The Disastrous Dinder Defeat

“Dinder National Park”, is a new route that the tour decided to take this year to both avoid the heavily trafficked roads south of Khartoum and we were invited by the “ministry of tourism” to ride through the park that has been officially closed for seven years. We should have known that the park being closed for seven years would be an indicator for the type of roads we were about to face… The total distance of the day was set to be 140km, based on the results of the day before, we knew it would be tough to get the distance in. Based on my morning leaving camp, I should have known what a horrible day it would be for me. I started off the morning, unable to move my arms very well due to the extreme abuse of them the day before. As I rushed to get my stuff ready for the day to get out of camp by 7:15am, I noticed my bike computer had died, I tried to change the battery, breaking the entire sensor for the computer off of the frame. In a desperate attempt to fix the situation I duct taped the entire computer back on, to no avail. It would be a long day of riding, having no idea the distance or speed. A very difficult concept for a control freak… Not being able to wear a watch either, due to the fact that the watch greatly irritated the badly swollen forearms. Captain Erin says that it is time to go, and as I struggle to get organized, I get my helmet off the ground and as I go to throw it on my head, see at the last second a scorpion fall out… Yikes, close call. We start the ride. The day starts out with similar terrain as the day before, washboard, and crappy, crappy roads. Little do we know that as the day goes on it will only get worse and worse. Extreme concentration is needed to ride over this terrain as any lack of attention leads to falls, especially with clipless pedals- As many riders and the nurse could attest to later on with late night patching of all the injuries. At 49km we reach the Entrance to the Infamous “Dinder National Park”. They tell us it is essential to ride in groups of 4-6 to keep us safe from the animals in the park… We wait at the entrance until groups are formed and off we go. The roads become HORRENDOUS. Scorched, dry, corrugated, farmer field roads that have not seen water for maybe 100 years, with loose sections of sand and dirt on top, with irregularities and potholes everywhere. The only thing I think you could have done in advance to train for this would be to find a farmers field and ride your bike around in it, although it would have had to be just combined and crappy with no irrigation. This is the most difficult riding I have ever done as was the case for most riders, not to mention the fact my arms still felt like they were bleeding on the inside from the day before. Every single bump led to a winced face trying to suck up the pain from the lack of shocks and the difficult terrain. Minutes turned to hours as we anxiously awaited the 75km point where we could get more water and eat lunch. I have never wanted to be done something so badly in my life and to make matters worse, truck after truck of military vehicles brought “spent and broken” riders past the riders still on the road as riders quit the day opting for any way out of the park. I found this both demoralizing to see these people finished with their agony for the day and encouraging to know that I had the gumption to carry on, while these riders could push no further. We arrive at lunch at 3:00pm, 75km in, they tell us the day has been changed to 118km, which at the speeds we were moving, would still be incredibly difficult to achieve, but everyone has been held here, awaiting a new grouping of people by the park officials to ride in convoys, again, to protect us from the dangerous animals (of which no one had seen anything). At lunch the tour is trying to figure out the logistics of incredible numbers of riders who will no longer ride and want a ride in a vehicle to camp… Very unforeseen to them, it is quickly becoming obvious to everyone that Dinder was not a good idea, but now we are in it, people are upset at losing EFI status and the state of their bodies. The staff is getting abused by tired riders and they are trying to make plans to transport craploads of people. I grab a quick 20 min lunch and decide to head out on my bike, determined to finish- or get picked up trying. Again, truck after truck of broken riders continue to pass by. I am riding with Dave for a long time. At 85km I see some of the best riders getting into a truck. My body hurts and all I want to do is quit but my stubborn nature overrides these thoughts, I ask Jenn for a headlamp as I know at this point I will be riding in the dark and possibly alone and I carry on. Dave and I decide that we will ride to the end or get picked up together trying. At 90km the worst thing happens, it is after 5pm and I get a large thorn puncture my tire, a pssssssttt sound followed by several choice words and a stressful situation. Dave the champ decides this is the perfect time for a cheese sandwich for both of us, I change the tire, as he makes the sandwiches out of scrounged stuff from lunch. Both of the spare tubes I am carrying, one is new, seem to not want to take air. Now it is 5:30pm and I am patching a tube. I put the tube in and as I blow it up, the patch fails. Another flat tire… A couple of riders ride by before I find someone with a tube that will fit the tire. By this point Erin and Dana (my usual group) have ridden by and Wayne finds us and stops. We get the flat changed and quickly get back on the road. The sweep vehicle pulls up and we realize we are going to have to book it if we will be able to finish. I tell Dave to go on, as I feel I am slowing him down and I catch up with Wayne and Erin and Dana. It is getting darker and darker and now we have a truck behind us following us… At any point they can decide it is over. When I get a chance, I power up…and leave the group, knowing if I get ahead alone there is a better chance of finishing because they will have to fuss with the riders and bikes as they load people up in the dark. It is 7pm and dark and I find myself alone in the park, a military vehicle pulls over and tells me it is over, and I need to get in the vehicle because the river is 10km away and the roads are dangerous. There are lions and they are worried. I know they are not in charge of us and don’t make the decisions of when we stop or not, the tour does, and Paul (race director) has told me about 45min ago that we need to get to the EFI line at the river and they will shuttle us to camp from there. I tell the military guys, I am okay and I will not get in the truck. They are very worried. They say “you are crazy lady”… They try again to put me in the truck, I get in my bike and ride away fast so they cannot put me in. It is hard to see now as it is very dark and I am riding with just the headlamp. I am not worried about these so called lions, in fact I decide at this point I would be stoked to see a lion as I had worked so so hard all day to ride through this park only to see the crap road ahead of me…. It is now 7:20 and I reach a small intersection. It is done. I don’t know which way to go, I can’t see the flagging in the dark so I sit on the side of the road waiting for the sweep truck. I am at 103km. I hope the sweep truck will follow us with the lights so we can keep going. Finally at 7:35pm the trucks arrive. I am sad to see Wayne and Dana and Erin inside. Kelsey gets out and says it is over, I have to get on the truck. It is too dark and too dangerous. I am initially devastated and then proud. I was the last person to get put in the truck. Erin and I talked about it the next morning and she said something that I found very valuable and will remember for the rest of this trip. She said “It is funny how sometimes a failure can also be a success”. It was so true. As the four of us rode the truck to reach the camp, we started following a convoy of trucks of bikes and defeated riders. The difference was that in that moment after 12 hours and 35 minutes of riding with a 20 minute lunch, we each knew that we had given that day 100% of absolutely every single bit of energy we had. We were broken, both physically and mentally but we were stronger for it. And every day of this tour will be different for me now. I officially lost my EFI on day two 3km outside of camp but I felt robbed of those kilometers. But the Dinder Defeat was a legitimate loss of my EFI, but I put every ounce of my soul into that day and therefore it was a success. As the convoy of riders converged, and we got out and got into the truck together to go to camp, some having just gotten off their bikes, some having been in the truck all day, we realized that in that day 40 riders had to get on the truck. Peoples dreams of “Every Fabulous Inch” were stolen from them in the Dinder Route. Many people lost their dream of EFI but we will have the memories of the Dinder Defeat forever. There were a lot of tears and injuries and stories of the day, and that is what memories and expeditions are made of. We arrived at camp to learn that some riders had riden the entire 140km to camp! Unbelievable and fully deserving of EFI and the respect of everyone arriving in trucks. I got off the truck to hear “Steph you are on dish duty tonight”. The irony of this situation just made me chuckle. I took 4 ibuprofin for my arms and went to bed. It was a long day, but we had to wake up in a mere 6 hours and do it all again, so the only answer was to put the day behind us and move on. I was battered and sore and I slept in my clothes laying in the hot tent in the desert of Sudan.

Day three on the dirt. It was another hot, hot 45C day on the terrible farmers field corn field washboard. My arms were now at a state that I thought there may be irreversible damage as I have never know the possibility of forearms being so swollen. From the side you could see that my forearms were visibly 1 inch swollen. Erin and I were physically done as were many riders. The lunch and dinner trucks were full before even leaving camp this morning, people had decided if they had lost their EFI already, they were not going to ride, others were injured and others were just dealing with pure exhaustion. I felt like I had all of the above but alas still too stubborn to get on the truck, mounted my bike and rode away. Riders that needed to stop in the morning were unable to mount the trucks because there was no room. At 10km in Erin got a flat (her first) so we stopped and I helped her change it. Our bodies were battered, both of us now (after Dinder) dealing with saddle sores ( my first of the trip) and my arms were in horrible condition, making changing the flats aweful. At 20km I got a flat tire (my tenth!!!) We stopped and changed it. We were done, emotionally and physically. We biked and walked the rough sections, ground that I don’t believe anyone in their right mind would choose to bike over… At one point we stopped and made a video of the difficulties of the last 24 hours. We arrived at the lunch truck at 3pm. Doing an analysis of the time, our condition and the heat (46C), Erin and I both (although we are two of the strongest women I have ever known) decided we would never reach 140km before dark and it would be a fruitless effort. I put my tail between my legs at 65 km and willingly for the first time on the trip got on the truck. Again a failure but also a success of knowing when enough is enough and knowing we had given that day our all. As we drove along in the lunch truck we passed truck after truck of defeated riders and bikes. Another atrocious day, more riders losing EFI and everyone arriving at camp either by truck or bike very late…Heat stroke and injuries plagued riders along the route. Most people arrived in the dark another day in a row. We shared the one squat toilet amongst all 70 of us and then went to bed to wake up and do it all over again, only this time in Ethiopia…

Today was another trying day but in retrospect, a piece of cake. We woke up and 15 riders decided to they had had it and got a mini van to Gondor, Ethiopia, our next rest day, two days out. They were done. The rest of us approached the Ethiopian border (a piece of string tied across the road) and waited for each person’s passport to be checked against a book of hundreds of names not allowed in the country, this you can imagine took time and then we entered our third country of 10. Ethiopia we knew was not going to give us the rest we all desperately need but it is a change. It is notorious for its endless hills, altitude (Addis Ababa- third highest capital city in the world next to La Paz,Bolivia and Quito,Ecuador and the children that throw rocks and steal stuff off the bikes as you ride. Our day today was 98km with 1098 m of climbing. The country started off with a hill right from the border, the hills were hard and the kids relentless but in a weird way, no where near as hard as Dinder. At camp 5 more people decide to forget the riding tomorrow and go ahead to Gondor. It was a quiet campsite tonight with 20 riders missing but it made us see what people are made of. Tomorrow is a mandatory race day, 2502m of climbing, but the beer will taste so much better knowing we worked so hard to achieve it. TIA- This is Africa and so our adventure has begun. 7 days of misery- 905km (of which I rode 814km). Khartoum and that rest day feel like a lifetime ago.