[ ]
From:
Date: 22 Feb 2006
Time: 17:02:15 +0100
Remote Name: 213.55.89.8
“Damn you, Ethiopian beer” coming from Todd our mechanic just before he was supposed to switch over shocks between mine and Monty’s bikes had quite a unnerving ring to it….but he sobered up well and ticked it off his unending list of mechanical issues to deal with that evening. He’s a phenomenal mechanic, even when hungover. The next day I flew like the wind on Monty’s shocks (the poor lad is still under the illusion that he is going to get them back one day) and caught Huberte at 25k even though she had left half an hour earlier. Randy had briefed us about the major hazard to cyclists in Ethiopia: the Ethiopian kids. When they are not shouting “you, you, you” or “give me money” as we ride by, they are hurling stones at us with the accuracy of David Beckham curling in his world cup qualifying goal against Greece. Nothing has hit me yet, but I’ve seen several stones skidding past my front wheel on many occasions. Plenty riders have been hit with stones already. So far I’ve only been hit on the bum with a donkey-beating stick while I’ve been cycling, no stones yet, so I count myself amongst the more fortunate. Another of their favourite pastimes is running alongside us and grabbing hold of the bike – the speed I go uphill, I can’t shake ‘em off and need eyes in the back of my head and a firm grip on the handlebars, waiting for the shove that will bring me down one day. For all of the above reasons, we try and avoid cycling alone in Ethiopia, and I stick with Huberte most days. The two days riding from the Ethiopian border to the town of Gondar, where we were to have a rest day, involved considerable climbing, starting in the afternoon of the first day and continuing for much of the second day. Quite a few riders got on the truck for the second day, but being the nut-job that I am, I thought I’d have a go at the climb while the scenery was so beautiful (we were crossing over the Simian mountain range). The day got off to a good start – I had had a flat the previous day and patched it that evening and it was flat again; so tyre change straight after breakfast. Also, the previous evening, Todd had fixed a small problem I had gearing down to the small ring, and I forgot that the bike was down in the granny gear when I set off. The outcome of an uphill start on gravel in the granny gear while clipped in to the pedals is a big rear wheel spin followed by a sideways Splat! onto the deck. Most unimpressive. Anyway, it was a beautiful day, wonderful scenery, and uphill for the best part of 40k, with an elevation gain of something like 1700m for the morning. I spent most of the morning with Gergo and Kirt-Jan, whose recumbent wasn’t really up to the terrain but was entertaining for all the kids who wanted to push him up the hills. After about 25k Gergo checked his GPS and figured out we still had the best part of 1000m to climb, at which point I puffed out the unladylike equivalent of “oh dear”, figured I’d never make lunch within a reasonable time, so hitched a lift into Gondar with two telecoms engineers, one of whom spoke excellent English. I invited them to lunch at the lunch truck, and Katherine then hitched a lift with my hitch into Gondar. Katherine is French origin and emigrated to Canada years ago. She is another nut-job. We are the same age and get on quite well, as two nut-jobs would, although I don’t think she has much time for my taste in music “you like zee slow music” and somehow manages to always plug her MP3 player into my speakers before I can plug mine in…. After the rest day in Gondar, we had two days of outstanding cycling between Gondar and Bahir Dar, where we had another rest day in preparation for the following tough days. The road had been paved since the previous year’s TDA and was a mixture of rolling hills and great downhills, ending up on Lake Tana in Bahir Dar. By far the best cycling days of the tour so far. After Bahir Dar we had five riding days to the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa. On day three of the five, we descend from the plateau down into the Blue Nile Gorge and then go right back up to the plateau after crossing the bridge at the bottom of the Gorge. Because of road construction works in the Gorge (the Gorge is still unpaved, but the two days either side of it are now paved) traffic was blocked from entering between 10am and 3am. This meant that the prior year TDA schedule would have to be changed, and the two days ride to the Gorge became two 160k day rides (100 miles a day) including a significant amount of climbing on each of those days. We would camp 17k from the start of the Gorge, descend 18k and ascend 22k up the other side on dirt road in one day. In a moment of madness, I decided I was going to EFI the Gorge. So I did half days for the two days leading up to the Gorge to give myself a chance at it. The second day of the two century days was Jenny’s birthday (63, unbelievable) and she wanted to do the whole day on her birthday. Kees and Jenny rolled in at around 6.30, just as the sun was setting (it was a very very tough hilly day) to the sound of us all singing “Happy Birthday”. I almost had an emotional moment, it was wonderful to see. The two century days took a lot, and they decided to not ride the Gorge, as did many other riders. The downhill was fantastic – out of the corner of my eye I did clock a few missiles raining down from above on several occasions, but nobody appeared to have been hit on the way down. Katherine set off down the Gorge screaming like a banshee and apparently all sorts of bits flew off her bike on the descent. I did the descent humming the theme tune to Raiders of the Lost Ark all the way down (duh de dum dum, duh de dum) and did actually maintain a respectable speed for the descent, not quite the fearless-kamikaze speed of many other riders, but more like a fearless-with-a-hint-of-caution-and-occasional-kamikaze-leanings speed. Then it was the uphill. The fastest racer did it in about 1 hour and 50 minutes. Mere mortals probably did it in the best part of three hours. It took me the best part of seven hours, including break stops and time off the road to let the flood of traffic past when the Gorge opened again at 3 in the afternoon. Legs and lungs begged for mercy but got none. John and Dieder were waiting near the top, and there were cheers when I finally got in at the end of the day. Mission accomplished, I had EFI’d the Gorge. Paid for it the next could of days though, and just did the half days to give myself some recovery time. Today is the rest day in Addis Ababa, memorable for hordes of hungry cyclists descending on the buffet breakfast at the Addis Sheraton. Two Stages now complete and I am still in one piece. Remarkable.