Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - 10:28 PM

David has started his tour, read all about the adventure...

Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Repairs

One person we couldn't do without is our mechanic, Ewald. He jumped in his Land Cruiser in December, left Holland, stopped in Greece for Christmas and continued on to Cairo, where he met us just before the trip began. Since then, he's been fixing anything that can shake loose over the course of a thousand kilometres.

Yesterday, I asked him to tighten my brake cables and he also noticed that I had a loose spoke, a loose headset, a bent derailleur and the my rear hub needed to be repacked. Clearly, he has an eye for detail.

I'm grateful that I brought a simple, low-tech bike with me; the snazzy full-suspension bikes are the ones that are up on his repair stand most often.

posted by David Houghton @ 3:21 AM 0 comments
Leaving Egypt

We've reached Abu Simbel, in the vast expanse of the Nubian Desert. A one-horse town, or one-donkey town, to be more accurate. From here we catch a ferry for a full day's trip across Lake Nasser to Wadi Halfa in Sudan.

We've crossed the Tropic of Cancer and the heat is slowly increasing. Temperatures at night are still cold, perhaps 5 or 6 degrees, but the afternoon temperature yesterday reached 40 degrees.

Yesterday we had a great ride into town from our previous night's camp in the desert. The tailwind pushed us effortlessly into Abu Simbel in just a few hours of riding. Along the way, I saw camel roadkill for the first time. After seeing the mess, I can't imagine what the vehicle looked like.

posted by David Houghton @ 3:11 AM 0 comments
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Glorious food

Rizik, our cook, has been very busy trying to keep us nourished. Riding at 25 kilometres an hour, we're each burning about 700 calories every hour. Over the course of a five-hour ride, that's a minimum of 3500 calories we need to replace.

We eat breakfast at 6, then meet up with the lunch truck mid-morning, where we wolf down pita, cheese, sausage, bananas and halvah. We eat as soon as we arrive at camp in the afternoon, then Rizik prepares vast pots of food for dinner. We've had lamb and potatoes, macaroni and falafel, lentil soup with vegetable salad. Many of us are back up for seconds as soon as we've finished our first plate.

We're eating anything that isn't nailed down. And food never tasted so good.

posted by David Houghton @ 7:18 AM 3 comments
Police protection

Police escorts have accompanied us all the way through Egypt. They drive ahead of us, they drive behind the last rider and they are at every campsite, vigilant through the long night.

In Safaga two days ago, we had a particularly rambunctious crew. They watched Ewald, our mechanic, repair a bottom bracket with childlike wonder. They pointed at parts of the bike and spoke to each other animatedly in Arabic. When Matt, one of our British riders, pulled out a soccer ball, the police all shouted at once. We set up an impromptu game in the campsite with rocks for goalposts. Five cyclists in sandals and Spandex against five Marlboro-smoking, black-trenchcoated members of the Egyptian military.

It was a close game, but we let them win. They had some serious guns.

posted by David Houghton @ 7:07 AM 0 comments
Luxor

Day six of the trip and already there is so much to tell. First, the race story.

Aris, a Dutch rider, had finished first on four of the five days of the trip. Yesterday, he took a spill after touching another rider's wheel and broke his collarbone. He flew home to Amsterdam last night and may or may not rejoin us later in the trip.

Another of the Dutch racers took the opportunity a few days ago to slipstream behind a truck. Slipstreaming allows a rider to coast at 60 or 80 km/hr. But the downside is that the rider has to be so close to the back of the truck that he cannot see what's approaching. Hitting roadkill at 80 km/hr means the rider is roadkill too. Our Dutch racer got to the finish line 40 minutes before anyone else. He was then assessed a 2-hour penalty. One step up, two steps back.

We have travelled east from Cairo to the Red Sea and followed it down to Safaga. We then turned back inland, returned to the Nile and have now reached Luxor. We have a rest day tomorrow and every rider is thankful for a day off the bike. Muscles are aching. Derierres are sore.

posted by David Houghton @ 6:23 AM 0 comments
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Two paths

When each of the riders signed up for the Tour, they chose to join as a racer or a tourer. Racers are timed every day from the minute they leave camp to the minute they cross the finish line. Tourers cover the distance at their own pace, stopping whenever they choose. But the distinction between racers and tourers is not obvious on the tarmac; there are racers who hang back, saving their energy, and there are tourers who are right in the midst of the racers. It's impossible to tell who's who.

There has already been a lot of good-natured competition to see who has the stuff. A rider will break away from the race group just to see who is able to keep up with him. There are half a dozen racers who have made their presence known already. But these are early days. There may well be illness and accidents that change the standings completely.

posted by David Houghton @ 6:33 AM 4 comments
Cruel & unusual

Our first day of riding took us 100 kilometres directly south from Cairo. Day two was supposed to be a 140-kilometre ride, but due to some 'navigational rearrangements' we unded up riding over 200 kilometres. Our Tour Director had directed us to last year's campsite, but due to the whims of our Egyptian police escorts, we had to set up camp 60 kilometres down the road.

Many of the riders on the trip had never covered 200 km in one sitting, so there were some sore derierres by the end of the day. Those in the lead group spent 7 hours on the bike. Those who trailed behind spent as much as 9 hours in the desert sun. Already it's clear that everything is approximate, from the distances we cover to the time dinner will be served. We're learning to adapt; there's no other option.

posted by David Houghton @ 6:24 AM 0 comments
Lingua franca

The majority of riders on the Tour are Dutch. We also have riders from Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, the United States, Belgium, South Africa, France and Canada. The Dutch riders speak Flemish and the South African riders speak Afrikaans (the next best thing), and the Belgians and Germans join in.

So I'm doing my best to learn Flemish in the midst of a country of Arabic.

posted by David Houghton @ 6:16 AM 0 comments
Setting off

We began our ride at the pyramids of Giza. The Egyptian Minister of Tourism was on hand to make an official speech before we began. We assembled our bikes under a banner at the starting line and he took the microphone.

"Welcome. Good luck. One, two, three, go."

Perhaps the shortest speech ever delivered by a politician of any country.