Karibu Trade Fair Bike Tour 2008

The first weekend of June every year there is a big tourism fair in a big field in Arusha. We have our annunal race during that weekend. This year we had 3 days of races.

Frida we went west to Nanja, turned around and back to the Monduli road and up to Monduli town and then back to the fair grounds. 110km. 3 hours and 29 minutes averaging 31.6 kph.

As expected the climb out of the first valley the peleton split all up and I got dropped. At the top I was alone and caught a guy on a mtn bike and then a one legged guy. We rode together for awhile. That was a bit humbling. After turnnig around and seeing Mike and thad were not that far back I had them wait. We were then a bigger group but immediately most of them left us on the climb out of the Nanja valley. At the top we caught most people but fell back again when we climbed to Monduli Town. We came in with a pack of about 5.

Of course Saidi won the day. Most of the top ten were from our team.

Second day was a 39km time trial. I did it in 1:17:35 I didnt push it much and thad was a minute ahead of me. There was strong wind to fight with coming back.

At the reading of the times there was some queries and then alot of arguments. Those arguments continued heatedly after the final day. Mwanza team stomped out before the prize giving.

Last day was 180km but the first 12 is controlled through town. It is fun to ride briskly through town but controlled with an escort. I hoped to stay with the lead pack at least to the turn around point. Unfortunately at 40 km some guys went down and i did an endo over them hurting my hand and knee. Miraculously the bike was okay and I got on and thought about quiting becuase my hand was hurting. Thad said keep going and awhile later the pain subsided. I was now with Andrew who was strong and we tried to make the gape to others who had fallen. for the next 15 km we tried and then gave up and waited for all the other white old men. At Moshi we found the lead pack of about 20. they must of been going fairly easy as they were not that far ahead of us.

I managed to force myself to eat and eat. I woud feel bad off and on but mostly it was just tiredness. after the climbs to Arusha i recovered and felt stron the last 10km of flat. It took us 5hours 34 minutes averaging over 30kmph.

As I said there were lots of arguments. Not fun and it delayed the prize giving. there were mistakes on the time trial times. or irregularities.

I have some stiffness from the fall. My hand is slightly swollen and my right knee stiff but not too bad.

The biggest bike commuting problem

I still think the biggest problem commuting is the moments when you get to work. People stare and ask what am I doing. I have to endure people watching me zip on the leggings of my pants, wash my feet when muddy from my water bottle.

I don't see the sweat thing as a problem anymore. My laptop is now disk less in case i carry it. Traffic is not an issue.

It works better if I play the role of the persecuted humble commuter rather than react to people doing actions that affect my riding.

Two commuting interactions

Today on the commute to work and Meat delivery truck cut in front of me and I had to brake hard. The passenger in the truck then had the gall to give me the thumbs up sign. I thought of going back and yelling at the driver but I rode on thinking of the injustices of humanity towards poor bicyclists.

I got to the gate and someone was yelling " Erik, Erik". I was feeling persecuted but looked anyway. One of the security guards says. "Erik come and park your bike inside the inner car park." It made me reverse my view of humanity.

Crash

Today I had a bike crash, the first in maybe 4 years. I fall all the time on the mountain bike, but soft landing stuff mostly just falling over in slow motion. I might get a scratch or a sore hip.

Today is our weekly Wednesday road ride to Monduli town. Before the turn around at Monduli town hospital is a 3 km hill with two corners and a short flat space in the middle of the hill. I had picked up speed coming to the second corner and was not thinking that it had just started drizzling.

For Americans my age, remember what they told us in drivers ed about the first drizzle? Well I forgot that it is supposed to be the time when the road is the slickest. I took the corner at about 25kph and I was shocked as the bike just went out from under me and I sprawled on my right and slid some meters. I have two raspberry's on the knee, one big one raspberry on my right hip, and one on shoulder, and a small puncture in the hand. I also probably sprained my hand. I got up and carried on up the hill, within 5 minutes there was little pain.

The bike clothing saved me from more abrasions. The scrape on my hip is through the shorts but at least it was clean. Another rider , one of the younger kids also fell sometime after me and he hit his head on the helmet and has some abrasions on his face. I guess those ahead of me slowed down on the corner. I hope I remember my Driver's Ed lessons next time.

Komolo Loop

This is a ride in the making, I need to ride it again to find a better loop. Saturday it was a 105 km loop mostly on good dirt roads like this one. Actually really good dirt roads. Only a few times did I need the fat mtn bike tyres in sand and rough roads.

I tend to prefer footpaths in the bush but I wanted to see what has happened to this area in the past fifteen years.
I started riding about 7:15 am. I rode around Arusha Town and through Kijenge heading east on the old highway. It was hard packed dirt, must of been maintained recently, as it was smooth, no potholes. After the flower farm of the member of Parliament Mrema, it was not as good but still good. From Kijenge it is mostly downhill and that is what the next few hours were.

Turn right at the Tanganyika Packers, military sign. The road was maintained since I came back up this way from the Themi river ride a month ago. The picture above shows a straight road going down hill forever. I still had on my rain coat because of the morning chill. Although I was riding through farmland and not bush it was thoroughly enjoyable. It is wonderful to be out of Arusha and the effects of mass tourism and in rural Tanzania. People wave and greet and no one wants anything. one particular guy on his bike gives a hearty greeting.

it was 8:27 probably 1,15 riding time.

Before you know it you are at the crossing of the Themi River. Now it is swim-able. I was amazed how much water was flowing . This river is beautiful despite the trash that is carried down the river from Arusha. Note the trash caught in the roots of the tree.

I remember this crossing used to be a rocky crawl through the river. Now there is this huge bridge.


The new bridge is pretty much done. During the big rains the water was still going over the top. I chatted with some young boys about the bridge. On the other side of the bridge you see the last bridge that got destroyed when there was a big rain and trees probably plugged the culverts.




The boys showed me a crack. The idea of arches is good but seems they need more space above the arch to spread the load over a bigger area.






I had not seen any cars since turning off onto this road. After the bridge the road veers west to go to Losinyai (Customs) instead of south.
I passed the cattle market that now has some permanent structures like these. Note how dry it is here compared to the next picture. Or is it overgrazing becuase of the large cattle market here? I thought this market looked kind of cool.




On this section the road is still being worked on and sometimes rough. Soon I was looking for trails on the side.

Now that I am a road builder (another story to tell) I take more interest in how the road is being built. In this wash I think i would not put a culvert. Sometime in the next years there will be a big enough rain to carry a tree down and it will plug up the culvert and was around it and then carry the whole structure down streeam. Notice how dry it is here.




Then within fifteen minutes I was in a section of waist high green grass. I wonder why? Maybe this is a flood plain.





At Losinyai village I stopped to do something and a crowd of kids hung around politely. Then I met a young man named Njau (typical chagga name) but a masai. He had a shop and we exchanged phone numbers. He gave me the lay of the land and estimated times back to Arusha and on towards Komolo. Here is where will take the road going north back to Arusha on my return. I decide to ride towards Komolo and see what i see. It is 40km from arusha it was 9:40 now.

I checked out the impressive bridge here. 30 years ago I used to pass this way alot and it was driving steeply down into the sand river and up the other side. Trucks could get stuck in the sand. Where the young woman is standing they had made a drift but decided for this huge structure. The girl tried to get money off me but I biked south now. I guess this is progress.



I climb out of the river and cruise south hoping i can make it to komolo before running out of time. Way off I see the escarpment of the South Masai Steppe. Below it i notice a body of water I have never seen before. Komolo is at the bottom of this escarpment.




The road was defintiely maintained these days. Finally I have traffic, a couple cars and motorcycles passed in the next two hours. I made it close to Komolo and stopped for breakfast off the road.


One of my sandwhiches was mush so I ate it like Njera or ugali. It was a wonderful meal at 10:30am. I spent about 15 minutes on breakfast.







The triangle bag in the middle of the bike also serves as a seat when it stop. I have a thermos of milk tea and my mush.






I passed two small humble churches but only managed a picture of this one, as there was a lorry off loading building materials at the other one. Someone from outside this village must be investing in the church. This used to be low bush country but now it is hardly any bush.



For awhile I followed a path along the road and it was fun. I could ride fast enough that the curves were like downhill skiing. I almost spilled a few times.

Back at Losinyai I turned after the river and rode north towards Mnt Meru on the road to connect to the road used by the sand trucks. The first section to where the trucks go was about 10km and rough and not very fun. I also had to pump the rear tyre here.

As soon as I joined the "Oljoro" road it was mostly smooth but now there were trucks every few minutes spewing dust. It is slightly uphill but I was mostly keeping speed at 20+kmph. This is not the most enjoyable road but interesting for me to see what has become of this area. The road used to be abismal and now it is wide and maintained. There was a crew working on more drainage even today.

I had to pump the tyre 5 times, I even took the tube out. There were alot of thorns through the tyre and slime all over. I noticed the tyre was pretty wore out. Suprised as the tyre didn't seem to last long.

I resorted to pumping every twenty minutes.

I passed the ngaremtoni river and climbed up the longest hill staying ahead of a sand truck and into Mbauda area and soon a tarred road and civilization. Dirty congested civilization.





It was a little after 2pm and I was home.

It was 105 km, 3 hours to Komolo and 3 1/2 home but 7 hours gone.



By 4pm i was building with the kids the brick bench on the front porch.
By 630 i had the space between the arches filled and my back aching

UCI Race

The past months maybe year I am less interested in racing bicycles myself and more interested in adventure and social riding. I religiously attend the Wednesday rides of our club and make noise to the younger guys on how to race but I don't care anymore how I am doing.

The Tanzanian Bicycling Association has chosen to join UCI so we have some standing so they need a bunch of timed races so they can decided whether Tanzania deserves something or not.

26 April is a Holiday and the first race was Arusha on that day. I almost opted out of the race but signed up and was glad I did. It was 150km , to Moshi town and back. I haven't ridden that far on road bike for awhile but knew the peleton affect would make it much easier.

The first 1/4 race was fun. A few times I had to press hard on the pedals to hold on when someone decided to take off or we came to a longer hill. In the middle or back of the pack it was bliss being sucked along. the 2nd quarter I started to feel the pace but managed to just hang on on the hills. One time they took off again after cresting a hill and luckily the peleton was big enough that we pulled them in. Bad for the best riders in our club as they were trying to shake people off.

We turned around and my average speed was 38kmph. We had probably lost 1000feet elevation but it was into a slight wind. The pace was crazy after making the U turn but I held on. I was pretty proud of myself. Mike and Andrew had been dropped way before. There were over 20 people now in the front pack.

As we roller coasted out of Moshi I started to wear down and as the wind was pushing us it seemed they kept the pace up higher. I think our team was working harder now. The first half all our good riders just kept in the pack.

I got dropped on a slight uphill with another half dozen. there was now the front pack of a dozen or so and then the rest of us spread out. I was not looking forward to 65km riding without a break but kept pushing the pedals.

Luckily Mike turned around and helped me half way back. We got caught by one guy who helped some but then left us on a long uphill. Then Mike pooped out and I rode in alone. Hill after hill. I managed to average 31kph. the last 30 km were a struggle and the hills in the last 15 km were slow. I got cramps twice and had to get off the bike. That never happens. wonder what was going on in my body.

At the finish i felt okay but within 5 minutes I threw up , then felt okay. Once home I had diarrhoea the rest of the afternoon. I must of really wore down my body.

Saidi from our club got first followed closely by a guy from Mwanza on a single speed Phoenix bike! three of the guys from mwanza finished in the top 10. Amazing. I need to find what the average speed was.

Helping others to bicycle as a means of transportation

Five days ago I received the email below from my friend Erik Zweig. It says many thoughts, but what immediately struck me is that by me riding long bike rides maybe Erik considered riding a bit further and maybe the bike becomes for Erik transportation and not only exercise.

The other thought was when he says maybe I shouldn't ride with him as he is not as fit as me. I used to see how far I could go on my bicycle, not at least sometimes I ride to see how much fun I can have and how many interesting things can I see and experience.

8 April 2008

email from Erik Zweig:

This morning I woke up just as the sky was beginning to glow. I decided to get out of bed and go for a ride. My intention was to try to get to a place not far beyond Carmatec, but a little further than where I had gone last week. When I got there, I came upon many students of the secondary type. I did not feel like turning around in the middle of the road as teenagers yelled such things as “mzungu.” So, I continued on. I then decided that I would try to get to Usa. Once I got to Usa, I thought, “Hey, our other farm is all down hill from here and it is still quite early.” So, I continued on. It was indeed all down hill and I found myself singing in the cool morning air. I got to the farm and people were shocked, couldn’t believe that I had come to work on a bike. I walked the farm, spoke with a few people, you know, managerial stuff, checked my e-mails, had a cup of coffee, drank a bit of water and then headed back.

I made it to the other farm in about an hour, popped into the office to show my face and act like a manager. Then I headed down to my place to take a bucket shower in my front yard in the beautiful sunshine. On the way to my place, I had an epiphany. I decided that the answer to all of the world’s problems is ice-cream. I thought to myself that no matter what it costs, I should invest in enough solar panels to power a big freezer so that I can make ice-cream at my place and open a little stand in the village and sell ice-cream cones. I thought, “Yes, when the mangoes come into season, I will make mango ice-cream. When the strawberries ripen, I will make strawberry ice-cream, and raspberries, and lychees, and peaches, and so on.” I also thought that I would buy two cows and plant sugar cane and vanilla and wheat so that I could actually make all of the ice-cream, including the cone, from my little plot. I was so euphoric and thought that life was beautiful and that it was the most beautiful day and that I should ride to Usa every day.

Then I realized that this was just some endorphins making me feel good, and then I started to feel really tired and decided that I am probably the last person you should go biking around Tanzania with ‘cause I’m totally wasted after a mere two and a half hours of biking. My goodness, it made me hungry.

thanks Erik Zweig for the email. It made my day.

My mind and body is limited

I should be posting more. I have the ideas and trips for posts. I even have drafts waiting to be finished and posted.

I have too many interests for my mind and body. Is that a reflection of age, planning of ones life, or is it a good thing?

(I wrote this whole post and lost it on a mozzilla crash while posting, and if I am not careful I will get called away before finishing this post to fix the vacuum cleaner, and after fixing the vacuum cleaner I will start to fix a bicycle.)

Back to my limitations. For example I get interested in waste water purification. So I research it, forget what I learned, learn it again, build one, it has flaws. research, forget, research, .....

How does this apply to bicycling? I am wondering if I should simplify. My biking activities include: commuting, bike racing with club, riding with novices, casual club mountain bike rides, riding with family, long mountain bike rides, short and fast mountain bike rides, fixing my bikes. They are all fairly different activities, related but different. So I am wondering if i should give up on the racing and casual rides.

Another posts waiting to be written on how I am seeing my role as encouraging others to ride bikes.

There was a young pilot at a restraunt couple of weeks ago. He had walked by himself from Engaruka to Arusha. I told him he should come biking with us.

It is raining everyday.

I went to bed early for a planned 330 rising and leaving at 4am. I woke up about 11pm and felt aching all over and a bad sore throat. I lay in bed being miserable for about an hour and then gargled and took aspirin and then slept.

I didnt feel too bad at 330 so I started to get ready. I move slow and then i had to get Ezra's bike ready. I can't believe it took until 445 before we started off in a heavy drizzle. it was pretty slick to get the the highway.

Our destination was vague but figured with mud that riding towards Mfereji was a good bet.

My 02 Rainshield jacket worked well and I was dry.


Only one vehicle passed us on the hours ride on the highway. that was pretty nice. We could ride side by side and talk.

We reached the Lengijave plains and stopped for a drink and I took this picture. I guess it was still raining at that time. the slog, the boring highway part was over and now we had the short grass plains before us. We swooped down to the edge and then bounced on rough grass down a steep ridge.

It was mostly downhill for the next hour or so. Everything was green but notmuddy. we got on a small foot trail and that led along hte edge of Oldebesi valley. We say some thomson gazelles and zebra and a hawk here and there. mellow ride.

the trail led us into the sand river so we crossed it and came to a boma half way up the other side. Paulo discussed our optins and then recomended riding straight for the old track on the far side of the valley. Ezra surrendered his bike to a masai who wanted to try.

We rode across clumps of grass for awhile and got ot the hard smooth road and went on down the valley.

Paulo suggested we crest a hill and stop at a boma for chai. while swatting flies in the boma Paulo asked for some chai. the man of the boma was castrating sheep that day. They sent a young girl to borrow some sugar from the boma 400 meters away. Paulo talked and eEzrra and i got to know each other better. Turns out one woman in this boma had been to our compound in Arusha, and stayed two weeks waiting treatment.

chai was good and we sat inside a hut.

They showed us a good trail back and we were oon tracks the whole way back.

Turning around it was now slightly uphilll all the way and into the wind and we were more tired. We moved at about 10-15kmph until it became steep and stopped for another breakfast. We lay on the grass drinking chai and sandwiches from home.

Now there was 30 minutes of a steep track up to the lengijave plains.

people changed from masai to waarusha. we met some people who knew Ezra.

up on the plains the speed picked up and by 1230 we were at the highway. Now it was a coast home. I was tired .

78km total time was 8 hours, riding time was 5 1/2 approzximately

Lower Themi River

All week i as promising myself that I would do a new route, maybe an adventure. It is great doing the same routes with the club too, but I needed something new.

I had several options but a ViaVia Cafe after work Erik mdogo suggested riding south from his place to Kiteto. I didnt commit until 2 minutes from leaving the house. 4am was hard to get motivated, but 5am i could get out of bed and get ready. I left at 6am in the dark.

at around 7 i was passing Erik's place and called in and got him out of bed to share my breakfast. He showed me how to get back to the road without backtracking and soon i was out of the trees and into the plains, an old Sisal Estate stretched every way i could see.

I started to runn into big camps from the estate , some derelict, most deserted as all the adults were in the fields. I crossed a river and found out it was the Themi river. It was chocolate colorted and full of plastic bags.

I was warned to ask directions abecuase there was mud over the road. I didnt see anyone to ask and before i knew it i had done an arc and was back along the Themi river fallowing two bike tracks between =plowed fields and the river.

It got better after 5km and then i noticed a big track accross the river so i waded the river .

People were filtering water by diggin in the sand along the river. Most of the river is in a steep cut out and lined by huge fig treees. Never seen such big fig treees.

I was advised to leave the track along the riverr and follow a track away from the river.

It was always uphill and sometimes steeper. I hit a big road and a washed out bridge being rebuilt.

Met some hice people and kept cranking. was gone 6 1/2 hours, rode 5 hours and went 90 km. the last 2.5 hours i rode straight and didnt eat, just drank. I was a bit knackered and took a 10 minute nap before taking kids swiming.