but wished i had a wool hat.

I need to do some walking down steep hills more often so I avoid this suffering.

I was tired that evening, enough that falling asleep was hard and I woke at 3am and couldn't sleep again until i read a book at 430am for 30 minutes.

I could not ride down another trail

2010-11-21T08:22:00.004+03:00

On Saturday Cheusi showed up at 530 am and we agreed on a 3-4 hour ride instead of all day. We chose seeing what the rains have done to the tracks and trails up on Mnt Meru. As you see it was better than good.

This picture is taken on the new track we found. That is Monduli peaking out of the clouds. Note the native forest in the near distance and the planted forest i am standing in.
No dust, no mud. It was perfect conditions. We went to the end of the switch backs but went straight up foot paths. We continued on the road. I knew it dead ended 500 meters further but it doesn't end there anymore. We rode a small track contouring around to the west. I started to believe it would go somewhere. Instead it turned and headed down a sloping plateau and then ended above a steep path. We had committed so we walked the bikes down. It was slippery and needed brakes. 20 feet down and as I was slipping and sliding and wondering about out choice. I learned to chose where i put my foot more carefully. At the bottom we had fantastic single track down to our normal single track routes.

I missed taking a picture of the steep path and Cheusi.

Traffic light socializing

2010-11-18T12:32:00.003+03:00

Kent Peterson posted this video of Barb Chamerlain from Spokane , USA "Bikes will Save the World". Barb's talk got me thinking about how it doesn't bother me so much to have to stop at a traffic light while biking as it does as driving a car. (although we only have two traffic lights in Arusha, and both are on my commute.)

Then what struck me most is how pleasant it is to strike up a conversation with another bicyclists at the stop light. Any of you drivers regularly do that at the stop lights?

And what do bicyclists talk about at stoplights? Mostly about how much faster it is to bicycle in heavy traffic, and how vehicle drivers drive crazy.

Same old boring ride (yawn).

2010-11-15T11:19:00.009+03:00

I couldn't ride this trail down the great rift! I had to walk and even carry the bike down the 200m elevation drop .

Below is just past the worst part when I put the bike down. Before that it was all I could do to keep the bike on my back, thus no picture. It was not the hardest thing I have ever done, but it was hard.

I have carried up a similar trail near this one and it was one of the hardest hours of my life. But that was another story.

I met a Masai man at the top. Midway down we were friends . He apologized profusely for leaving me behind after that but he was trying to keep up with a donkey. I caught up with him below as the rocks decreased and we greeted each other "bukishu!" (friend). At the water tank it was my time to apologize for leaving him behind but I was 50km into a 100km ride. He declined a soda in the village shop, as his donkey wouldn't wait for him. I was glad anyway as it was a 1 km out of my way.

I haven't done a "up at 4am, riding at 5am , ride into the afternoon" ride for awhile. I told Paulo we would fix his bike when I came home Friday evening. I got home around 8pm and was too tired (or lazy) to fix his bike.

I set the alarm for 4am , reset it to 5am ( i thought) and got up just before 5am. It is amazing it can take an hour getting ready and breakfast consumed but there you go. At 6am i then spent an hour fixing his bike and a broken spoke on my bike.

Not a new ride, this is one of my classic rides done every year or so. Today was special as rumors were it has rained out that way and I was looking forward to some green grass instead of the parched land around Arusha, which you will see towards the end of this trip.

Besides a classic ride in search of green grass, I wanted to check the progress of the tarring the Great North road.
It has reached about 10km from my house but some parts are off limits to cars but we weaved in between the stones to avoid the rough dusty temporary detour.While on this "under construction " road you don't see much as about 100 meters are ripped up, graded , messed up, and then ten meters are paved. It is about as attractive as being in a burnt out war zone. When I turn off the highway there is my green grass. Paulo says he is tired and he turns around for home. I wisely ride down a cattle trail westerly. Cattle trails get bigger and bigger and move over ever few years when the heavy rains make the trails into ravines.

The inevitable obnoxious herd boys start yelling and hassling me. I guess this is what riding through Ethiopia is like. I think this area needs more psychologists.

I ride through an eroded section and take a video. I HAVE to get a helmet cam camera.

I get off the Lengijave plains and coast and coast down a rough jeep track. I meet a battered land cruiser with some wazungu passengers and we both wonder what in the hell are they doing here.
In hind sight I should of gone down the track to where it levels out some and then head southerly and take that plain closer to Monduli mountain. Appears to me like I would by pass the steep escarpment but would have to do some canyons. Next time!

It is really nice out here, wide open spaces, I see some gazelles and bustards and herds of goats and cows but only meet up with a handful of herd boys and one adult. The adult wanted to show me the way and tried to run with me, which lasted a few minutes.
Looking the other direction.

Then I come to the dreaded escarpment. Right from the beginning it is unrideable for me.

I talked about this part in the beginning of this post.

At the bottom I stopped briefly at the water tank, finished my juice and washed my head and filled that bottle for doing the same later. Not much rain down here. Some civilizied looking guys says I should go down to the shops and then take the road. The donkey herder had said follow him so i followed the donkey and then left them behind.

Now i climb again, up to the Monduli juu plateau. I gradually climb from 1220m to 1500m and then steeply up to 1980m or so.

Looking back in the steep part.

On one of the "7 corner" switchbacks . The road is excellent, very smooth and hard, even so I cant beat a man and herd of goats who are going straight up.
On top I take my first serious food break and try to eat a whole sandwich. I can't finish a pb sandwich but I drink a thermos of milk tea and eat a banana.
The coast down to Monduli town is great as always. 9 miles of 40-60kph smooth dirt. I don't see any elephants but I am moving too fast anyway. It has only been an hour or so but i stop for a coke and water in a restraunt in Monduli town. I put another coke and water in my water bottle.

I debate with myself to take the tarred road back to the airport or see if going straight to Ngaremtoni is shorter. It is 31km instead of 37km and takes two hours. Not sure which is best . I have to pass through a dozen narrow steep washouts. this was one of the easier ones. This is one of the most eroded areas in Arusha region.

I am following a very old road that is only evident by filled up culverts and cut banks and this building. I wonder what its history is.

Sometimes I have no idea if I am on this old road until is see something like this culvert showing that once the road went across this valley and there was just a couple of culverts, where now there is a 30 foot wash out.
I make it home after 8 hours riding 105 km in 9.5 hours.

No great adventure but a fun ride.

New Cycling Club?

2010-10-25T08:53:00.004+03:00

Some months ago as I was coming back on the Makyuni Highway I passed a group of mtn bikers going the other way. I thought that was interesting and a month later my buddy Vincent explains there is a group that meets Sundays and cycles on the road that way.

On Saturday last Vincent forwards me a text.
"Hi Team! Jmpili biking ipo hadi Makyuni.. departure from Makuru Mbauda at 630am.... proper biking gear recommended. Thanks. Mike"

So I decided to check it out. Andrew calls and wants to know if anything is going on so I tell him lets check out this group. My plan is to go on the mtn bike as they seem to use those and play it by ear. Maybe I will leave the group and highway and do a mountain ride.

I realize right away that this is a different group. They show up in landrover defender pick ups, Nissan vans, Toyota VX, and the last guys shows up in a Rover! They have the gear and a sag wagon. They look a bit different than my lean and mean buddies in Arusha Cycling club.

They take off like a bat out of hell and stop in Kisongo. Here we are in Kisongo grouping up. From then on they don't stop often.
For some reason vincent and I have a beer in Kisongo at 830 am.

Next stop is Makyuni. Andrew turns around into a strong wind after 45km and A couple of guys have jumped in the sag wagon and a couple more bail out here. Mike says lets ride on to Mto wa Mbu. But eight of us cruise on to Mto wa Mbu.

I have come without anymoney and these guys are talking about food and waiting for their Van and go back in the evening. The sag wagon takes off with our bikes to do something official in Tarangire. Some of us feel skeptical this group is going to leave anytime soon and second hand we get a express bus to leave 3 seats for us coming from Karatu.

It changes my perspective on who is out there riding.

Cycling surges in the land of the automobile

2010-10-21T11:05:00.002+03:00

I came across this on front page of bbcnews.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11415660

I knew Portland (6%) and Seattle (3%) are tops on % of bicycle commuters, but Minneapolis (4.3%) is ahead of Seattle!

But that hardly compares with Copenhagen where 30% bike to work or school!

What about Tanzania and Arusha.

Tanga definitely has many more bicyclists. I think Dar is less that Arusha. I would guess that Arusha is less than 2%.

Just missed seeing elephants (or Riding through Oldeani)

2010-10-17T18:20:00.012+03:00

This weekend I was riding along in coffee plantations and forests on the edge of Ngorongoro Crater forest and suddenly I slam on the brakes and lay down the bike to avoid an crashing over this huge elephant dump.

Yeah right.

Apologies for the poor picture quality, as I forgot my camera and used my cell phone.

Nashesha had a week off from school this week and we did absolutely nothing about getting away. More importantly my wife Bernice deserves something special putting up with me so I called around and got a booking at Crater Forest Tented Lodge for Saturday night. I would cost us $50 per person full board and $60 fuel.

We left after lunch and making sure Babu was ok.

I decided to go all out so I borrowed the office's brand new Ford Ranger. It has air con and a CD player and goes fast. Why do it feel guilty for borrowing the office car for the weekend?

After 150km on tarred road we found the turnoff and arrived the tented camp by 5:15pm. It took 10 minutes to settle in and put on a jersey. I ran out of the parking lot and pulled the mountain bike out of the back.

An elephant trumpeted out in the forest in the direction I am riding, I had not noticed the elephant droppings driving up but on the bike I was driving over them every 15 feet. Cool. The guards warn me to be watchfull for tembo.
I coasted down the track and into Kirin Coffee plantation, branching on a road to Oldeani. I had to go up and down several ravines and my turn around time passed. At 615 pm I turned around and and was back at the lodge before dark. I figured everyone was a bit nervous with me out in the wilds.

We had a lovely 4 course meal and retired to read in bed.

The next morning I waited for the 7 am breakfast and take off to explore Oldeani and the road to Mang'ola.

In between two coffee farms I met a 10 year old kid running up the road. He was chasing a landrover for a ride. He grilled me for 5 minutes about everything. He even asked if I was part of the road bike group from Arusha that they see sometimes!

I expected Oldeani to be a couple hundred square meters of shops and houses. Oldeani stretched on for a couple of kilometers on a ridge. Including court house, 3 big churches, shops . It was dusty town.

I noticed the motto for the local school included "Environmental Conservation". I wonder what that means to kids there?

After Oldeani town I am in a different eco zone and avoiding dust becomes a job. Mostly wheat fields and scrub brush and rocks. In the picture above the road is to the left in the trees and i am on a path on side of a big wheat field.

I stop at the top of this rise as there are four houses/shops all close together. The cluster is split with half supporting the CCM party and the other half Chadema. Each has a stick and a flag high up. I wonder why they are not all CHADEMA here, as the Chadema candidate ,Dr. Wilbod Slaa, is from this tribe and constituency. Maybe if you blow up you can see the flags.

I might as well talk to the two men at the CCM supporter's shop, and order a coke as long as i am off the bike. We talk for awhile how the last crop was, the elections, life in town and in the bush. From watch i decide to turn around now.

Riding back i now find even more tracks off the road. I try to follow the bike tracks whenever they leave the road.

This picture gives you an idea of the road conditions.

After the town of Oldeani I am back into coffee plantations and patches of brush and forest. And more sign of elephant. I realize I sort of want to run into an elephant and i also breathe a sigh of relief to have passed through without getting trampled.

I meet three boys who beat me by crossing the canyons straight instead of following the road way up an aruond. Eventually we go along together and talk about stuff. They want to know if i know english an what all the stuff on my bike is. At the top of one downhill we have a race and although there is another steep shortcut i have put them far behind.

I have only gone 40 km today but it took 4 hours. My legs are slightly sore from the climbing.

Along Arusha National Park

2010-10-09T20:09:00.003+03:00

Thomas Holden and I met at 630 and rode the 25km to Usa River to meet up with John Corse. John led us straight up the slopes of Mnt. Meru to the forest. We followed the edge of Arusha National park easterly. We stopped in the first part of the forest and while thomas and John were digging in their packs for snacks I foraged on the thimble berries. Yum.

I found my camera battery was dead so no pictures. We crossed the Momella road and then rode in a nice forest on the edge of the park all the way to Sakila. I had no idea it would be so nice. Then we rode down the mountain slope a bit in the farms and then contoured back to his house.

We had some bananas and water and fixed Thomas's tyre and rode home. It was 5 /2 hours riding time for me and 96km.

Fog

2010-09-26T21:08:00.005+03:00

Weekend before last Thomas Holden and I rode up Mnt Meru into this fog. I didn't notice it when looking up the mountain on the way up, so the reason I am thinking the fog was my doing.

My mood was "foggy" when we left my house at 7am. I was riding becuase of habit and an agreement to go with Thomas. It was dry and dusty from my house but as we got further into the forest the fog left my body and quickly filled all the space.

I felt so good that I used my phone to take these pictures. From this point it was 30 minutes of single track and then dusty rural tracks through small farms.

Last week I had an immigration issue arise. I suppose the chief investigator was just doing his job but I must say he was aggressive, poking holes in issues that didnt seem to be relevant and threatening. So today I rode hoping to lose some negativeness and it certainly worked. Everyone on the small roads seemed welcoming for me to be passing through. I came home with some perspective to living as a foreigner in Tanzania.

Arusha Mountain Bike Race

2010-09-07T11:52:00.004+03:00

On Sunday Arusha Cycling Club put on a 35km mtn bike race in the Olasiti Oljoro area. We used to do this several times a year but got busy. 50 people signed up. Our top 5 riders were kept out of the prizes, $13 for first place.

I wasn't planning on riding hard but got caught up in it. I lost time on the down hills to the group i got with and almost would catch them on the uphills. then in the last canyon i hit the wall. I should of been eating and drinking more. I figure 90 minutes i would not be needed.

It was a bit dusty. below is from a ride on the previous weekend in another area but you get the idea.

Where's the bike?

2010-09-07T07:37:00.004+03:00

OK, there is not biking in this post but I was thinking about dragging my bike up this trail part way. So my plan is to ride the 80km on the highway, then 10km on rough track, then haul bike up a rocky slope and then ride this ridge up to the forest and camp.
Oh yeah. this is Longido Mtn. It is right next to the Arusha Nairobi highway. On top it has the huge granite rock outcropping with several vertical sides. It was the scene of several WWI battles and the Germans had a fort up in the crater.

I tried to get Bernice and nashesha to come along, but Bernice had something going so Nashesha agreed to go if she could wear this head dress during the trip.

We park on the top of a ridge and cross a ravine with running water (!) and up this ridge.

On the lower slopes the are many aloe Vera plants.

On top of the ridge it is open and not so steep and the views are good except the peak obscured in clouds.

We enter the thick forest and climb steeply up to a ridge that goes up to the summit ridge.

After gaining the ridge we pass through a big valley in thick forest and head steeply up to the ridge. Nashesha says that is enough so we turn back tot he lunch spot and have a great few hours talking, making a fire, and being crazy.

From here we pass though this valley forest and up to the final ridge

I manage to take a nap

Different kind of lunch spot

2010-08-26T13:02:00.004+03:00

Our family had our "every four year or so" vacation to the US of A for 3 1/2 weeks July and August. So another reason i haven't posted for 2 months.

Besides visiting all my family and 4 friends I managed to ride my bike while there (of course). Most of my rides were riding while everyone else was sleeping or slowly getting up and having breakfast. One good thing about jet lag, is i would be wide awake 4 or 5 am.

My brother in law Chuck had a road bike waiting for me when we arrived at our first house, and my friend Jim Bingham had no less than two bikes and a tandem waiting for me in Idaho.

I rode about half the days there. Highlights were riding up to Paradise on Mnt Rainier and lots of chats with Chuck, Don, and Jim on 50-80km rides.

One day as I rode alone from North Seattle this was a typical food stop somewhere before Carnation Fall City.

Kind of different than my stops here in Tanzania. This is a typical place i stop for soda and maybe some snacks.

Winning

2010-07-02T16:04:00.002+03:00

Kent Peterson wrote this the best blog post I have read to date.

As good as it gets.

2010-06-28T08:21:00.004+03:00

I emailed the arusha bikers mailing list that I would ride a slow short ride on Sunday. Those who said they were coming woke up with a headache Sunday morning. I gather there was a ladies thing somewhere.

My buddy Bent and his son Dishon joined Nashesha, Dina, and I. We went straight up the mountain. Dishon has just finished first grade and did really well. Nashesha rode his bike some so he could rest on the tandem. We didn't make the forest as planned but as you can see the end result was smiles. On the way down Dishon learned how to descend steep hills.

Bent recently came back from Denmark with a big box of jerseys from a club that changed sponsors. He had some for our junior "team" . Nashesha wore her first bike jersey and looked stunning.

In the middle of the ride she was riding ahead of me. Her hair was billowing out of the helmet and the jersey looking good, and she was working up a hill. I thought " that is about as good as it gets for a parent." To make it sweeter, she reminded me she needs bike shoes and that she asked permission to come with me on the wednesday club ride.

It doesn't end there, as after the ride she wanted to wear the jersey to a birthday party (until I pointed out it smelled of sweat).

sigh.

Karibu Arusha Race 2010

2010-06-18T13:48:00.002+03:00

Every first weekend of June our club has a race. The past two years it became 3 days. It coincides with Karibu Tanzania Fair, an annual fair for tour and hotel operators to drum up more business and make deals among themselves.

This year we separated from them and they did not even notice we weren't there. We had it second weekend of June so various key players could be there. This year it was again 3 days but 4 stages, we snuck in a 8 km uphill time trial.

As I mentioned in a post a few weeks ago, my job is more demanding these days. The weeks leading up to the race were even worse than normal and as it came down to the date it became clear I would miss at least one day of the race, Friday.

I went to the start of the long stage on Friday. About 180km but the first 30 km controlled (slow) through town. It was hard but i managed not to run home for my bicycle. Back at work it was slow until noon and then everything went to hell until the evening, when we replace a Hard drive on the machine that controls bandwidth.

I decided to go join them for the longer stage back to arusha, 110 km or so back to Arusha into the wind. So I got up and left around 9am and rode the 120km to the start, ate lunch with them and tried to race back. The first 35km is flat and some short hills and i could stay up, after that there were several long hills and I dropped off with Thad to wait for Mike and Henry and we rode in as a group.

By the end my feet were going asleep. I threw up all the lunch with 50km remaining but recovered and held my own. Kind of a strange way to warm up for a bike race but at least I got in the race

The other Oldonyo Sambu

2010-05-18T18:14:00.011+03:00

Life feels better when the expected weekend day ride evolves into a totally different overnite trip.

After the wednesday ride Wes Krause and I chat about a long sunday ride. Pretty soon Thad Peterson, Mike Peterson, and Thomas Holden have joined. It turns into an overnight at a Dorobo Safaris camp at Oldonyo Sambu.

People have jobs back in town, and some have to work at Oldonyo Sambu looking for a new camp, but for me, my aim is to finish the loop I failed to complete the previous weekend and add another few klicks into real bush. As you can see the morning glory was out in full glory , the trails and tracks were hard, but the tetse fly showed up in the end.

I can't sleep well the night before and I easily get out of bed and pack up, check emails, check ISP network, and am off at first light. I had two chances to snap a red sunrise and lucked out on the second.

We did a new variation to Lolkisale, by passing Moita town and damn but passed another dam and hit the road at that dam.
Then thomas's cable housing broke. Here is the heckling section helping Thomas do repairs.

Reminder: carry extra cable housing. My damn tool/spare bag is getting bigger. An replace the cables that thomas used.

In the end they used my duct tape and a shifter cable. Then they made me surrender my pen to make the housing long enough. Yes that is a plastic bic pen in there.

so much for my plan for makking notes as I go along.

We draw a crowd of Masai who end up being experts on cutting shifter cables cleanly.

AT Lolkisale we get on different paths but end up the same place about the same time. I can't remember what time or how far but know we lost an hour fixing the cable. We stopped at a small shop for food.

Next was a canyon and long slog up the other side to the southern steppe and Simanjiro plains. I was feeling heavy and slightly nasuseated, just like last week. (Why cant i learn to drink?) I blamed it on the mixture of food. tea, juice, chapati etc.
Mostly we were able to staf out of deep sand.

We pass through Loibor soit and then Mboret. I think i last passed 20 years ago with Kathy and chuck on motorcycles.

Now we left the track for a faint jeep track that was more of a foot trail. Mostly hard with a bit of deep sand. 10km fofrom mboret you leave this track on a smaller track and deep grass. you can see the vehicle passed but the grass covers the road.

We are now in tetse fly area. The good thing about tetse is people don't like to live in their areas becuase they bite humans and they carry sickness for cows. Some opted for chemical repellant and I faired well in the wake of the others scent. There are a couple of valleys and then we ride up the Oldonyo Sambu mtn and out on a ridge to a kopje where the peterson brothers have a temporary safari camp.

I sleep between these two trees, there is a big group coming in a few days and the camp staff have slashed the grass.

this is the kitchen area. I have a bath with a few litres and feel wonderful.

We are in camp early enough after a bath to go up on some rocks and watch the sun go down while having a drink or two. We look north to Mnt meru 100km away and see no sign of civilization, no farms or roads, just tetse infested bush.

We have a great meal and i sleep well in my hammock.

the next morning only Thomas and I will ride bicycles back. By 8am we are off down the slopes of oldonyo sambu

At the bottom of the valley we watch some giraffe for awhile and climb out of the valley and out of tetse area.

It is pleasant temperature and we cruise on the hard trails. I stop for a snack. When i start out again i shifted under load and break the rear deraileur cable housing, just like thomas the day before. I switch front and back and use a short one from thomas and am as good as new.

I mess up and we miss the turn to the east by 5 km .

Once past Mboret we start to see lots more zebra and wildebeast

While Thomas fixes a flat I watch the wildebeast who are watching us. Sigh it is a tough life, but someone has to do this shit.

We enjoy the plains and drop into terat valley. Now we are on a big road but not in great shape. 10km down the road it is in great shape and we go along the edge of the escarpment for 20 km and then above Komolo the road becomes horrible and we bounce down the escarpment and have food in Komolo. Wonderful small place run by a young woman.

Now i am on the ride i did last week and we find even more trails along the road and are at Custom in an hour . I am feeling low adn we stop for cokes and add water. I concentrate after we start off to drink and drink and feel better.

Almost side swiped

2010-05-10T07:44:00.006+03:00

Sunday afternoon Bernice and I went for a 90 minute ride on the tandem, taking the short cut through burka coffee estate and riding through coffee and fields to laki laki. The northwest corner of Burka estate is wild bush and forest, and we ride through it today to get to where we are going.

and readied for it to crash into the road but wondered why the noise was from head height. Instead an Eagle (In the middle of a thick forest I heard some noise to my left in the brush ,I figured it was a duiker about to crash out of the thicket. What really suprised me that the noise from was head height. I braced for a crash. Instead an eagle (tawney?) came flying out of the brush 2 meters from me nearly hitting me and flew down the road. Wow! that was a close one.

Bernice woke the next morning feeling less achy. I think she sees the advantage of some light exercise. After my long day yesterday it helped loosen up my body.

Komolo II

2010-05-09T08:37:00.010+03:00

The plan was to pass through Komolo, ride up onto the south masai steppe over to Terat, Mboret / loiborsoit , and back home through lolikisale. It would be way over 200 km, which I was hoping I could do.
Unfortunately I forgot a map and when I got up on the escarpment i was feeling tired, a bit sick and was told the loiborsoit plains were muddy.

Despite that it was a good 150km ride mostly on gravel roads, some sections were rough or sandy. In those sections my speed dropped quickly.

It would of been nice to go with someone. I was not so lonely but when you joke about difficulties it makes it easier. But then several times I realized that being with someone can slow one down.

I should of left earlier than 7 am but hey it is the weekend. Getting ready was easier than normal. The sky was clear as it is after rains.

I live on the slopes of a mountain. So it makes sense the first hour and some to the bridge over the Themi river was alot of downhill. (27.5km from home). I was in great spirits. The road has been graded and it was fast. I stopped 5 minutes at the bridge to stowe my helmet and eat a banana.

I made a note to get an inflatable kayak. I could of floated to here in the garbage strewn river.

I looked for the road branching off. Found a guy sitting on a rock beside the road and asked about the road. It exists but it goes through a swamp and is flooded and has many branches. He advised to stay on the fast and good road.
The next section is poor soil and full of rocks and suddenly I was in a parched scrub. in this section the road was good but a bit rough. But now when i look at the picture how can I complain. I had met only two vehicles up until now.

The area was completely devoid of people and huts, just rocks, soil, and scrub trees. slightly down hill and i cranked quickly to the bottom lands and into deep grass and scattered fields of maize.

Custom is another 13 km and i didnt need to stop but I have a friend in the village, Ngowi, who is now the village secretary. I bought a Bavaria non-alcoholic beer, expensive at 3000shs and a big bottle of water.

I asked about the way around and they thought it was possible but that the mboret plains might be muddy and impassable. Ngowi says the road is good ahead, just like the section I have been on.

It wasnt but it will be. They are working on it and it was rough for a bit, then it was good hard old road. I noted that it seems this area is becoming forested again. 30 years ago it was kind of denuded like this seciton . It rolls and then drops to the escarpment.

I was able to get off the road some on a path following the road and that was fast and fun. Note the trees.

I realizied as it warmed up and sun became hot that i forgot my collared cotton shirt.

The esparpment didn't loom ahead of me like the Great Rift but I knew it was going to be a slog. I came to Komolo and passed a village meeting. I have the preconceived negative notion about Komolo village and passed through. After some initial "mzungu, money" banter from kids we started talking as i inched up the road and they were cool.

The road was okay although sometimes solid rough rock. Just when i thought I was done i rounded a cornor and instead of gentle uphill i saw a steep section up ahead.

More traffic now. Every 10 minutes there seeme to be a car. Either a masai landrover bus or an masai nNGO landcruiser with two people, or a government vehicle . The exception was gerard miller. Half way up a new landcruiser stopped coming down and it was Gerard. he farms on the masai steppe and i have known him slightly for 20 years or so. He was pretty suprised what i was doing and asked my age. He has a bicycle to ride around the farm now.

At the top ( 1145) i stopped off in the bushes for lunch. I tried to find a view but too many trees and the escarpment is gentle so i could not find a place to hang my feet off a bank and gaze into the distance. Instead i found a field of grass and flowers. I realizied all day i was seeing lots of flowers but just noticed them lying in the grass eating my lunch

I not sure why but I was feeling tired and a bit nauseated. climbing the hill, 70 km, lack of blood sugar, water? In hind sight i think it was one or both of the last two. I think i have to learn to force myself of drink and eat. the milk chai was most appealing, so i drank that first. I forced myself to eat food and managed a big banana, pbj sandwhich, water, juice. I laid down for a 5 minute snooze but was getting bit/stung by bees. I turned on my phone and got two sms messages. then i checked my email! and deleted all the server messages.

I decided as it was 1230 that half the day was gone and i would have to make the circuit to loiborsoit another time. I road up the road a bit to make it over 75km and read the sign. No date of completion specified.

I recovered coasting down the escarpment. and on the ride into custom village felt strong and it passed quickly. I had gone 110km. I stopped and found a cold coke and another bottle of water. One duka had a small fridge with batteries. I got a bit confused with money and almost paid 4500shs. instead of 1500shs.

I found another trail paralleling the road and had to stop pedaling sometimes as i twisted through the bush.

a guy on a bicycle said the bauda road was graded the whole way so i went that way. The road was perfect. I greeted tons of farmers walking home with the hoes on their shoulder. The bike felt sluggish so i stopped and put some air in the back tyre. the thick tubes are deceptive. I did that three times on the way in but the third time it was full. that helped alot and i was crusing up the slow incline.

When i joined the road to the sand quarry i now had a big truck passing me every 5minutes and had to deal withthe dust and sand they stir up.

I was feelig strong and cranked up the big hill and on home. with only a few km to go i felt weakeer and decided to eat a snickers so that i would be recovered at home and could eat soon.

Had some issues off and on with my toe giving pain. It started couple of years ago. I also have to be careful about numbness in my hands.

it was 147km in8:23 riding time 10hours total.

Is Paul theroux right in the Dark Star Safari? I met progress, happy smiling people once out of arusha. Sure some kids asked for some money (they asked for 10 cents though).

Single Track?

2010-05-04T10:44:00.010+03:00

I am not sure if this is Single track , maybe multi track? Because I can jump from track to track it is not single track, In fact I dont need to stay on a track, the grass is ride able, not as hard as a track but straighter.

Despite my bitching the last post I managed to get off on this ride Sunday.

After two days of long meetings I wake Sunday morning lethargic and to a flooded yard.

I was mentally exhausted so I couched away the morning. Around 10 I started feeling like riding my bicycle. Lengijave plains would be a good bet as it is sandy and I could check out how the road north is progressing with new tarmac. (Editor note: no progress in our direction)

Before I could ride I had tubes to repair. In the workshop I found 4 road tubes and 3 Mt bike tubes in the "to fix" pile that have been neglected . I found one of each beyond repair with broken stems.

It is probably just me but can't they make a repair valve stem? It happens half dozen times per year.

The road tubes were straight forward but when i move on to the Mt tubes my pace slows down. The tube that killed my ride on Thursday at work because the tyre liner made a cut in the tube. The tube is sold by Slime company with slime pre installed, but the tube is cheap and was not fun to repair. I guess the Slime people don't patch slime tubes.
The next mtn bike tube was one of those extra thick tubes with slime. On a recent ride Thomas Holden found it would not hold air and as I loaned him a tube I ended up with the tube.
It had about 143 thorns actually stuck in the tube. In addition on the inside of the tube, a place where the slime tends to not seal very well, was an area peppered with little holes Again this one turned out to need a bunch of patches as well I added slime from the tube with the broken off valve.

Whew. So it was high noon before I rolled out , promising to be back around 4pm in order to visit sick in the hospital, attend a family "kikao" at a bar, and go out to eat with the family , etc.

The road north is worse than the cobbles of Paris Roubaix ("hell of the north") bicycle race. It is also very narrow and cars were honking for me to get the hell off the road, so I spent several km on the side of the road, which is all dug up for widening and fibre trenches. It is a tough life.

Past Ngaremtoni the traffic decreases but the road is all dug up , more fill laid down, packed down, driven on, rained on, and as time passes it is a rough dirt road.

I ride 20 km and turn off on the multi track above, where I can see far out into the northern Masai lands. I ride the gauntlet of the Lengijave pre-teen herd boys. They like to whoop war cries, threaten, chase, and throw a few stones. Once I start into the Oldupesi valley the battle stops and I coast for as long as time allows into the valley.
It is dry now. It looks like they got none of the rains other places are getting. Maybe some drizzle. There is dry dust and sand.

Here is some more multi track. You don't want to ride across it as it is 50 meters of ruts. Every year the vehicles move over onto new grass.

I want pictures of the yellow flowers and the dry grass but My camera fails here .

I ride to the sand river and it looks like nothing has happened in the river for months. I am a bit puzzled and worried for people living here.
I have passed my 2 o'clock turn around time and abut face into a strong wind and an hour of hard climbing.

I do a new variation and ride up a dry stream bed that is hard limestone full of bumps. There is a small track from animals and people worn into the stream bed but not as smooth as a cobble stone road. I figure it was faster. I get to where it is steep and then it is unrideable, on the grass i can ride but get bogged down a few times and walk. I meet two herd boys near the top of the steep part and we talk and walk, then i ride and then walk, then it gets almost level and they jog and I ride into the wind.
In the future I would take the dry stream bed to the steep part, then head right in another stream bed and pick up the jeep track to the top.
I make the "highway" and instead of screaming home downhill. I pedal into a wind and bounce around to home.

The erosion gets worse every year. It it will get worse with the new road as more water will run off of and into this drainage.

The end of bicycle adventures?

2010-05-02T07:50:00.004+03:00

I thought that the years of building a company were over, the long working hours and stress consuming my time and energy. I was enjoying a slide into retirement. A few years back I could take off several mornings a week and ride, I could go out to lunch and disappear, I could read about bicycles at work, I had 5 fellow cyclists working for me, I would do bike tours.

Somehow, somewhere, that changed and I find myself with twice as much to do at work. Work is eating into my bicycle time. It started slowly early last year, and has gained momentum, until yesterday when I opted to drive instead of ride to an all day meeting on Saturday. I didn't choose bike over work.

The previous weekend I spent two nights in Dar for a meeting on Saturday. That meant only getting in a Sunday afternoon ride.

This week I had to miss a club meeting , the Wednesday morning ride, and Friday and Saturday I even had to pass on bicycle commuting as I had a big annual meeting Friday evening followed by cool down afterwards (read late night drinking). Saturday was a board meeting of a new company and additional load of jobs to do. I could of biked to the Saturday meeting but I was so consumed with work ideas, do I have to drive out of town board members around?

So does this mean bicycling activities will only be commuting and one weekend ride?

Stay tuned.

Benchmark

2010-04-26T20:34:00.002+03:00

I rode out to my friend Erik Zweig's place today. Nothing special about the ride, but for history sake it took me 64 minutes to get there and 74 to get back. Hmm I have already forgotten the exact minutes to return. The road is much rougher than last time I rode.

On Saturday I rode my favorite loop up the mountain. It was 50 minutes to ring road in the forest and 61 to the start of forest. I did six 3 minute intervals up to the ring road. I came down the single track on other side of Sambasha hill. Instead of screaming fast i took it slow and enjoyed the quiet of the pine forest.

How am I described?

2010-04-19T23:08:00.001+03:00

I wonder how people of Arusha who know me, how do they define me?

The one I enjoy the best is " you know, that ex farmer turned Internet Provider."

Failure

2010-04-19T08:34:00.005+03:00

It is raining out this morning. Not a drizzle but an April downpour.

I will stay 80% dry while riding to work but I will get soaked walking from the parking lot into my office, simply because it will draw attention to myself walking into the building with my rain suit. So I remove it.

The norm is to step out of a SUV and use an umbrella. (except the half dozen guys who don't carry an umbrella, the body guards carry the umbrella, an I am not exaggerating.)

But that was a digression.

I had a mental blog thing the other day, along these lines....

I am not going to be Kent Peterson nor Jill Homer . I can ride all day and I have adventures but it is not what defines me completely and I am not that good at it. (I won't even attempt to talk about the fact these two can write.)

I still have to run a business too big for my abilities, I still have a wonderful wife and daughter to spend time with, I have my brick buildings with vaulted roof interests, and so on, AND writing is not easy for me .

I basically have too much other stuff to do, and too frequently, like you, I just plain waste time away looking at junk on the Internet, watching TV junk, reading novels, and the like .

So I am now resigned to being a mediocre bicycle rider.

What can make me lose my cool commuting.

2010-04-03T11:29:00.007+03:00

My commute is basically a "good" route.
Maybe not as good as at the time of this picture but it is not so bad.

Coming home it tends to be around 7pm and the road is full and hectic. It is not easy to take a picture in the dark you will have to trust me it is worse.

I mean check it out, sparse traffic and a wide shoulder, and even additional space for pedestrians.

Unfortunately..........

This happens. Despite there being bus stops you rarely see a bus stopping in a bus stop. (I think the mini buses stop there to not give room for another bus to stop.)

This mini bus has stopped just as the bus stop starts. So bicyclists (and even other traffic) have to swerve around them.

As you can see there is not much room for me to swerve and I need to check the traffic behind while avoiding the jaywalkers.

Today I did not have a close call but only because I was paying close attention. A driver was in a rush coming out of a Petrol station and even though there was another car ahead of him waiting to enter the road, he went on the waiting cars' left (we drive on the left) and edged out into the shoulder at speed.
A situation similar to what you see on the left. Now imagine if in this picture he had done that with another car doing the same thing on the blind side , just as I come along.

I could see it happening. I could of went into the lane more, if i trusted the driver. Instead I slowed and stopped by his window, which was right on the shoulder and asked him what he was doing.

He just looks at me like I am a raving lunatic, says nothing as he zooms off into traffic. The other car has still not seen a chance to get into traffic.

Am I crazy or do we have many of people who when they get in a car lose all humanity and are only thinking about how fast to get somewhere, with total disregard to who was first or the safety of other users of the road.

Here is a case where a mini bus pulls over just anywhere and forces the bicyclist and other vehicles to swerve around. If you go into the path on the right it is full of people and sometimes parked cars and temporary businesses.

In this section the pedestrians tend to stay on the sidewalk on the other side of a ditch which simplifies riding for me. But then you get crazy bicyclist's who ride on the wrong side of the road like in the pic on the left. In this section cars start to move into two lanes and i might have to swerve into the lane if there is no traffic. I usually yell at bicyclists doing this.

Even worse is motorcyclists who like to do the same.

Motorcyclists come in two types. The one like this one who stays off to the left of the lane, where i like to ride, at a speed just slightly faster than a cyclist, much slower than the cars.
The other motorcyclist drives very fast changing from left to right to middle of the road depending upon what is open.

This particular motorcyclist came between me and one of the other cars up ahead, very close, with his loads sticking out.

So sometimes I use this "sidewalk" but there is added danger. This mini bus has stopped and without any warning someone is going to jump out the door and into the sidewalk.

Technically I don't know if i should use this area. If it is a sidewalk I shouldnt. But is it meant for cyclists? and pedestrians are to walk on the other side of the ditch in the parking areas?

This is the only 4 lane road in Arusha. It is very narrow and for me to squeeze through o the left is the hardest part of the commute.

Worse is when they are coming up behind me racing their engines as they accelerate after speed bumps. When I drive a car here i just stay in the right lane as there is not room for a car and a bicyle in the left lane and there are always bicyclists on this road.

Then who can complain when 1km is on nice dirt road like this.

Maybe i can get a picture of the newest traffic light. It is a great improvement but it also means traffic sometimes flows faster, and hence more dangerous. There is a free left turn lane into town. Mini buses especially come roaring into this lane blaring their horn for pedestrians to get out of the way, they don't seem to slow at all but depend upon that horn and the pedestrian to RUN out of the way. Seems incredibly rude to me , but maybe the pedestrian is being rude walking across the road!

Reasons to ride

2010-03-29T11:25:00.002+03:00

This weekend despite being congested and slightly miserable I went on a ride each day besides running errands. I have had had a cold for a week or more, so I haven't ridden any long rides or even gone to club training rides.

Both days I was mulling over where to ride and I had an interesting observation.

I was choosing the route partially by how it would be for chatting to people with along the way.

I was even trying to think of someone to go visit, but time was short.

Recall from a recent post that my Rowberg background doesn't make me a casual conversationalist. But here I am looking at different routes in terms of the chat factor. Saturday I did the loop up to the forest above my house and the chat factor was pretty good. Nothing long but lots of one line chat. Sunday I went west to the monduli foothills and it was even better once i got off the main road.

" Is that rain over there gonna make us wet?"
"Yeah I think so" as the woman starts running faster.

" Hey you are you watching those rain clouds? You better figure something out."

" Hey white man. Put your bike down and help us push this hand cart out of this river crossing"

" Let me have that bicycle."

I didn't bring a raincoat, and I figured a soaking wouldn't help my cold, and there is a family wedding in the late afternoon so I turn around at 40 minutes and cruise home, getting slightly wet but not cold.

As I thought about the social aspect of riding I realize it has always been a factor. Even running cross country in college was probably as much a social thing for me as it was addiction to running.

Guess what happened on the way to work?

2010-03-17T16:04:00.004+03:00

A tree fell on me.

I decided to swing by Olasiti area on the way to work to offer condolences to someone. It was mid day and it was sunny and hot.

I had a soda and a talk and made to leave .

When I stepped outside it was overcast, kind of gray, rain threatening looking. In Burka and the clouds turned darker and overhead it became black. It started to sprinkle, then rain. I put on my rain jacket in a down pour. I got soaked riding in a minute, then a strong wind came up, and pushed me all over the wide trail. I was staring straight down as the rain was blowing hard at me. It was threatening to blow me over at times.

All of a sudden a bicycle passed by me at great speed a couple inches away. Wow, so I started watching where i was going. Kind of .

The next thing I know I hear a crack and a 5 meter trees has blown over on top of me! Its spreading branches enveloped me and brought me and the bike down. I tried to lift the bike up but the tree was pushing me down. I slithered our backwards , then dragged the tree off the bike and continued riding in the downpour. No scratches, no harm at all. really weird. The many branches cushioned the impact. I wish I had a picture.

It rained very hard for another 5 minutes and then let up. I was totally soaked from waist down, so i decided to ride home and change. 20 minutes later I am home and it has not rained at all.

Excuses not to bike commute

2010-03-11T17:06:00.002+03:00

If you read bike commuter blogs they inevitably will blog on the subject , excuses to not bike commute in the morning.

Not all commuter blogs, those who are completely car free don't blog about excuses.

But I and many others are not car free.

We have a car, but i pretty relinquished driving rights to Bernice, my wife. She sometimes tries to convince me to drive, probably to make her feel better. I could ask to use the car.

I must be weird as I never wake in the morning and don't feel like riding the bike to work that day. Well maybe 6 months ago I looked for an excuse one day when i felt tired from a hard wednesday workout.

When I do ask to use the car it is becuase I have a late meeting, or need to drive with someone far.

However, it has happened a few times I have gone for drinks after work, and more than a few times I have had a drink or three and a few times at 8pm, slightly high, looking at the darkness, I try to find an excuse to beg someone to drive me home. There I have admitted it. The excuse is usually it is too late and dark. Of the times I have tried to use the excuse and failed, I am always glad I rode after about 2 minutes of riding.

Reckless regard for "The Man"

2010-03-11T16:52:00.004+03:00

With reckless regard for "The Man", I pulled off a 70 km mountain bike ride on a Thursday morning. I t took until 11 am to start work at home.

I started riding in the dark and met Thomas in the dark at the beginning of the TPRI road.

We road a loop we had done a few months back, and luckily Thomas remembered the turns.

I can never remember which one we took on other rides. Why is that? I ride a route and tell myself "Hey dummy, remember this intersection". A month later i get to the intersection and I can not remember which way we went.

After the village of Likamba we rode down and up out of countless valleys always ending up higher and higher until we passed above Mondul Coffee Estate about 1900 m and rode through the forest and down to Monduli town on single track walking a rocky section.

After a quick coke in Monduli town I sat behind Thomas to Arusha on the road. It was plain transport.

Great ride, great views, good company. The man (me) was not so happy with my daily work performance , but co workers didn't notice I was gone.

In search of the tarred road.

2010-03-01T12:25:00.008+03:00

Sunday afternoon I went searching for this new tarmac.

I missed an early Saturday ride because of a satellite behaving. Yes behaving! I went into the office at 5am Saturday to figure out why it wasn't tracking and after talking with the technician from Sky Vision we tried manually tracking. It stayed locked and we haven't had to track since. We expect our satellite to move, and hence our VSAT terminal tracks the satellite. We changed Friday night and the tracking wasn't working. Go figure.

By the time I finished it was 10am, I was hungry, Bent had left on his ride, and people started calling wanting to meet me or take them swimming. So much for a Saturday bike ride. I promised myself tomorrow I would ride and got on with a lunch meeting and taking Nashesha swimming.

Sunday afternoon I go north on the road under construction to find where they have laid down the tar. There is a rumour that somewhere in the middle they have some tar laid down. It is going to be a ho hum ride I figure, but then I didn't figure on bumping into anyone I know.

The parts they haven't ripped up the old tar is so potholed you wish it wasn't there, and the ripped up parts were rough. But I was enjoying being on this familiar road for the first time for awhile.

I did 5 five minute intervals with 3 minutes rest and ended the fifth inverval at the top of the steepest hill and slowed down to enjoy the view. I had a hard time on the last interval.

Just before Lengijave I saw a mzungu boy with a backpack on his back and a goat on a leash talking to a masai man on the side of the road. It is not a common sight so I am justified staring. It is Ezra, looking like a Dharma bum! I was thinking of stopping at his place on my way home.

I pulled over happy to see him. He doesn't look that happy to see me.

Ezra and his wife are bush pilots with a 7 week old baby.

I invite him to have a warm coke at this duka at the side of the road.

As we sip our cokes I enlist a kid hanging around to take our picture, including the goat for his lactating wife. Ezra explains he has been hiking down into the plains with his mother and hence the reason he looks tired and dirty. Someone gave him the goat for his wife. They were to take a bus but the driver wanted 5,000shs for the goat, so he put his mom on the bus and walked the 8 km remaining home. He started to perk up as we drank our cokes and caught up on each other's lives.

We begged a soda crate to sit on and the scowl was replaced with almost a smile.

Our photographer kid takes his job seriously and keeps taking more pictures of everything around including this vegetable seller

I head on uphill into the black clouds to find the tarmac. I crest Oldonyo Sambu and ride down the old tarmac to the market. No new tarmac. Halfway down to the plains I come upon tar as you see in the first picture.

I ride it for 5km and turn around and slog up hill for 30 minutes . I stop at Ezra's place and meet his mother who is stiff and sore and after a beer i meet his baby boy who comes with mom. I get home about 6pm 70km only but it felt like 100.

"New" shock

2010-03-01T11:50:00.002+03:00

Rest assured folks, Eriki will ride on.

I sent a distress email to my buddies on advice about what do about my leaking shock.

One said fix it.
Two said "we tried fixing one and it didn't work"
Others offered condolences/pole.
Thomas Holden offered me second hand shock.

Thomas is the other side of 40 years and likes to get serious air on mountain bikes.

A few years ago he broke one of the flanges off on the bottom of the fork. His workshop made a 'cap' and welded the flange to that and he rode it for awhile and did major tests, like jumping 5 foot drops. But for some reason bought a new fork. He assured me it was bomb proof, so I borrowed the shock.

So I have a "new" shock.

A week ago, on the morning before a 7am ride, I put it on at 530 AM. It was pretty straight forward, just took time. I couldn't figure out the adjustment knobs, but when I met up with Thomas he showed me how they work.

I found out that my last shock wasn't taking out the vibrations much like this new one. Wow, what a difference. It is smoother and has more adjustments.

Ten years on a front shock.

2010-02-15T14:12:00.002+03:00

On Sunday's ride I felt a knock and heard a noise on a couple of drops , as if I had bottomed out on the front fork. I tested it and it seemed all okay. Later i noticed that there was more "grease" on the left shock. Then it dawned on me plodding home, that the grease is shock oil and my shock seal is going. Damn.

It depresses me. I hate to spend money on replacing stuff. Why can't it last forever?

I would guess I have gone 60,000-100,000 km on this bike. I bought this bike 10 years ago new, and the rock shock is now dubious! Woe is me. Many people would have replaced this bike already, but that is not me. I have replaced the drive systems too many times, the rear rim wore out , and shift levers and a brake all got replaced , but the frame will last forever.

Should I try to find a seal and fix or buy a new one? There is play, so I probably need to replace more than seals, probably need bushes too. I will put off a decision and action, so any day now I will have to figure out another off road / commuting bike.

Nothing special about the ride but still happy I did it.

2010-02-15T12:33:00.002+03:00

All the regulars had other bike plans. Bent wanted to road bike on Saturday, Thomas wanted to ride long, hard, and fast with Saidi et al. Everyone else kept mum except John Corse.

So I rode the 25 km or so to his house in Usa River. Mungu wangu is his house big and airy. The best part is there is no gate, but a long narrow winding driveway through a forest. He made me some french press coffee despite me arriving about 30 minutes late. John was suprised I rode to his house, he was expecting me to drive.

John led me on some pretty cool tracks and roads above Usa River, all new to me. Eventually we popped out on the Momella road at the top of the hill and rode past Pete Oneal's place. The tracks became dustier and rockier until we came out at Kikatiti. We crossed the great north road heading for the railway line, and then followed high tension lines until we ran into Dolly Estate.

At Usa River we parted ways. I took old Moshi road stopping at Bernice's farm to check out the small house for the caretaker. That was a 15km detour. Bernice was around looking at more land and i was promised a smoothie at Erik Zweig's so i rode over there and felt sleepy and tired. He eventually got tired of trying to talk to someone who's eyes kept rolling back into his head and nodding off. He went to get some water in his pickup and i tried to snooze on his porch. 15 minutes later I was feeling okay and rode the 90 minutes home without any water in the 35C heat. Wasn't so bad.

the distance was around 115km in 5 .5 riding time.

The point is it was kind of a ho hum ride but it made my weekend complete. The wedding we attended was a total waste.

Found a new trail.

2010-02-01T08:37:00.003+03:00

A few years ago I rode to Monduli Juu with Paulo Rukoine and through the highlands to Lepurko and back on the road. It was a good ride. Click the link above to read about it.

Saturday I invited arushabikers mailing list to try that ride.

It turned out to be one of the great rides of my life, probably because at the end of the plateau we went hard left instead of straight and rode through a dense pristine forest for an hour , seeing only 5 women on their way up.

It use to be hard to find someone to go on 6-13 hour rides. But now Bent is training for 24 hours ride in Denmark and he likes long rides and Thomas has two mtn bike rides coming up. Three others started out with us and turned around up on the plateau.

That is where the ride started for me, the 3 hours to get there was transport mostly, as riding up to the plateau and onwards was where i wanted to be.

It was saturday and we met bunches of smiling Masai on the way to market day. It seemed like everyone was happy and smiling. Not sure if it was because the rains have been good, or it was market day, or they are always like that. We three riders were in a similar mood.

On the other side of the Monduli Juu depression is the old Nafco wheat farms, but hardly any cultivation goes on there and hardly any houses. We had a hard time keeping a smile off of our faces as we had a strong tailwind and now we were slightly downhill, so the 15 or so km were a breeeze.

As we got to the end of the highlands , and lepurko Mtn was right there across a valley, the main track went hard left to the south and small foot paths went straight and another north. We tried the south one, the north one, and took the south one.

It was one of the awesome rides of my life. It was thick forest and downhill for an hour. It was thick enough to get scratched and we had to dismount a fair bit. We stopped for lunch in the forest and dallied for 30 minutes sharing whatever food we had along.

Out of the forest we came to treeless savannas with forested valleys. It was like riding through the movie set of out of Africa. We had some flat issues here, a fair amount of flats but were well prepared.

by 2pm we were at the tarmac and went into transport mode, drafting back to arusha with two water / coke stops. Eventually it showed that Thomas was too strong and we let him motor off home and Bent and I slowed to a reasonable speed.

Total hours 0615-1630 about 10 hours
riding time 7:30
distance 122km

I started with 3.5 ltrs liquid, a bout 1 ltr of cokes and about 1.5 litre water along the way. Was probably dehydrated most of the day.

The trick of this ride, is to go left. We maybe should of headed west again at the bottom of the escarpment and ridden across the big valley.

Readers

2010-02-01T08:33:00.002+03:00

Jan mentioned the other day that his girl friend had read my blog, didn't know he knew me. I was kind of taken aback that someone besides my immediate family and a few buddies read the blog. I mean I check out the counters and all and either you know me or you did a search on "Vincent Shirima" . (LOL now i will get another 1 hit a week because of his name here.)

Any way please drop a comment whoever you are.

Another Wipeout

2010-01-13T17:35:00.001+03:00

Relax, the only damage was my pride.

Saturday Bent and I did a mtn ride up to the meru forest and then contoured the mountain to above Ngulelo and headed down. The down was often slippery but we managed to stay upright until the soil had more sand and hence less slippery. On a flat section i decided it was good time to practice riding no hands and I did so for 50 meters. I came to what looked like a slippery place and just as i was dropping down to the handle bars the bike slipped from under me.

Unfortunately there were a fair number of people around saying "sorry, sorry, sorry" instead of my bike buddies who would be laughing.

Embarrassed I rushed to get my red face away but a kid yelled " Wash that mud off" , as i looked pretty stupid getting close to town with one side of one leg covered in smooth mud. I washed in a puddle and Bent came back looking for me. I didn't have a scratch but I still had some mud on my shorts.

So why ride with no hands? Any rider should have the skill as it allows you to stretch, use both hands to peel a banana or change clothes. Just don't do in on the slopes of meru when it is slick.

Amani Mountains

2010-01-06T15:11:00.017+03:00

Several years ago we stopped at Amani Mountains on our way back from a vacation in Bagamoyo on the Tanzanian coast.

It is several hours out of the way but we are enchanted with the area and have gone back another3 times and even bought 10 acres on a ridge with a big mud and wattle house.

Amani doesn't know much about red tape, yet. We often arrive late, although we have to drive through nature reserves they aren't crazy about making us pay huge usage fees. The last time we just said we are land owners and that satisfied the gate keeper.

(Yes there will be bikes in this post.)

For this year's 'Christmas trip" we decided on the Amani option, leaving before Christmas and staying til boxing day before moving on to the Pare Mountains for two Lusingu family functions in Suji.

The only bad issue with going to Amani for holidays is that it is a 7 hour car drive (for us) with some stops . It is 430 km. As we passed the Kilimanjaro massive and headed south east we had strong winds from the west, which is opposite to what is normal and it picked up dust as you see in the picture here. After another half hour the strong dust winds turned into a torrential rain and I had to slow down to 30-50kmph just to be able to see. Every time I met a bus or semi trailer I lost visibility in the spray coming off that vehicle for 2 seconds.

Before the rains started I pulled the land rover over to take a picture of the dust and there was his nice aloe vera flowering. We are strong believers in the medicinal value of the plant and use it topically for burns and wounds as well as orally.

After the first couple of trips I started putting the bicycle on the roof and doing early morning rides or riding to the trail head to meet the others, or riding the 30 km to the main highway in Muheza.

Although we have a 3 room house it is occupied by a neighbor and not furnished yet, so we opted for staying in the Guest House of the Tea Research Station.

Here is Nashesha and her good buddy Mariamu having breakfast in the living room. The guest house is a house modified to have 3 self contained bedrooms, a large sitting / eating room, and staffed by a wonderful woman Rose. The rooms are $5 and the meals about $2. Like the place is obscenely cheap. Nashesha and Mariamu felt like queens in their own beds and bathroom. The other advantage is there is no good cell coverage in the house! Paradise.

My girls (sorry to include you mom) got up to late to see this sunrise. But that allows me to sneak off for a few hours bike ride.
It is a fair amount of up and down, but rewarded with views like the one at top of this post.

Here the switch back is visible in the dense forest below me. About 45% of the time i would be riding through forest, 45% in tea plantations and 10% in villages or small farm land.

On day 2's ride I rode a longer loop of about 50km and in the middle stopped in a big village for some tea. I enjoyed the interaction more than the tea itself. I had a pastry and the bill came to 250shs. about $0.20. Luckily I thought ahead and had the right change!

Fortified with that i continued the loop . I passed this old waterwheel along one river.

I have no map of the area, google doesn't show the roads, I don't recognize hardly anything, I have no idea where I was but our friend Elias had written down the names of each villages to pass through and that was my "map".
I was never sure exactly which direction I was going or where I had passed through when I looked backwards, but it did not bother me much. I stopped often to ask if this was the way to xxxxx.

As I am riding alone I rarely get a picture of a bicycle, so i had to find from another trip . this Christmas I stayed on roads but there are short trails like this all over the forest.

Christmas Eve day we hiked up to our place and sat on the porch in a heavy downpour eating sugar cane from the shamba.

We recently bought a smaller plot along a river. The road is across this river and for now you get there by this branch across the river. the bamboo servers as hand holds.

This time I decided to drive down with the family instead of riding the bike, and we stopped and climbed down to the waterfall. Nashesha and Mariamu got in the water up to their thighs and walked around.

From Amani we drove past the North Usambaras and into the Pare mountains, to our home village. Here is us following Elton Lusingu down the mountains two days later.

The next day was 'kumaliza matanga" to end the mourning period for our beloved grandmother Phoebe Yohanna Lusingu. She was dream team mother in law and we miss her.

The third day was a different family rite. Another Phoebe was engaged! To a cool dude named Eli. Can you imagine having to go through this. Here is Eli putting the ring on Phyby, in front of all the relatives. Proceeding this was negotiations of bride price and partial payment. that is why her elder brother Richard Mbogoh is smiling in the back row. I have to admit I cried a couple of times.

Just maybe this cute grand niece will become a bicyclist. She is adorable isn't she? It was good to see many family members and i manage one 2 hour ride into the clouds of Pare mountains.

Bicycle Hero #2, Vincent Shirima

2010-01-05T16:18:00.003+03:00

(I warned readers that I would post my hero's occasionally)

I had known Vincent Shirima for some years before he was a biker. He was a business contact I lunched with every few months. His family has business in coffee exports, well drilling, airlines, and milling. But his sport was motocross.

A few years ago we didn't see each other for about a year, and next time I saw him he looked really different. I realized he had lost weight. That is an understatement, he had lost a lot of weight. After we talked I learned that he had lost 50 Kg, that is 110lbs! He could still lose some more but , hey, after that much you cant help but respect Vincent for that. It turned out that one of the ways he lost weight was by taking up cycling.

So I started to invite him to come on casual Sunday rides . For the first 30 minutes I was a bit concerned as he would lag behind slightly going up hills. It was looking like we needed a vehicle to come and pick him up. He would ride to the top of a long steep hill and fall over. I started to worry our ride was over.

However when he was on the ground he would say stuff like "Man, that was a great". Three minutes later he would get up and continue on. After two rides I stopped worrying about him and just learned I would have to wait a few times for him at the top of hills. He never complains but looks like he is dying sometimes. His enthusiasm on rides is so refreshing.

Then I took him up Meru, just him and me several times. He was stoked.

In the picture at the top was a ride going south, we ended up doing 80km on dirt roads. He was pretty wasted the last 1/4 but he made it.

Sunday Rides

2009-12-07T17:57:00.004+03:00

One week ago Sunday my buddies Wes Krause and Thomas Holden showed up before 6am. We rode a 40 km loop on the slopes of Mnt Meru.

Perfect conditions prevailed as it has rained, but not during the previous day so the trails and roads are hard packed but not so wet and slippery.

We had some chai midway up .

The single track on the way down was the best ever. One can't help but smile riding these sections. This is Wes. True to form, we got separated from Wes on the way down, he went straight and we went right and we arrived about the same time. No big deal.

Yesterday was Julie Cabanne's day to baptise her just purchased second hand bike. I invited a bunch of people , only Laura Tarimo, Bent and Gishan, and my daughter Nashesha showed up. Bernice started but then called it quits in town but is now excited to get back into bicycling. We rode to Erik Zweig's place and had some breakfast. Gishan, pictured, is 6 and ended up trading off on the tandem with Nashesha. My god, dont enlarge this picture! I have a belly and Dishon is drinking redbull!

In town we split up. Julie, Nashesha, and I got dumped on by rain in town. It was torrential for 15 minutes. We stopped a few minutes at Julie's house to wait for it to stop and had some chocolate and tea.

Fixing flats in the rain

2009-11-27T09:55:00.005+03:00

November to January (or thereabouts) is Northern Tanzania's "short rains". Sometimes the short rains happen and sometimes they don't. This year the weather people have been warning of "El nino" type rains. Although it is not to that proportion we are having a good short rainy season so far.

For last week's Wednesday morning ride I awoke to the end of long night rain. I figured the sky was rained out for a few hours. I suited up and headed out the door trying to stay out of sticky mud on the paths to the highway.

I choose to cut across Burka Coffee Estate on foot paths and dirt tracks. Just before the small gate my rear tyre went low. As I have been having more punctures recently with these old 700x28c tyres, I should of patched the tube instead of just replacing,but I figure when I am with the group there will be other tubes. I walked through the narrow gate and changed the tube as a light rain fell. No problem as I have a rain jacket on.

As I continue to ride through Burka it starts raining heavily. I am only a bit behind time when I hit the club rendezvous point. The side of the road is deserted. Anyone would be crazy to be standing there waiting. So either they are under the school guard house eaves (they aren't) , or they have taken off. I push on. I guess the third option is all 40 odd club riders took one look outside and went back to bed.

I can't manage 30kph even. From the waist down I am soaked but warm enough. In its own way the ride is fun. Maybe fun is not the right word. I enjoy it, just like when you are riding hard and hurting but one enjoys it. Maybe it is the oxygen.

After 15km it is still dumping and I ride straight past the Monduli turn off.

I ride down into a river valley. The normally dry river is 5 feet of chocolate colored boiling water. It is pretty cool to watch, but I keep thinking of the erosion implications. I make a U -turn and start riding back up hill out of the valley.

I notice my tyre is flat again.

I also note:
-it is raining hard
-I have used my spare tube without patching the previous tube.
- you cannot put a patch on when the tube is wet and it is raining.

Hmm.

I have brief moments of panic. Traffic is sparse today, especially buses, but I have no money for a bus anyway. I should be on time to the office today. I am 25km from home. I am 1/2 wet and slightly cold after stopping. The panic is fear of a major inconvenience, it might take me hours to get home.

Taking stock I consider carrying the bicycle to a hut I see 1/2km off the road. I am on a major highway and every 10 minutes or so there are cars, but even if I get a free lift to town I have to get home on the other side of town. The next building is 3km up the road.

Ahh, there is bridge over the swollen river! Under the bridge it will be dry. I walk through ankle deep mud to get under the bridge and find a place where the mud is hard.

It takes a half hour but I manage to dry the two tubes and patch them both, with only one repeat. I get back on the road and within five minutes the rains have cleaned the mud off my shoes and ankles.

It isn't pouring now but it is still raining. I contentedly cycle on.

I am not sure what was really going on. I kept having tyres go flat. It didn't help that potholes were covered with water, so it was hard to tell whether standing water in the road was just a thin puddle or a "pinch flatting" pothole. I also have been experimenting with slightly lower air pressures. I had another flat, replaced the tube and rode another 10km and it went flat again. It was going down slowly so I pumped and road again looking for shelter to patch the two tubes. Just before the meeting point I pulled into a outdoor bar and fixed a tube .
I made it home OK.

Later I learned that the other guys were calling back and forth asking about if they were going and they all went back to bed.

Circles

2009-11-02T13:30:00.002+03:00

Life is sometimes lived in circles. We evolve and change and end up the same. We go for bicycle rides in circles. My bicycle dress and what I eat on long rides has gone in a circle.

When I started to ride a bicycle in the mid 90's:
-I sneered at the Lycra clothes , that was for racers and wannabe racers, and wore normal shorts.
-I ate whole and natural foods on rides and granola for breakfast.

Then I got into racing and more riding :
-I bought $80 Lycra shorts, and hi tech wicking jerseys, gloves.
- I bought hi tech energy drinks, and gave up sugar. I used honey instead of GU.

I rode some more:
-now I gave up on the Lycra shorts and wear whatever shorts are in the drawer and some thick underwear that Bernice bought. That combo works as good as the Lycra and now I have pockets to put little stuff in. But the main reason to change is I was tired of looking like a dork when I got off the bike.
- Dr. Jim Bingham said processed sugar is the same as honey, so when I can afford I take snickers on bike rides, tang juice instead of honey juice. Junk food looks pretty good.

A skill my parents didn't teach me

2009-10-22T09:36:00.004+03:00

My parents were good parents, possibly exceptionally good parents. I am thankful for what they did for me.

However, they did not teach me to greet people, including to greet themselves. When we woke in the morning my family would get ready for the day (school, work, chores) but I don't ever recall saying hello to my parents or siblings. When someone returned home greetings were not exchanged. My parents didn't normally ask me how my day at school was. I thought that was normal. I don't recall seeing them greeting neighbors or strangers on a casual basis. They would talk to them, but not give short greetings. It wasn't that they didn't like them, or we were stuck up, it is more that relationships are too important to ask meaningless greetings.

(Yes, this does have something to do with bicycling, let me ramble first.)

When I went off to college I had a hard time for a few years whenever someone said (I interpreted as asked) " How are you?" I took it literally and was taken a back that someone wanted to know my situation. I would fidget and hem and haw, trying to think of something to say, and then later be a bit offended that they just passed on and didn't wait to hear how I was.

Yes it is kind of hard to believe but true. When I think about it I want to laugh, but it was frustrating for me at the time.

More than just at home I would never say hello to a stranger on the street, or when i met my friends we just started talking, there were no greetings.

So what does this have to do with bicycling?

Recently I discovered a trick while riding the bicycle (although it probably applies to life). I try to initiate a hello to people on the road or trail. If I say hello first then I have set the tone.

Expatriates in Arusha tend to get called "mzungu,mzungu" by kids and sometimes by adults when they are moving around Arusha. Mzungu means person of European descent. Being called that can drive you crazy. Whether it is intended to be derogatory or not gets forgotten, but a "Mzungu" tends to see it as negative, obnoxious, even insulting.

My theory is if I see a group of kids up ahead, and if I yell a greeting first, then maybe they wont call me mzungu, or ask for a pen. I have set the tone, I have shown respect, I have made them answer something besides "hey white man".

I often assume my fellow bicyclists don't want to have anything to do with me. If i say a meaningless greeting it can change the scene. Instead of brooding when a kid hammers past me and then cuts me off too soon, seems better all around if I yell "changamka" or "boya!" meaning "go man go".

I used to dread riding past teenage boys along major roads. You know that group loitering by the car wash place? Just maybe if I yell "Vipi vijana? Mambo?" (Hey kids, How's things?) It is alot harder for them to start yelling "mzungu mzungu, give me my pen."

Maybe just maybe this whole thing of people yelling "mzungu,mzungu" comes about because Europeans tend to pass by without greeting people.

Commuting thoughts

2009-10-21T15:14:00.005+03:00

I am not 100% car free (yet) but I bicycle commute to work and to clients 98% of the time. I do use the car with the family in the evenings or weekends to go to a social gathering.

The reaction from non bicycle riders who I meet while on my bicycle is either:
-" oh that is good exercise."
-"Isn't it dangerous riding on these roads in Arusha"

My reaction when I see someone I knowwhile on the bicycle is to try to avoid them or cover up that I ride a bicycle. It isn't a case of being ashamed but that I am unable to get them to understand why I ride a bicycle to work.

Here is my bicycle in the parking lot.

And here is the normal vehicle there.

I haven't convinced myself whether the main reason I bike commute is because it is faster and easier, or because it uses less fossil fuels than a motor vehicle. So it is both. For the past 6 month there is another reason and has it to do with feelings. (note: from a Norwegian protestant background feelings should not be talked about.) I just plain feel good commuting, being on a bicycle, being in a different crowd than the SUV crowd. And it isn't about oxygen high because of exercise, as when I go TO work I ride slow enough to not breath hard or sweat.

So my commuting has nothing to do with exercise. I probably get some exercise but it is minor now compared to a 75km Wednesday morning club ride.

Is it dangerous? It is funny that often i am riding along on the side of the road and I look at the vehicle traffic in the road and I say to myself " Wow that looks pretty scary". It probably has some risks but I try to be aware of everything going on and don't take chances. Someone wants to come out into the road, make sure i make eye contact, check behind me if i have to swerve into road, or stop. I use the bell allot for pedestrians and cars.

I don't know about you but this looks pretty scary out there in a car.

What the GPS shows

2009-09-13T09:58:00.002+03:00

Thomas and I agreed on a long one. I got started about 5am and was at his house around 530am.

Thomas immediately had a tyre go flat twice. The spare tube went down and he rode back to get more tubes and i tried to stay warm on the side of the road.

We originally were going to Lolkisale but Thomas saw some mountains SE and liked the look of them so we ended up riding to Custom village. On the way out we were on ridges so the tracks sometimes didn't go very straight. Thomas showed me the gps map sometimes and it didn't look like we knew where we were going. When asking directions we were told the same thing several times.

I wasn't in the mood of pictures, or maybe the parched, end of dry season, landscape was uninspiring.

We only road 110km but i was tired enough to be happy with the day. Stopped in several places for food and carried lots of food. At custom my friend Ngowi gave us two cokes and a big bottle of water free. At Moita Bwawani we had tasty half cakes and black tea with plenty of sugar.

Masai evictions in Ngorongoro District

2009-09-13T09:05:00.003+03:00

This article explains a situation going on in the area around Loliondo in Ngorongoro district.

My parents lived in the village of Arash near here.

We have been hearing disturbing things about this private hunting ground for something like ten years. I gets worse and worse every year.

I have had personal dealings with Liz Mckee, and was not favorably impressed. But then maybe I am biased as she choose a business competitor over me. (Full disclosure and all that). I bumped into Rick Thomson 2 days ago, who is temporarily running Thomson office here as Liz gave notice. I wonder if her responses have something to do with this.

In search of the perfect energy food during rides.

2009-08-23T09:04:00.006+03:00

In looking for the perfect energy food for long rides I have tried a number of foods.

(I was going to take a picture of all the different energy foods I have tried but our home is out of stock of most items, either because of pilferage from snack-ers or the item is perishable.

I started out as a casual mountain biker and took whatever was in the house. I didn't need that quick pick me up kick from food. Then as I got into road racing I needed something so I tried the commercial gu and energy bars . They work pretty well but are expensive and not available here. I use them but only when left behind from some first world-ers visiting.

As a substitute I got into honey. I put it in the water bottles or take a shot out of the gu dispensing tube. It works well but sometimes is not appealing taste wise and there is no roughage. It does work as well as energy gu. The good stuff doesn't last as long as one would expect as it is seen as medicinal in our house.

Bananas are about as good as a energy food as one can use but they need care in carrying, they go bad from bruising and heat, and often in early morning they are out of stock in our house. You can't buy for a whole week.

I have used snickers bars. They are delicious and full of energy but a pricey (about a dollar in Arusha). They also don't keep well at home as they get raided by chocolate addicts. A bigger problem is they don't do well in high temperatures on rides.

I sometimes make a trail mix of some (or all) of the following: raisins, sultans, dried fruit, almonds, cashews, peanuts, sunflower seeds. It is pretty good tasting and as energy. Pilferage is a factor both at home and on rides. Highly popular among mountain bikers I ride with. Other downside is it doesn't have a quick sugar fix as much as some other stuff.

I really like milk, and recovers me well after rides. Biggest drawback is it can clog up the respiratory system if you are riding slightly hard.

DATES
I was never a big date eater. One day about two years ago I bought some of these date cakes. The seeds are removed and they are pressed in a dense cake and come in packages like the one above. After a few weeks I began to like them.

There are no calorie values on this package but dates are intense calories, natural sugar, and keep forever. That means if i buy 4 packages I am likely to always find them available in our house as I get ready at 5am. I might even find them still in the bag. Dates are less likely to be pilfered at home, although it does happen. They don't melt during a ride.

On the downside they are a somewhat messy to eat but I can deal with that. It is not readily available out side big towns meaning I can not buy as I go.

This package is 500grams (+/-20) and costs $1.40e shop.

It is great to live in a country who trades and deal with everyone. So the fact it is a product of Iran is a non issue for us. This brand happens to be from there but they come from all over the middle east.

Hiatus, minor operation the reason

2009-08-19T13:44:00.006+03:00

I don't always get to do this activity. That is my long legged tandem partner enjoying a sandwich in some brush on Burka coffee estate.

Shortly after my last post I decided to have one of my pinky fingers straightened. I forget what the orthopedic surgeon Dr Morilla called it, but it is a type of contracture that just happens to some people. The fibres between the skin and tendons in the palm of my hand snapped and caused my pinky to not straighten over some years. I had these hard callus like bumps on my palm.

That Friday I commuted by car for first time in several months. It was a good thing. I couldn't even drive the car afterwards.

Bernice left for a week trip to Philippines and I was scheduled for surgery on Friday. i figured it would be over by noon and i would go to work.

Man was I wrong.

This is what it looked like after they took off the bandages and stitches.

Because of the operation and recovery period I could not ride very hard. Rough surfaces were bothersome. I continued to commute by bicycle, even the next day I commuted by bicycle to work as normal, but I stopped Wednesday road rides and weekend bush trips. I did manage some shorter weekends rides. By mid July I was almost normal, but I was out of habit blogging.

THE PROCEDURE
Interesting about the operation. It was done at Arusha Lutheran Medical Center, a new hospital. The operating theatre seemed state of the art. I was really impressed.

They didn't have the particular local anesthesia, so it was a general one.

WOW. What a trip coming out of it. The first thing I was moving , like screaming fast, down the conduit pipes in the ceiling above me. Just like in the movies like "Matrix". I think it had something to do with the light fixture above my head. Then I started to have some groggy blurred vision and in and out consciousness.

Patients were wheeled next to me for recovery and then later to their rooms, so I got to "see" what else was going on that day.

As I began to focus a bit more I notice the other surgeon Dr. Kisanga at the desk area. I somehow managed to mumble hello and he came over. I told him about my trip and he asked if it was good or bad.

A bit later both surgeons and 3 interns were at the central desk. Dr Kisanga was checking his email on his phone, Dr Morilla was on the Internet, and the interns were singing and dancing to various songs the surgeons asked if they knew. It was like being in a MASH movie, or that movie about hotshot surgeon who gets cancer. Everything was so matter of fact to them, whereas a moment earlier and later they were performing miracles of science. Dr kisanga's head gear was psychedelic, not a plain dull one.

Then a scrub nurse came by saying they were ready and they left to operate on other people.

A few hours later I stumbled to where my clothes were and then sat in a silent "family room" as i was not able to walk right. another half hour and someone walked over to office to drive me home.

Now my finger is straight and cane bend 90%. There is still some scar tissue.