Fundraising status: 8354.89€ or 74% reached! As the tour is now done, a big thanks to all the generous contributors. This amount will make a difference for some kids in Africa! But feel free to keep on participating, the Justgiving page is still open and you can find the link here!
Stage 83: Felix Unite to Springbock
KM: 134.21 km
HM: 1504 m
Time: 5h26 minutes
Flat tires: 0
Liter of water: 4
Strava link
Stage 84: Springbock to Garies
KM: 118.16 km
HM: 1189 m
Time: 4:34 minutes
Flat tires: 0
Liter of water: 4 + 2 capuccino some bacon and eggs
Strava link
Stage 85: Garies to Strandfontein
KM: 162.16 km
HM: 1552 m
Time: 7h06 minutes
Flat tires: 2
Liter of water: 6 + 2 sprites
Strava link
And here we go, after a last rest day in Felix Unite where we enjoyed the first ever TDA olympics, it is time to hit the road again for the last section of the tour d’Afrique.
The first day of this last section started with a few kilometres of nice Namibian rolling hills before we crossed the Orange river, separating Namibia and South Africa, and reached the border to finally enter our tenth and last country of the tour. Hello South Africa. The ride after the border was rather boring and unspectacular, almost 30 km of straight light climbing road without much to see around. The excitement of the day came from a few drops of rain as I had to wear my raincoat for the first time of the tour. After around 5h26 minutes, Baldr, Steve and I reached the town of Springbock where we went for the usual “new country activities” meaning changing our money and buying a SIM card. After that and an ice-cream, we reached our camp where I went to bed extremely quickly as my sleeping bag was the only warm thing around.
The next day started with some very light snow as we packed our tent (yep the temperature was below 4°). Therefore, after enjoying some delicious porridge (I hate that stuff by now), it is with all the clothes I could find that I started my ride towards the town of Garies with Baldr. Thank god, on that day, the sun started to shine after a few kilometres on the saddle and the landscape was way more interesting than the day before. Moreover, right after our lunch we found a nice little town with a nice little coffee shop where we got some bacon and eggs for a second lunch or third breakfast, not sure what is the best way to describe it. After this lovely break the road was mainly going down
till the city of Garies where the TDA team had to book all the available accommodations in town as the local camping was not suitable for any camping any more (no toilets and so on). As I was extremely tired on that evening, I went again to bed early and therefore missed the second game of the champion’s league semi-final between Ajax and Tottenham (you will understand why this information is important very soon).
With 162 km and around 1600 hm, the third day of this section was seen as one of, if not the last big day of the tour. Moreover this day finally brought us back to some special places: 1: to the Ocean after we left the red sea months ago –> I was very much looking forward to it 2: on some tough gravel road –> not very much looking forward to it…
I started this day alone on my bike, as my usual bike partner Baldr was mentally not able to ride due to the last-minute defeat of Ajax Amsterdam the day before and decided therefore to take the TDA truck to Strandfontein. The day started nevertheless quite well for me, but unfortunately it changed after 25 km as my front tire exploded due to a piece of glass or metal on the road. As I was riding tubeless, I tried to fix my tires to keep it tubeless but after a few meters only, it was clear that even a tubeless set-up cannot compete against a hole as big as one finger… Therefore, I put a tube in, covered the hole with a protector and just hoped that this would hold till the end of the day. Of course it did not as after 5 kilometres I had to put another inner tube and based on the recommendation of Ryan our bike mechanic, I covered the hole with a 10 rand note and started to pray as being out of inner tubes and the last rider of the group, another puncture might have meant the end of my EFI status. And to be honest, losing my EFI 3 days before the end due to a stupid puncture would have been amazingly frustrating.
Thank god, the new inner tube survived the rest of the day, even the 30 km of rough gravel that we faced on that day and despite the climbing, puncture and strong headwind at the end of the ride, I could finish it and I finally reached our beautiful camp along the ocean after a bit more than 7h00 of riding and immediately took care of changing my front tyre.
Stage 86: Strandfontein to Elandbay
KM: 108.99 km
HM: 802 m
Time: 4h52 minutes
Flat tires: 1
Liter of water: 4 + 2 capuccinos and an amazing english breakfast
Strava link
Stage 87: Elandbay to Yzerfontein
KM: 145.91 km
HM: 529 m
Time: 6:23 minutes
Flat tires: 0
Liter of water: 5 + 2 capuccino and some tasty cake
Strava link
Stage 88: Yzerfontein to Cape Town
KM: 94.52 km
HM: 687 m
Time: 4h20 minutes
Flat tires: 0
Liter of water: 6 + 2 sprites
Strava link
The fourth day of this section was an “only 108 km” day and therefore I thought that this would be a piece of cake, unfortunately, a combination of gravel, climb and headwind made it way more challenging than expected. To be honest, the first 60 km which were mainly on gravel were really exhausting and challenging as my body was definitely not coping well with the gravel any more. Thank god, after these 60 km we ended up in a small coastal little town and found there an amazing coffee were we got once again an amazing second breakfast with eggs, bacon and so on….The only negative effect of this second breakfast was that Alain, my bike partner of the day, struggled to keep on riding as his stomach was quite heavy ;-). We therefore biked on a very small and relaxed pace till the small city of Elandbay where we enjoyed again a stunning camping place on the beach where we’ve been greeted by some very playful dolphins in the ocean. Oh and I forgot to mention it earlier but I started the day again with a flat but as this happened at camp, I could change my inner tube without any issue this time….
For the second last day, the program was the following: 71 km on our own, followed by around 70 km of convoy as the local police was not willing to let us bike on our own… To the exception of a great cake stop where we enjoyed many slices of very tasty handmade cakes, we spent the first 71km on a rather flat and boring road without anything special to mention.
The second part of the day was somewhere fun as we had to drive in a group of minimum 12 and had to stay behind either a TDA or a police vehicle until the 140 km mark were we’ve finally been released and I sprinted with Baldr and Loraine till the town of Yzerfontein.
As we arrived in Town, we immediately found a really nice bar on the way to our camp and had to stop there to start a bit too early celebrating the end of the tour ;-).
After having tested all the local beers, we finally reached camp where we got a special dinner and our last rider meeting. This last rider meeting has been extremely well organized by the TDA team as each and every rider received a special “award” based on his personality and or special capability. On my side, it is without any surprise that I received the most punctures award as with 23 of them I won this inofficial competition 😉
And here we are, after almost 4 months it is time to reach Cape Town and ride the 88th stage of this Tour d’Afrique 2019.
It is therefore with a bit more emotion than normal that this day started. On top of the emotion, this day brought a lot of mist, we therefore had to postpone our start of 10-15 minutes as it was dangerous to ride due to the thickness of the fog. Despite the fog and the very cold temperature on that morning, the first km were really nice as we rode through some very nice rolling hills and Ostrich farms.
After 25 km we reached the little town of Darling where we stopped at the Marmalade Cat to “once again” eat some cake. The only issue in that regard is that this was mother´s day and after our passage, the Marmalade cat was out of cake for the rest of the day and they were not so pleased with that. Well, what shall I say, the two pieces of Lemon tarte I ate were so good that I cannot even feel bad for them ;-).
After that lovely stop, we enjoyed some climbing, then crossed the township of Atlantis which showed us that South Africa is still having a massive amount of its population living in a very precarious situation. After Atlantis, we fought against a quite strong headwind to reach our lunch based on a beach right in front of the table mountain.
And for this special day, we got as well a fantastic lunch with a massive amount of variety, cheese, dry meat and even some non-alcoholic champagne (yep safety first…). As everybody wanted to get a pic in front of table mountain, we spent significantly more time than planned at this place which means that our friends and family waiting for us in Cape Town were slowly but surely getting impatient. But with 1 hour of delay with the schedule, we finally started to move and at that moment I started to get a bit afraid that I would not be in the position to finish these last 17km as my tires decided to grow some very strange bubbles (see pic below), none of the riders around ever saw something like that and I was therefore slightly nervous.
Thank god, my tires survived and after 17 km of convoy, we reached our final destination where our beloved ones where waiting for us and it is with a massive joy that I finally saw Lisa after 4 months without her !
After the arrival, we spent quite some time taking pictures, greeting and kissing each other and being quite emotional as this amazing adventure was reaching its final moment. After the beach pictures, we had the official TDA ceremony where each rider received a small medal and where I with 6 other guys received my Every F…ing Inch certificate as we succeeded to ride the full tour without using even once one of the TDA vehicles !
The rest of the evening and night has been enjoyed with quite some drinks but that will stay between the riders 😉
Final Thoughts
Below you will find a few of my thoughts now that the tour is over.
Would I do it again? I would definitely do it again, this was most probably one of the most crazy decisions I ever took but I never regretted taking it even 1 minute during the tour.
What are the skills needed to do it? Being a decent biker is helping, being trained as well but more than a good fitness level and bike knowledge you need to be adaptive. We biked in countries that are so different from what we usually experience that you need to be able to accept this difference and go with it. The main factor for a successful and fun tour is adaptability and open mindedness, the physical condition will come during the tour anyway.
And what about this EFI thing? As I said in an early post, EFI was not my main focus but I’m quite proud that I have reached it. A big part of finishing EFI is indeed based on some luck as you have to be lucky to not get sick or break any important parts of your bike while riding almost 11’000 km during 4 months! But it is as well a lot about persistence and maybe even stubbornness to be ready to sit on the bike every single day independently of the weather, your mood or the exhaustion you are feeling. Of course being a seasoned biker and in a good shape is quite helpful too ;-).
Did my perception of Africa change? Not really, I have been lucky enough to travel a lot through Africa over the last years, and this trip just showed me once again why I absolutely love this continent. The spontaneity and welcoming culture that one can experience in Africa is absolutely unique and I cherished that during this tour. Yes it is often badly organized and things are confusing but if you can get over that, this continent is just magic!
Did I miss some stuff ? No, actually the tour showed me that one can live with way less than what we usually have. For these 4 months, two 90L bags were more than enough, actually I even had too much stuff with me!
What was the most challenging part ? Actually the biking part was challenging but the social part of this tour was maybe as challenging as the biking one. To summarize, the Tour d’Afrique is somewhere a social experiment, bringing 30-50 persons from different background and countries and putting them under quite some stress in a more or less close environment for 4 months is a very interesting social experiment. But not always an easy one…
And that’s it for now, I’m sure that as the time will pass by I will realize some additional learnings and will reflect a lot more on this amazing experience but it is now time for me to thank you for your support and for reading my blog and for the ones wanting to get some more information about the tour or interested in participating in it, feel free to contact me directly here. I will be more than happy to share my experiences with you!
And here we are, after 10’765 km, 59’461 hm and 428 hours and 06 minutes on the bike, the tour d’Afrique is over.
During the last 4 months, I spent an average of 5 hours per day on the saddle, climbed the equivalent of the Everest 6.7 times and did a bit more than the distance between Bern, the capital of Switzerland, and La Paz in Bolivia ;-).
And the last gallery can be found here
Fred
maman et papa
30 May 2019Brrrrrrrrrravo fiston, nous sommes fiers de toi (presqu’autant pour ton blog que pour ton exploit) et nous réjouissons tout plein de vous revoir, Lisa et toi, demain matin à l’aéroport. Ne te fais pas de souci, pour le p’tit-déj de samedi matin, j’ai consulté des sites de recettes pour te confectionner un excellent porridge !
Fred
31 May 2019Trop gentil d’avoir pensé au Porridge, je me réjouis ! 😉😉😉
maman et papa
30 May 2019Eh, heureusement que ce n’est pas la Suisse qui jouait contre Tottenham, car c’est toi qui n’aurait pas terminé EFI…!!!???