Mnt Meru Machetes

The very first ride on a mountain bike was from my house up to the forest road on the slopes of Mount Meru (15,000'). I had bought my son Seth a mtn bike to go back and forth to school. He used it also on weekends too to get around to see his friends. One weekend in mayber 1995 it was sitting there and I took it up to the forest. I had to push it quite a bit the last couple kms and rested for 1/2 hour at the top. It was probably a 5 hour ride for me and I went home and vegetated on the couch the rest of the day. I now do that ride in under 2 hours.

Sunday I rode that route and continued to the end of the forest road.

Times change and the forest is not what it used to be. I used to have no fear and talked to the farmers up there. Now days they are growing marijuana somewhere and there are some young men walking around carrying menacing looking machetes.

I moved up at normal pace and past the ring road I stopped at 10 years ago through Sambasha. They have clear cut some more areas and the nicest part was now clear cut. then through the ravine and across the small river.

This is where I met the first person who unsettled me by asking where I was going.

As usual I walked the last part down into the river and up the other side. The other side is usual so lush and through native forest. a fair amount of the big native trees have been taken out.

The forest is supposed to be closed to logging right now! I wish that were true . I saw lots of sign of logging during the past few days.

the ride out of the ravine and up onto a plateua is usually very technical and some very steep slick sections. It by passed the impossibly steep section this time and it was not slick so i could ride the whole thing, but i was gettting wobbly at the end. picture>

I stopped at the top for some dates and two young men came along. All the young men carry machetes. A bit unnerving. That first guy i had met in the ravine had one with a very sharp point. These two seemed more benign and we chatted a minute.

I left the single track and now was on one of the maintained roads switchbacking up the mtn. Unfortunately they did some maintenance and the road had alot of dust. Before long i was at the the next small plateau that used to be the jumping off place for climbing Meru for me. A lot more clear cutting up here, but some fields that were farmed are now 10-20 year old trees and a dense forest. I had more dates and water and took some pictures. I had gone 16km and averaged only 10kph!

Because of the deep dust in the road or maybe my age I didn't fly down the mountain like i remembered. Maybe it is a memory thing. I took the short cut and there was no dust but the trail was moved around a bit. and then some of the best parts were logged!

I made it home pretty fresh after the hour of coasting down hill.

I had had this long interesting thought to share with the world but i cant even remember what it was about. Commuting, consuming? beats me.

Making butter and freezing cold near the equator

That's right, I made butter on my Sunday ride. There is the "finger lickin" delicious butter on my finger. I will explain later how that came about, first lets talk about cold in Africa.


After the rains end in late May our "cold" season starts and lasts into August and then slowly gets warmer. It is all relative but in Arusha the mornings can get as low as 10C/50F. It is always under 14C in the mornings.

I got out of bed early enough ( 4:15am) but move in slow motion trying to eat and get ready. Take that back, I move fast enough it is just that I don't accomplish much. I spent 15 minutes looking for my reading glasses and it was 530 before I rolled out with two headlamps. I decided to head towards Lolkisale area, SW of Arusha. I turn off the highway after full light ( 615 am ) and stopped to remove helmet and wind jacket at the tree below. After a few moments it was too cold to not have the windbreaker on. I pondered the implications of being near the equator in Africa and freezing.

I felt good cruising south. There was a light sprinkle earlier and it made the black cotton soil cling slightly to my tyres and get thrown off. It made a racket hitting my frame.

I stopped at a dam at Moita village for a few moments and looked at the water and gathered some seeds from an acacia tree. (months later they still sit in our kitchen). I don't feel like swimming today. At 9am I stop for breakfast, milk tea I had put in a water bottle. Upon opening the lid it looked as if the milk had curdled. I thought that a bit odd as it was fresh milk and boiled. I tasted it and it was sweet. Hmmm. I think about that and realize the cream in the milk had turned to butter on the vibrations and washboard of the track. I relished the taste of the butter and drank the tea.

It was now perfect temperature and together with a tailwind I cruised into some hills and had another break and a sandwich and stretch off in the bushes. I figured it would be nicer to ride back on the same track instead of the old Lolkisale road,so I started back on the same track.

I recall that Saning'o Meliari lives around here and after some asking, back tracking, and asking found his boma. He lives in a big rambling house that looks like a farmers place. Machinery and sheds. Kind of like our house. He gave me a soda and we had a good talk, trying to catch up with each other. We taught school together and lived in the same house about 100 years ago, well 30 years maybe. We also ran around together when in town even after he went on to become a priest. Later he left the priesthood.

Saning'o now spends half the year in California being a counselor. I asked him if psychological problems are same for Tanzanians as Americans. He said no. He says there are some pretty f***ed up people in America but basically their problem is they have no one to talk to, so have to pay someone to talk to them. That is his take of what he does in America, makes sense to me from my experience.
Saning'o tells me of a shorter track and after he dropped some cement off at a school, swung me by the start of the track. He shows me this 2 meter Egyptian cobra he had seen dead yesterday. I am quickly in a vast treeless plain with no houses and no domestic livestock.

In the middle of this plain I happened upon a pickup full of hunters! Turned out to be Joe Mfinanga and some friends and his boys. I am heading home and I will pass right by his house at the main highway. Joe and I have a discussion if I am heading the right direction! We both think the other is completely crazy. I left them driving around in circles and took the straight track up to Meserani. At Meserani the track turns 90 degrees and parallel to the highway, but and a small path went directly to the highway through the shops. Kumbe there is a big korongo behind the shops, no wonder the road makes a turn.

Up until this point I had been feeling great. Perfect temperature, little wind, no dust, mostly hard firm surface. Now on the highway I start to feel slightly the 90km I had done so far. I was only an hour home I pushed on and was home at 230pm.

Can't remember but must of been 120km
Good ride.

Some where in the middle of the ride there is this grove of trees.
On the previous trip this way it was full of weaver nests.

Major repairs on a short tour

During this short 3 day trip I started thinking I should change from a derailleur system on the mountain bike to an internal geared hub. I have often wondered what is the "weak" part on the bike that could stop a trip. On my trips through thick brush and grass rear derailleurs are sitting out there exposed, asking to get bent and broken. On this ride Wes's derailleur almost forced him to ride without gears. It did cause us to spend 5 precious hours on repairs.

My bike buddy Wes is back from the USA for a couple of months. He has to run his company while the other partner takes some time off. Thus Wes is busy catching up, meaning he works Saturdays too. A few weeks ago we leave mid day Saturday after work and plan to come back mid day on Monday so Wes can work the afternoon.
Wes and I choose to look for elephants in the Sinya area pictured above. Sinya is an area south of Amboseli Nat park in Kenya, but we are on the Tanzanian side. During the rainy season (April to May) wildlife migrate out of the park and into the plains between Mnt Kilimanjaro and the smaller mountains to the west. They stay until water and/or grass become an scarce. Above you can see Kilimanjaro in the clouds and some thompson gazelles if you enlarge the photo above.

I believe and prefer in "ride to the ride", but Wes is pressed for time so we get a ride in a pickup past Longido Mountain and stop to ask directions at a shop along the road.

Asking directions from maasai, non bikers, pastorialists, or anyone for that matter can be hit and miss. I can only explain it that Maasai tend to give directions in a different way than I do or understand. We are told that right over there is a track that will take us through the foothills of Longido and out and onto the plains, and they stress that there will be "alot of deep grass" before the plains. Yeah right I think.
As we set off we make sure I have my panniers doubled tied so I dont lose a pannier with the whiskey onethis trip. They are right the track leads in the right direction and we are escorted a kilometer or so by a masai on a single speed.
This nice track winds through the trees and hills on the north side of Longido Mtn. The road branches several times and eventually our choice becomes a path that lead us out of the hills. The masai were right. The grass got deep.
The thick grass was over the knees as you can see above. The grass nicely hid the holes and whoever was riding in front would fall into a hole every 5 minutes. The leader would then yell, "hole there" and try to not fall over. Below is what my derailleur looked like after riding through the grass for awhile. cleans the chain pretty well too.


About this time Wes's derailleur decided to do a 180. It got caught in the spokes, and was twisted around pointing upwards.
We looked at each other, like, "wow how did that happen?" "Is that fixable?" "Are we going to have to use one gear from now on?" We completely forgot about taking a picture and started working on straightening stuff out. We were 20km along. We spent a good hour getting it working again. The hangar was bent back some and the stop was broken off.

There are a couple of hours left of daylight. We keep going through the deep grass without a trail, heading for a hill out in the middle of the plains.

Just about camping time Wes's derailleur goes upside down again. This time it is more serious with 2 more broken spokes, but worse is the derailleur arms are bent sideways and one arm is broken. The stop is bent and broken and other shit. Again we are too preoccupied in thought and don't take a picture. It is definitely time to make camp. Below is Wes pondering what to do after breakfast in our first camp.

Later we deduce that Wes had weakened the spokes the previous week getting the chain caught between the cogs and spokes. He freed the chain but did not notice that the spokes had huge nicks in them. Then on this trip the repeated smashing into holes in the deep grass broke a spoke and caught the derailleur, both times.
We sit around the camp fire that night and in the cold morning looking at the derailleur and discussing whether we can repair the derailleur or to fix to two gears. The derailleur arms are bent sideways and one is broken at a hole where the top pulley sits. It looks hopeless. I start seeing the advantage of internal geared rear hubs.

After a good breakfast we break the chain, remove the cogs, remove the derailleur. replace some spokes, and true the wheel. It is now we notice the damage done to the spokes earlier in the week. We decide if we can get a longer bolt for the derailleur pulley, bend the arms straight, zip tie the two arms for more support we might be able to ride. We find that the bolt for my rear reflector is the right size. (Kind of strange as I have not had a reflector on the bike for years, and only recently I put on a reflector for night commuting.)

It takes us the better part of the morning. The arms are a bit hard to straighten. The longer bolt barely holds the broken arm, so we add some zip ties, something new for us. The cable sheath is destroyed at the end a bit so we have to shorten the sheath. The hangar takes much work to get straight. The stopper needs bending .The derailleur below looks pretty normal now and we get the shifting right and Wes rides around a bit to see if it will work. I have my doubts the bolt and zip ties will hold the arms together but it does.


We are good to go before noon. In another hour we are out of the deep grass as you see below. It can be soil type but more likely we are now within 10 km of water, and marks the areas masai can graze their cattle.
We notice a pile of dirt out in the distance and check it out. A lot of work to make this small dam. It is long dry.
The speed picks up and we head off for some old Meerschaum mines. The Tanzanian government mined Meerschaum in the 1970's and then stopped in the 1980's. They used it to make pipes. All the white stuff is meerschaum and salts. We ride along and around "islands" of yellow fever forests.


Somehow I didn't take a picture of the piles of meerschaum or the holes left from the mines. The holes made coming this way attractive to elephants. We were able to swim in a deep one, it felt like swimming in soapy water. Later I read about meerschaum that it can be used as a replacement for soap. After a swim we split up to search around for better drinking water and found another hole that had good water and topped up our bags and bottles. Masai had scratched out a small hole off to the side of the pond and it filtered the water through the sand, so the water had very little suspension in it.

We turned towards home and wandered around looking in all the forest patches for elephants but we only saw zebra, wildebeest, gazelles , giraffes.


We stopped early, about 530pm. It gets dark at 7 and we usually stop around 630pm. I was feeling unmotivated for cranking hard. Today it was fairly warm in the afternoon, and somehow I started feeling lethargic. We found a nice forest and camped on the edge. While the sun went down we did 1/2 hour of yoga out on the sand and then roasted some more fillet on the fire. I slept on the ground next to the fire.


In the morning we picked up the road to the village of Sinya in the seven sister hills. In hindsight I should of taken a picture. It is a desolate sandy town without a blade of grass to be seen. This is typical of what happens around permanent water as herds of sheep, cows, and goats hang around waiting for their turn for water or their owner to take them out to pasture. We dumped out the pond water and added a bit from the bore hole just in case. We lucked out on the water, as a safari camp driver was filling his water bowser using a generator he had along. He actually remembered me from several years ago when we passed through here.

Now we would be on a definite road all the way to the highway.


I noted today that my pannier had actually jumped off the hooks and was held on by the straps. I really need a better suspension system for panniers.

The first part was mostly hard packed but there were pockets of sand. Here the road looks so well traveled but other places it becomes a simple track of thick sand.

At Ngareyeni village there is a river and for several km there was extensive sand. We had to walk long sections. We are told of a small path that had no sand and would take us directly up to Engikaret village on the main highway. After asking several people we met a old man who gave us stellar directions and the sand petered out and we were on a good trail skirting some hills. Fantastic trail.
On this small trail we find a cool den dug into a termite mound.


Before the highway we ran into another kilometer of soft sand in a dry river delta. We were at the highway and Wes's driver showed up.

This last section was really a great path and needs to be remembered. From Engikaret you head off and keep some low hills to your left. It might be hard to pick it up but definitely worth it.

Riding to home village Suji

About 6 years ago I convinced Bernice to ride our bikes up to her home village Suji. This is a picture taken more recently from the hill in back of Bibi and Babu's house. Gives you an idea of the elevation gain to get there.

Suji is about 220 km from Arusha 16 km off the main highway to dar. The last 16 km takes at least and hour in a 4wd. We started riding from the sisal estate on the main highway and then followed the valley below and up onto the ridge where the picture below is taken. When I first went to Suji 20 years ago it was barely passable in 4wd.

Once we started climbing the ridge it is constantly up. It took us 6 hours to go up and 2 to go down.

Yeah mom had to push the bike some.

This is at the first overlook. It is a bit easier from here on.

Nashesha and I would ride for awhile and then wait for mom. I had a hard time keeping Nashesha awake. She sat on a seat between my seat and handle bars.

And finally late in the day we arrive at Bibi's house.

The next day we whizzed down to the car.

Why give free public transport?

Some bridge collapsed in San Francisco. So there is one less road for awhile making the commute even more congested. Now you would think the logical thing to do is increase public transport right, which they did , but why this.

"In preparation for rush hour, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger authorized funding so that ferries, buses and the rail system could carry commuters free of charge during Monday's commute."

It is like we are bribing people to use public transport.

What does the word "bike" mean to you?

I got an email from my son Seth today. It is interesting how he uses the word bike compared to me.

"Hi dad, thanks for the email. Everything here is fine, I am working at the
bike shop full time and Amber goes to class, so our days are pretty busy."

Now before all my bike buddies start sending me requests for cheap bike spares I believe Seth means a Motorbike shop. I am careful to use the word bike around bike buddies only, less someone think I am riding a motorbike around.

(I just had a thought, when people see the title of this blog, do some think this is a motorbike blog?)

I bought Seth a mountain bike when he moved out to Tanzania in 7th grade to live with Bernice and I . I bought it so I didn't have to drive him to school 8 km away each way. No school bus!! Shows you what kind of school it is. The teachers thought I was crazy. He was the only kid who rode a bicycle to the Moshi International School, rain or shine. To Seth's credit he didn't complain. Seth enjoyed the freedom it gave him after school to visit friends and come home when he wanted. I had my own selfish reasons for him having a bike.

It was this bicycle that got me back into bicycling after I left my Peugeot PX10e in the USA when I moved to Tanzania in 1977. When I started making money in 1982 I bought a motorbike. Yeah I know. It was for commuting but we also zipped all over masailand both for work and checking out the bush. I tried a Indian made Phoenix bicycle about the same time but the dirt roads were so rough, and thorns so many I gave up on it.

Seth was using his bicycle everyday and it wasn't until he went to visit his Mom in Minnesota in 1995 that I got to use his bike for a month. The first ride was up the slopes of Mt Meru to the planted forest. I had to push the last km or so and laid down to rest in the forest. It was half a day excursion. Now I ride that in 70 minutes before work as a short training ride. I started to ride to work the 5km.

Alas Seth came back in time for school and hogged the bike.

Then somehow my buddy Steve Friberg gave me a 2nd hand bike sold by a Medical student. That was the bike that changed my life, commuting and health wise.

Anyway back to Seth and the meaning of "bikes". He went off to boarding school and biking got relegated to weekends, and then Naomi bought him a motorbike and the bicycle gathered dust mostly. Then he moved to the USA for college and got more into motoX.

But not all is lost as Seth goes on to say in today's email:
"It is finally starting to warm up here so I can ride my mountain bike to work now which is nice for the exercise and nice on the checkbook because I am not using any gas. Its funny that people keep asking me if I had my Drivers License taken away so I have to ride my bike, they can't imagine that I would be riding for fun. Its about 10 miles from my apartment to work, so its a nice little ride."

Good on you mate!
Note, bike to him is motorbike. Bike to me is bicycle but he says mountain bike.

Too bad he has to explain to others why he rides the bicycle to work, and it doesn't fit into their perception of bicycles. See my posting Why I didn't commute everyday about my own issues explaining with commuting.

And here he is :
I am really proud of him.

Lest his sister complain about unequal air time. His sister likes to ride also, but not to school yet. She does give her friend Mariamu rides though.

LSD

I think they call it something else these days but in the 70's we called it LSD. Long, Slow, Distance. In those days, in runners' circles it meant a 20-25km run at slower than a normal workout. We used to discuss all sorts of stuff on those LSD runs around the rural roads of Washinton State USA during college.

Today's ride turned into a LSD ride. Cool.

I met 5 buddies on the other side of town and we road east to the town of Boma Ngombe, 52 km , and then 5 km up the road towards Sanya Juu. The ride home became a LSD ride.

As we turned around we had a bunch of punctures. Well Cheusi had punctures. That broke the mood of riding hard, which we were doing going out. We averaged like 38kph to Boma and I was feeling it. Not total wasted but struggling at times.

In between stopping to fix Cheusi's flats Thad started to tell me a book he is reading written by some genius who talks about how religion is not rational, and used for so much bad. Basically I agree. However I still believe in God. Thad is pretty articulate and I can't remember anything for more than a minute. Thad talked about this for 20km as we road side by side. We talked most of the way back up to Arusha.

With 35 km to go Cheusi had more troubles after running over a stone and pinch flatted on both tyres! Good luck it was in a big village so we stopped and drank tea and had a chapatis and Cheusi, Moses, and Isaiah fixed the tubes.

Some dude was trying to talk to them fixing the tubes. Then he sat down at our table and tried to talk to us. It took us 20 minutes to realize he was either crazy or stoned. In the end he said us white people shouldn't come to Tanzania to "study" Tanzanians. About this time the others came and sat down and heard that and Moses told him to buzz of or get sent off. It is nice to ride with young Tanzanians. (they also take more share of time in the front of the pack.

Re age: it will be interesting as some of the guys like Moses are approaching 35. Will they keep riding?

I wonder why I was so tired today.

Commute in the rain.

Yesterday half way through my commute to work I was thinking, "man am I glad I am riding a bike."

At the same time I made eye contact with a passenger in a car I was overtaking and from his expression he was thinking, "look at this crazy white man riding his bike in this rain". Remember , I was passing him.

It was pouring as I set out and Bernice my wonderful wife was begging me to drive. (Then what would she do?)

The first 400 meters was a bit "messy" as they had ploughed all the fields around the shortcut. The path had soft part and mud caked on my tyres, brakes, and sandals. I was wearing a heavy Helly Hansen rain coat, cheap rain pants, sandals, and shorts. It was raining enough that all the mud was washed off my feet and bike by the time I was half way to work.

One issue commuting in the rainy season is I arrive at the parking lot with mud all over my legs and feet. Security have blocke access to places that had spigots and there isnt always mud puddles. I am too shy to wash my feet in the sink. I have started to carry (if i remember) a watter bottle to wash my legs when I get there.

Fenders, why dont i use fenders? Are you kidding. They would get caked with mud in 100 meters and then I wouldnt be able to ride. I do have partial fenders but not 180. And I often have to put my feet down on the first part.

I actually enjoyed the ride more than normal. There was a wreck and a couple stalled trucks, and becuase no one knows how to defrost their windows in Tanzania the traffic was moving slower than normal and I did the highway part as fast as a car. Being an impatient person that would of bothered me in a car.

Oh yeah and then the last km is a slight downhill and there was water running all over. The water was a stream half way into the outside lane. Then it crossed to the other side and I got to ride through 15cm of water. Wheeeeee.

Only my legs were damp, the rain pants are worn out. and of course my feet and sandals were wet but that isnt a problem. About half the staff in the office who walk came in hours late.

Monduli Juu to Lepurko

On a trip you have to have a destination. Before the trip started the destination was some place like this below. A scenic small track with some animals browsing and few people and signs of people to be seen.
After 3 hours of riding the destination changed to this house pictured below, a house still with 10km of dirt track and then 50km on the highway to home. But the house was a goal for some greatly anticipated milk Chai. It is fluid and it is full of calories. I like milk.

We had left Arusha late, about 5:45 and only needed lights for about 30 minutes. We rode into and out of town and to the west, the route the bike club takes every Wednesday morning. After 25km we head north to Monduli town, and we turn at Monduli town and ride west again and up a road to Monduli Juu.

The "Juu" means upper part. Monduli Juu is a highlands part of Monduli mtns. It is an extensive plateau or wide ridge. It is well known as one of our beloved Prime Ministers comes from this area. Also the Breweries had extensive farms in the highlands some years ago. the road from Monduli town was good and as we started to climb up to the plateau it became tarmac again in a steep curving section.
that was short lived but the road was as good as a dirt road can be.


It was pleasant but steep. Pleasant because of the thick forest and birds and lush vegetation. In 30 minutes we came to the top and stopped to ask a driver which was the best way to Lepurko. Lepurko is next mountain after passing through the highland plateau. The first part of the plateau is almost like a caldera, with a fairly flat floor. The road is now a unimproved track wandering and splitting and avoiding mud holes.


Paulo is in charge of asking the route ahead. We did pretty good and only had to go back a few times.



Even the trees had flowers today.


It was pretty unique area. High treeless plateau with good rich soil. No houses just fields with grass in between them and in the ravines. We stopped here for breakfast about 9:30. We were both feeling low on energy and we shared a thermos of chai and munched our food.


The track was often mud now and our tyres started to cake. I knew if it rained we would have trouble getting out of here. We kept to the grass on the side of the track if needed.



I stopped to admire more flowers.

The track became smaller and smaller until a good part of the time the track was on the grass and the mud not a problem.



We reached the end of the plateau and could see across to the boma maybe 10km away. The area became more scrubby and less lush although it had rained a bit hear, now we were riding gently downhill.

Sometimes we took the wrong track and took off cross the grass for the right track.



It was in here that we were told to leave the track and take a faint foot path across the valley to avoid the bad mud in the valley. This valley I know is black cotton soil. I have camped a number of times on the other side and anytime you see whistling thorn accacia (drepanalobium) you know there is black cotton soil there.

as we get into the valley there are thicker trees and the path is very faint. It is good riding. Suddenly we see a heard of zebras very close. they are not too spooked. Notice how they blend in. there must of been about 80 in this herd.

If you enlarge and enlarge this picture you can make out zebra. Paulo was within 40 meters of them at this point. i was suprised they didn't spook more.


We come out of the whistling thorn valley bottom and into treeless grassland again


And up to our destination. A boma that we had stopped at a couple months ago and were given tea. Today we brought a 1/2 kg of sugar as a present. We knocked on the door and woke up the husband and he sent someone to call the wife to make us some tea. While waiting i was given a cup of boiled milk and it was so good. It was about 1130 am when we reached here. maybe 2 more hours home if the wind helped.

We talked with the husband and another guy came from across the valley. He lives next to Alais Murindat, who I know slightly. As we finished our tea and were about to stand to take our leave one of Paulo's tubes blew. We found a rip near the valve and patched it. replace the tube and pumped and within a matter of seconds it blew, but slower. Turns out the rip "tape" was hard plastic and there was a sharp piece sticking up. When tubes start to go wrong they can really go wrong. This was too close to the valve to properly patch so we made a whole in the patch and slipped it over. It leaked slightly and the slime was not sealing it. So we put on my spare tube, which the valve broke off after pumping up to pressure. We put on the other tube and if we kept pressure below 30lbs it held air. That took us more than an hour. We started on the track back to the highway. with only 2 km to go Paulo's back tire went flat fast. the valve stem broke off completely.

I gave paulo all the money I had and continued. He would walk to the road and try to catch a lift or a bus. If he didn't pass me on the road home i would come back in the car.

the wind was in my favor again today. I had 50miles to go home now on the highway. It was sunny but not too hot. It was now 3pm. I rode pretty steadily stopping a couple of times to adjust this and that. My butt was a bit sore. Today i rode in hiking shorts or my butt has lost its "edge"? My hands seemed to carry too much load and forearms ached a bit. With about 25 km to go a mini bus slowed as it passed me and the conductor yelled that my buddy was in the van and speed off. That was a relief.

I kept spinning on home . I noticed that i was trying to coast more than normally. Just before the short cut through the coffee plantation I met a guy heavily laden on a bike with a huge pile of firewood on the back. It should of been a kodak moment but i didn't think of it. I helped him by holding the bike and he finished adding the last of his load. the front tyre had no weight. It poured for 5 minutes before i reached home.

I was a bit aching

Arusha to Mbeya Ride 2004

In October 2004 Mike Peterson and I decided to ride unsupported from Arusha to Mbeya , a distance of 1260 km, in 5 days. Then everyone in the club wanted to do it so it became a Arusha Cycling Club ride. We did do it in 5 days but we had a support vehicle. I finally put pics up on a webpage . It is just the gallery, no story.


It was easier than I expected. Not easy, easier than expected.

We rode from 5:45am to 6 or 7pm each day. We stopped 4-5 times per day for food. It was a great ride with a great group of riders. We camped the first two nights and stayed in guest houses the other nights. It took two days to drive home!

Arusha to Mbeya 2004