Northern Kenya- Day Five- WET WET WET

We woke up this morning to a torrential thunder storm and crazy pouring rain. It was interesting to see a bunch of people not used to the rain packing up their tents and organizing themselves…Some “hardy souls” or better yet, ignorant people chose to sleep in the “dry” river bed, Not a great idea when the night before looks like rain, luckily the rain didn’t start until this morning. It was no real use trying to stay dry, as the rain was so heavy and we were all clad in our biking gear. I ate a very quick breakfast and rolled out to get the day underway. Many, many people opted to not ride right from the beginning (riding in the rain is uncomfortable and it has become a theme for several people that if it is “uncomfortable” it is better off to get in the truck. Interesting concept when riding across Africa as there are parts of everyday that are “uncomfortable”). As I got about 2km down the road, I realized that I had forgotten my water bottles (full) that I had neatly stacked beside my bike. So this is the kind of day it is going to be, I thought. I rode back and got them and started biking. I rode the first 30 km by myself, a very slow process, averaging about 11km an hour over sandy, sopping wet, extremely corrugated terrain. An 87km ride in soaking bike shorts over corrugation doesn’t help for chafing and saddle sores let me tell you.. It is a lesson in patience and distraction of the discomfort. After about the first 10km it was obvious it was going to be a day of riding through puddle after puddle after puddle. Soaking wet socks, shoes, shorts, and shirts… This is the day. Today is about the most abusive day that I could imagine for our bikes. The bikes were in water up to our knees every few kilometers as we had to ride through all this water. The bike shop (where the One bike mechanic can help with bikes) went well into the darkness. My bike sounded horrendous all day long and after lunch I lost both my front and rear disk brakes… I met up with Australian Dan who wasn’t feeling well (he is generally one of the fast riders) and we rode the rest of the day together. It poured on and off all day long. Dripping wet and extremely muddy we rolled into lunch, a quick stop as it was very cold to stop for very long due to the fact that we were all dripping wet. Northern Kenya again lived up to it’s legendary difficulty as 24 riders rode the truck to camp… Several other riders have opted after our rest day to go ahead to Isiolo, Kenya to bypass the “dirt section”. There are construction crews starting on paving the road so this afternoon we found a section of road under construction without corrugation, a welcome break for our battered bodies… With all this road paving the “Tour D’Afrique “ is drastically changing, maybe The Infamous Northern Kenya Dirt section will be completely paved over by next year. A sad thought, I think they might have to do some reconnaissance of a new route to maintain the difficulty of this race as it has already changed so drastically since it began in 2003. Tomorrow is our last day on the dirt until after Arusha, Tanzania where we start with dirt all over again. Apparently tomorrow the pavement will start after a mere 10km, we are all very excited to see the pavement again! I don’t know who will be more excited, me or my bike! I went to the mechanic tonight, and found out that both my disk brake pads (front and rear) are done. Unluckily I only ended up bringing one set, hard to decide whether I want front brakes or rear brakes… It is funny how we bring so much stuff to prepare for anything that could happen, but then when you really really need something, you don’t have it and it becomes an absolute logistical, stressful dilemma. I am trying to arrange with one of the sectional riders to get some disk brake pads brought in, hopefully in Nairobi but we will see. So many things that I wished I had more of, tire tubes, brake pads, chamois cream and of course wine gums… because I am in withdrawl everyday.

We are seeing on and off several groups driving from Cairo to Capetown. We have met two dudes from England, driving their souped up landcruiser down, a guy on a motorcycle from Germany. The craziest girls, two Spanish girls that are driving their Minivan from Spain to Capetown. We see them all the time on these roads as daily, something else breaks on their Minivan… It is absolutely the craziest thing I have ever seen as this is CLEARLY a road for 4 wheel drives only. Their minivan would probably not even get them across Canada, let alone Africa! Even our overland trucks barely make it some days…. We will see how far they get. They had problems with their drive shaft yesterday and blew a hole in their aluminum oil pan. Nuts.

Day Six tomorrow. I am almost EFI for the Northern Kenya section, which I am super stoked about because less than half the people so far have rode all these horribly wonderful days… One last day and then the day after tomorrow we will reach the equator!