Warming up on the commute

Our hot (or warmer) season is December to March/April, depending upon when he rains start. Then it cools off gradually until July. Yesterday was the first day that I wore something additional to stay warm on the commute. I prefer that as I don't have to worry about sweat on the way to work. I sleep better also during this season. Has something to do with sleeping in the basement growing up, where it never got warm even during hot summers.

Today was early morning club ride and the talk before the ride is it is cold today. That means next week i start using arm warmers during the ride.


Keep em rolling.

Two different rides

This weekend I managed to ride each day, both rides were 5 hours riding time but different rides. I enjoyed them both but the Saturday ride will remain in my mind.

DAY ONE
Friday my buddy Erik Zweig slept at our house and we schemed that evening for a 3 hour easy ride. We got up early enough but repairing two broken spokes turned into cleaning his drive train. Then he worked on his brakes and then it was 8am and everyone else was having pancakes so we had pancakes and messed around and left after 10 am.

We did the familiar route up into the Meru Forest, and then headed east on the main forest road. We then rolled up and down ravines high up on the mountain. We talked to a few people and greeted almost everyone.

At the highest point we stopped for some fruit and water and started the descent. Immediately after leaving the forest we stopped by a large group of kids and bought two big avocados. We were still hungry and it was 1pm so we asked for a "hoteli" and were directed to a shack. We shared a bowl of cooked bananas with a few pieces of beef and a bottle of Banana Wine. We shared a table with two guys and struck up a conversation.

We wanted to pass but Fred's house above Sanksi. Fred is some guy Erik met and wanted to visit. They said if we follow the road then we have to climb back up, which is what i expected. Rather they could show us a trail through the big ravine and then a road that would eventually take us to the Sanksi road.

We paid for the meal, a bit under $2, and were guided to the trail. We traveled at the same speed as our guides as the trail was steep and rocky. We carried and pushed and shortly the trail became a track that we were told would carry us down. We stopped frequently for directions and greeted a ton of people.

Ever since the entering the forest the road was slick. We both went slow. I noticed my average speed was only 10 kph.

We came to a big Lutheran church and gazed around like two lost boys. A pastor came along who knew Fred, but by his Meru name. He enlisted a kid to show us the way. We rode up and down on slick small tracks through small farms . I was starting to think this "detour" to see Fred, a guy I don't know might be a waste of time. After 30 minutes our guide points to a house on a wide hill.

As we ride up the hill the trees gave away and we had views in all directions. My lower jaw fell down to the handle bars. It was incredible view. At the house the view was spectacular. Mnt Meru, Kilimanjaro, south Masai steppe, Arusha town. We were high enough we could see the water of Lake Duluti that is in a small crater!

Fred is the son of a Meru and Canadian. He grew up in Canada, but they had strong ties to this area. A few years ago his wife and their small child decided to try to live in this area. He is a lawyer but made some money in "multimedia", whatever that is. He worked for a local lawyer and bit and now the UN ICTR.

We ended up drinking a beer and talking a mile a minute. They wanted to know what i knew about the submarine fiber optical cable coming to our country, and when it would come to Arusha. Then the kids, Erik, and Fred played catch with a baseball. They have about 5 acres of grass around the house.

At 5pm we took our leave and coasted the 10km to the main highway at Duluti. Then Erik and i split up and i slogged up to Arusha and home. I only went 50 kms and was riding 5 hours but gone 8 1/2 hours. Talked with a ton of people.


DAY TWO
Sunday morning I got out of bed at 5:15 an stumbled around making coffee and tea and looking for something to take to eat. I mixed some raisins, almonds, peanuts in a bag, grabbed 2 apples, a tangerine, and then wanted to make a sandwich but that seemed like work and i remembered that Bibi (grandma) had made some banana cake to i cut a piece. there are some energy gu right next to where the raisins are kept so i grabbed one of those. I took 4 litres water and a thermos of tea.

I was 20 minutes late to meet Wes, Thomas, Reiner, and Franco in Olasiti. i started riding 615am. The pace was fast and no slowing down in the rocky sections as we headed south, riding on single track mostly. We came to the big caldera from the south side which was new for me. My rear tyre went down , then i changed the tube and it went down three times so i used a tube from Wes. We ate some food at the caldera and discussed para gliding. The banana cake tasted pretty good with tea.

We descended off the rim of the caldera and i popped into a boma I had visited once cut my friend wasn't there. We split with Franco and Reiner heading straight back on the dirt road and we other three decided to ride around Moita hill. Eventually we found a track and cruised up on a ridge where the we came upon a kilometer of rocky ground. on the other side it was fast and we cruised back to the road arguing about which hill was which, as we look at them from the other side. I lagged a bit , feeling tired and Thomas pushes fast and Wes follows. We cruised up to the tarmac highway and home. Today was 80+km and ridden at 16kph, 5hours riding in 7 1/2 hours. Not much visiting but a good ride.

Riding with twins

Nyika and Zaka Friberg are family friends. Our families go way back. Before I was born our parents and some grandparents new each other in Bumbuli in the 1940's.

The twins are adventurous, so when they come around I have no problem getting them to roll the bikes around.



Nyika and Zaka live in the bush so when we rode by some big trees in a coffee plantation they wanted to climb. Click on the picture and you can see one of them on the lowest branch above the road. I am the only one in the family who can't tell them apart, so ask Nashesha who is up in the tree.

Note to Self: buy collapsable bike

I try to keep lowering my carbon footprint and consuming less. And there are moments when I am proud of parts of my lifestyle that consume less The more I lower it the more I realize how much I pollute, carbon- ate, consume, waste etc. For example my business trips to Dar es Salaam.

I fly to Dar es Salaam every 2-3 months for board meetings. We are told the jets are one of the worst polluters. In addition I use taxis to get around.

From the airport it costs 15,000( $12) to 20,000 t shillings. Then I have to get to a place called Kijitonyama for the meeting and back downtown to hotel and back to airport. I get lifts some times, but i spend $30-$50 on taxis every trip. I get $120 and hotels cost about 80.

I am a bit of a cheapskate and whereas I earn enough I don't earn very much compared to people of my socio economic background. So it does not make economic sense to spend all that money on taxis, besides the fact I consume a fair amount of petrol sitting in taxis.

I have been wondering if it would work for me to bicycle around Dar on my trips.

The main road from airport to town has a service road and even the highway has a shoulder. Often there are traffic jams so traffic is crawling.

What stops me is :
-I need to carry a bike back and forth under the 15kg limit.
-Dar can be very hot and humid, and sometimes I go from airport direct to meeting. How am I going to deal with the sweat?
- I need a bike. Where will I get a collapsable bike?
- I sometimes stay at meetings until after dark or near dark and from there "go out". What do I do? Ride in the late evening in Dar? People say Dar is more dangerous.

stayed tuned.

Which brings me to another point. Should I be flying? Can I justify the pollution of me flying? Should I take the bus instead, or take 3 days and ride?

Dot CC

Years ago during the dot com boom of the 90's somebody was selling the .cc domains cheap. cc was for Cocos Islands. I guess they made a pile of money while it lasted. since many of the names were already taken with dot com people felt that they should get their name on dot cc or somebody else's name on dot cc so they can sell it to them later for a profit.

A few days ago I was at a meeting for African Top Level Domain Registry's. I am on the board of TzNIC who was sponsoring the meeting and as the meeting was in my home town the other board members asked me to help the chairman represent thme.
I was a misfit. First of all I am white if you don't already know. And Top level country domains tend to have pride and nationalism sentiment right now, so what is a white non citizen doing on the board?

Secondly the attendees were either very technical guys running cctld's (country code top level domains), or the experts brought in to do a very specific seminar for them, or government bureaucrats who wanted a vacation and were clueless about what was talked about, or Tanzanians who someone convinced their ISP employers that this course would be useful. I fall into the last group, but not quite anymore. I am the token board member to fill a chair when needed. Sometimes that chair was next to the honorable Deputy Ministers.

The board said our ISP better be prepared as Internet connection backup. Well it turned out they needed us the whole time.

During a tea break I meet a guy who has come in for just two days to demonstrate software used by cctld's. Turns out he was one of those who was there doing the dot cc thing and now he can live like a hippy. That was pretty cool trading stories about being "Internet cowboys" during the early days.

But what does this have to do with bicycles? So we go sit down in the back row and like everyone else at the meeting we are all browsing instead of listening. Somehow we mention bicycles and we go off into another world, showing our trips, our fixies, our commuters, and so on.

Keep em rolling

S24O West Meru Plateau

I have ridden up and over the West Meru Plateau a few times but always in one day. A few weeks ago some buddies and I wanted a quick overnight so I suggested West Meru Plateau. It would get us out of the heat, into sub alpine trails, and maybe we would see some elephants. And of course we would have hours to spin the cranks on bicycles and enjoy seeing the world. I was not watching closely but am sure it was a S24O (Sub 24hour Overnight ride).

Thomas, Erik, and myself met after lunch and cycled through small farms up to the meru forest. Crossing the Ngaremtoni river canyon on the foot path is a grunt with the loads. I fall far behind. Actually it is a grunt without loads so I am not surprised and an going anaerobic. (Pics follow text.)

After the canyon we are on a relentless climb up to the plateau. At the gate below the plateau we get asked what we are doing, but we are waved on after we lie that we are just passing through to the other side. Someone long ago planted peach trees and sometimes we catch them in season and the gatekeeper always lets us take a few.

The forest administration allows local farmers from below the forest reserve to plant crops after the trees in a plot are harvested and the new seedlings are planted. They use clear cut method. After a few years they stop because the trees are too big. The foresters see this as the way for the trees to get a few years growing without competition from high grass and weeds. Potatoes grow well with little disease at this elevation. There are a few temporary huts up in the forest but most people only come up for the day to work the fields.

Signs of elephant are old, not like the previous time through here. Soon the road is more rolling than relentless and we get some views of the Meru Peak (14900ft). It is getting late in the day and we don't dally too much but stop to take some pictures of the peak. We pull off the main vehicle track onto a path, onto another path , and eventually have a campsite with a view down to the plains.

We barely get setup before dark and the night gets a bit crazy. Firewood is scarce as we are on the edge of some planted fields. We could of done better but after some food we feel better. I even smoke a cigar and drink some whiskey.

Next day we explore the plateau and find a great campsite for next time with some permanent water. It is behind the big hill up on the plateau. There is a narrow path and it descends into some meadows in the heather and there is some seepage there that looks pretty permanent.

We turn the bikes around and enjoy several hours of fast descent into the dust and heat of Arusha in February.

Riding to an Oasis (Chemka Springs Ride)

There are several places in Northern Tanzania that are like an oasis in the desert . We decided to ride to this one one Sunday morning.











From movies we know that oasis are surrounded by dry country or desert, making us appreciate them more. This one is no different.

Riding through this dry country we had incredible scenery. For those of you who don't know, that is Mount Kilimanjaro in the background. And yes the glaciers are noticeably diminishing thanks to all of us humans.






Kikoletwa Springs.
Northern Tanzania doesn't have an abundance of water. There are a number of small rivers on the big mountains but only when in high flood could you swim in them if you dared. There are some lakes but bilharzia and crocodiles are an issue. That is why Chemka Springs is a popular weekend spot for expatriates from Arusha and Moshi.
The bigger area is Kikoletwa but the village where the popular spring is located is called Chemka. Chemka means to boil in (ki)Swahili. It is 65 km away by car, due east of Kilimanjaro Airport, on the flat plains below Kilimanjaro Mountain. Most people drive there by going to Boma Ngombe town and then heading straight south. It is an amazing sight to see large springs in this dry plain.

As I mentioned it is one of the few places in northern Tanzania where you can swim in natural water. There is a debate about whether there are crocodiles there . Ten years ago a young woman tourist died there, supposedly mauled by a croc. The villagers have told me that she was drunk and fell in and drowned and floated down the river and was cut up by rocks and branches. I think crocs could live there but the water is too clean and the villagers want the income from picnickers and campers and they must work hard to keep them out. The local boys swim there. However it is often on my mind and makes me a bit jumpy swiming there with my daughter. (After posting this I was looking at it and realizied that the first picture is not the spring source but below the dam and definitely has crocs, so don't swim below the suspension bridge.)

During the first part of the last century a German coffee farmer dug some long ditches that flow into a small weir and then a hydro plant. He used this power for his coffee processing plant. During the British colonial period they enlarged on it. By the time all the springs come together it is a fair sized river. The springs have been protected for hydro power. The hydroelectric plant packed up 15 years ago but it is an interesting place to visit, a couple of kilometres from the campsite at the biggest spring.

Thomas and I met before 6am at one of the corners of Arusha Town. We rode through the main street some moments before light. Some people were stirring, mostly people returning from morning prayers.




We took the old highway which is a smooth dirt road to Usa River. The sun rose. There we stayed on a very small track paralleling the highway. Eventually I figured it was faster just to get on the highway for 15 km and get to the KIA turn.



Thomas did not like the highway but it was less than an hour until we were on a gravel road and then tracks like this. I have ridden this once alone and have an idea of which tracks to take.














Eventually the grass land end and we go through huge flood plains, too salty and prone to flood for grass or agriculture.








Suddenly you come to patches of trees showing where the springs are. The spring is coming out of a hole in the ground below me. You can swim into the hole by holding onto the rocks on the bottom. The current is usually too strong to swim against it where it comes out. It is crystal clear and not warm or cold.








We ride to the old power station and check out the suspension bridge and marvel at the amount of water in our dry country.






We turn around and a few hours later are at the highway. Thomas has a driver waiting and as long as they are burning up the fossil fuels I take the ride back to Arusha.

A different kind of good ride

There was a time I thought good bike rides were the ones that involved one or more of the following:
- being way out in the bush
- difficult terrain
- long
- fast.
- adventure
- spectacular scenery

Today was a "good one" and it was none of the above. The past year it seems more often rides don't fit into my old criteria for a good ride. Is this old age or maturity?

I had a leisurely cup of chai and left Bernice and Nashesha occupied in the house. I rode down the hill and to the highway, into town, stopping at an ATM. Next up the Ilboru road at a leisurely pace, talked with waitress I vaguely know for a minute. Through Ilboru and towards Selian. On that road I met two people I knew. More chatting. I upped the pace and raced a 5 year old running up the steep hill. Stopped at Clive and Sion's , peeked through a slit in their gate but no CARS so I didn't bother banging and banging on their gate. (why do people have gates far from the house? Without a loud vehicle horn no one is going to ever open the gate. Maybe that is the idea?)

Down the other side of the ridge to Selian. Bumped into Kaptula on the road. He used to be a vice president of our club and racer. I checked out from below our Internet tower on Litgow hill. Another chat with someone.

Half the people I met asked me if i knew anyone who wanted a plot of land for sale.

No wild animals, no bush, no speed, no adventure, not much sweat but a real good ride. Yep.

Bicycle Hero #1, Saidi Juma

Saidi Juma I have to mention first.









After I had been riding a bicycle recreationally and commuting for a few years I became interested in bicycle racing. This was around 1998. After being in a few races I started to become buddies with some of the racer, Saidi Juma being one of them. We would meet on a weekend and do long mountain bike rides.

I then hired Saidi as a bike messenger for the office. Most of the bicyclist were unemployed. I thought I could help him out. It was the other way around.

Staff were a bit skeptical that it would help until I told them send him to deliver everything, even 30 kms away. Within a week he became indispensable. Now after 10 years he is also the person who draws and deposits money in the bank.

It doest end there.

Because of that success our club, Arusha Cycling Club, has now found employment for more than 7 cyclists as bicycle messengers, several others as laborers, and the number keeps growing. Nature Discovery, Dorobo, Regional Air, AFAM, Greenfootprints all have at least a bike messenger. Saidi has been instrumental in finding the right cycler for a company.

I still like racing and follow some international races and participate in our club racing. Saidi is 34 years old and is still the #1 rider in the country. He might not win every race, but that is because our club knows the other club riders are playing off him, so he sacrifices himself so someone else in our club will be sure to win.

Most new people coming into the club, join because he was encouraged kids in his village to pick up the sport. He is the club chairman and is the one we all listen to on the road. He is the one yelling at slackers.

What I find amazing is Saidi started to take care of himself at an early age. He had both parents until recently, but his father was an alcoholic and could not provide properly. So as a young teenager he started paying his own school fees and making money. At 20 he was doing the same for his future wife who was in primary school still and her parents were poor.

He now owns a nice block house, and a string of mud walled rooms for rental.

I would like to ride with him more, but he is a serious rider and either they drop us old guys, or i feel bad that they are dawdling along with us.

Personal Bicycler Heros

I tend to blog about myself.

Recently two friends have dramatically increased their bicycling activities. I might not of been the catalyst that made that happen, I certainly did not hinder the change. I was / am so excited about what they are doing I wanted to share profiles of people I know personally that are using their bikes in a way that I consider them "personal bicycling heros".

Originally I was going to call them "bicycle commuter heros". But that doesnt work as commuting is one aspect of bicycling. For example my friend Erik Zweig quit his job so he has no job to commute to, but he uses his bike. Saidi is a bike messenger, and my daughter Nashesha likes riding around. I have mentioned Vincent Shirima, who drives a SUV to the start of a ride, but by bicycling has lost 50 kgs! He becomes a hero because he exchanged a motorcycle for a bicycle.

Maybe someone can help me with a better term. I want a term for a person who is making a concerted effort to use a bicycle to replace some or all of their transportation. The real idea is to DECREASE use of private vehicles. Although for me I have a goal to stop use of personal car. the difficulty is getting a family to an evening outing in Arusha.

So if you see a post starting like this one and then a name and number this is where it came from.