Round and round we go

Stage 46
Day Total: 51km
Total Time: 2:25
Avg. Speed: 21.2km/h
Avg. Heart Rate: 103bpm
Total Climbing: 647m

Song of the Day: Sideffect8 – Live from Boulder 22-September

The pleasantries of last night’s camp continued through dinner as charcoal grilled chicken was the featured main (for the meat eaters amongst the group). Truth be told, there was no hot chocolate available after dinner, but its presence was always advertised as an occasional luxury so I have no basis for any serious complaints. The camp even featured Digital Satellite TV and for the sports fanatics amongst the group this meant watching – with cold beers in hand – live Super 15 rugby. The enthusiasm and appreciation for this luxury were plainly visible on all faces.

The good fortunes blessing this camp carried over to breakfast as we dined on muesli with fresh fruit (mangoes, apples, pineapple) and vanilla yogurt. Delicious. Even more so when you know there will be no hard riding on the day and as such you can indulge to previously unknown (for breakfast at least) levels of excess.

The ride continued with similar scenery from the previous riding day with increasing amounts of trees and vegetation broken up by larger, organized farming plots. At the top of a short climb Paul and I stopped at a series of fruit stands for a delightful variation of the coke stop: the fruit stop. On tap were enormous, perfectly ripe mangoes for the bargain price of 6 for 100 Kenyan shillings ($1.25 USD). The kind woman manning the stand sliced one open for us on the spot, the remaining 5 going into the vehicle that has been following the local Kenyan riders that have joined our group for a few days.

Refreshed and relaxed, we rolled onto the appointed rendezvous point at 51km at the Blue Post hotel. Lunch consisted of another round of delicious tuna sandwiches on incredible bread with brilliantly ripe tomatoes, all of this a flashback from that memorable lunch on the way to Nanyuki just north of the equator. Lunch improved even more when a local woman wandered up to the truck selling large, freshly cut pieces of pineapple. I ate 5 and made my way to the hotel to wait comfortably for the remainder of the riders to arrive. Strategically, we gave a change of clothes to one of the non-riders on the day, and after getting out of my cycling clothes I celebrated the end of the section with a cold Tusker beer. Paul and I celebrated further by each consuming a double cheeseburger and french fries. And with that, we were ready to get on the trucks to roll into Nairobi.

Given that everyone would be vehicle-bound for our approach, the tour contracted additional vehicles to transport both people and bicycles. The extra vehicles were large, open-air trucks with ~30 seats used for overland camping/safari trips. Everyone inside arrived very chipper and genuinely seemed to appreciate the ride. My name was assigned to ride in the lunch truck. It’s a very cool vehicle, but with 13 people in it, it was a bit cramped and did not feature the same comforts of the overland trucks. I did my best to keep everyone humored as we stalled in traffic multiple times. We did manage to purchase a number of different fruits from people on the streets as we for forward progress to resume. All in all it was not too terrible and within 2 hours we arrived at our rest day camping location.

The Indaba campsite is a hybrid campsite/administrative offices/truck service facility for the Indaba company. Indaba is the company contracted by TDA to provide truck and additional support services for the tour. As far as camps go, this one is nearly perfect for a rest day location: warm showers, flushable toilets, grassy tent sites, internet, satellite TV, restaurant, and beer. Its location in the upmarket neighborhood of Karen – a favorite amongst expats – meant a shopping center complete with restaurants, coffee shops, and supermarket were all within walking distance. This is promising. Rest days have been less than restful previously largely due to the fact that one had to “hunt” for food. I suspect there will be no issues here.

We spent the balance of the afternoon visiting the local bikeshop which promised to be a “real” shop with items we needed. Phone calls were even made a week in advance to give them a partial shopping list of the riders. Upon arrival, we found a nice store with hardly anything that anyone needed. They did not even have a single tube in stock. Unfortunate. For my part, I only needed some tire levers (which they had) and two tubes to replace the ones lost in my camelback. Partial success, but on the whole, my spirits are high as dinner is to be held at the Brazilian churascaria-inspired meat feast restaurant known as Carnivore. This could be memorable!