Reading on Tour

Having been staunchly against the idea of e-readers, for a multitude of reasons, we have both caved in for this trip and bought Kindles, as carrying several kilos of books around is not really a viable option! The one big advantage we can see is the opportunity to download lots of classics for free, although not many we can think of relate to Africa. We would like to have some books that relate to the countries we are passing through, to help us understand better the communities and landscape we are passing through - however, it is a bit of an unknown how much energy we will have at the end of each day to read, so it is a concern we might start a book on Egypt in Cairo and still be reading it by the time we get to Kenya!  So, we’re looking to do some crowd sourcing for suggestions.  Please let us know any recommendations - some books about cycling would probably also be good, as well as just some good reads.

Ali’s list so far is:

Paul Theroux – Dark Star Safari, Karen Blixen  - Out of Africa, Dave Eggers – What is the What, John Irving – A Prayer for Owen Meany, Ned Boulting – How I Won the Yellow Jumper, Put Me Back on My Bike: In Search of Tom Simpson, Mark Twain - Huckleberry Finn, Jack Kerouac - On the Road, Daniel Defoe - Robinson Crusoe 

Lizzie’s list:

Richard Dawkins - The Selfish Gene, Barbara Ehrenreich - Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passion of War, John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath, Martin Amis - London Fields, Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall, Arthur Conan Doyle – The Memories of Sherlock Holmes, Michel De Montaigne- On Friendship, Ewart Scott Grogan - From the Cape to Cairo; The First Traverse of Africa from South to North , Alastair Humphreys - Moods of Future Joys - Around the World by Bike

ColaLife

Over the Christmas break we met up with Simon and Jane Berry, the inspiring creators of ColaLife (one of the charities we are fundraising for), who were over in the UK for a few weeks.  Simon and Jane had dog walking needs, so we spent a pleasant morning tramping through the mud to a nearby pub whilst they filled us in on the detail of the initiative. 

ColaLife, so called because of the original innovation, utilising Coca-Cola’s distribution network to take life giving rehydration salts to rural communities, is currently in a pilot stage.  They have set up in two districts in Zambia (Katete and Kalomo, both of which we will pass through on our ride) and are looking to gather evidence on the use of market forces to distribute medicines.

The stark disparity between a rural shop and the
supply room in the local medical centre next door

The stark facts that motivated Simon and Jane are powerful. Did you know that globally, diarrhoea is the second biggest killer of children under five, behind only pneumonia, but ahead of Malaria, HIV and measles combined?  Being able to supply mothers with Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS) and Zinc makes these deaths preventable; however traveling to health centres in not an easy task in rural communities and once there, there is no guarantee that they will have the necessary medicines.

Observing the contrast between the packed shelves of the local retailers and the empty shelves of the health centres, the seed of an idea was sown.  Why is it that Coca-Cola is available in all rural communities, but rehydration salts are not?  Coca-Cola works by creating a product pull at a consumer level; individual shopkeepers then source the product to meet that demand.  What ColaLife seeks to do, is enable their product (the AidPod – complete with ORS, Zinc and soap) to be pulled through the same network.  Key to this is a standard profit margin for the supply chain, incentivising them to get product to the end user.  Crucially pricing is calculated by understanding what the end user can and will pay and the profit margin required by the individual retailers.  The basic principle of market driven supply and demand should therefore ensure that local sellers are stocked with the AidPod.

So, having made the relatively simple link between the supply chain and the distribution of life giving meds, you think the innovation is apparent, but the more we spoke to Simon and Jane, the more we were overwhelmed by the actual innovations that have taken place.  The 8 ORS sachets (manufactured in Zambia – a first) contain the correct amount of powder for 200ml of fluids (also a first) thus providing a single helping for the child, rather than salts for a litre as provided by the clinic.  But crucially, the pod which carries the salts and Zinc acts as a reusable beaker for the child and is itself exactly 200ml, so that the measure can be carried out correctly and provide a mixture of the correct concentration.  It is really these elements that mean that this product is absolutely tailored to the needs of Zambian mothers.

It was nice to understand more about the great work that Simon and Jane are doing and brought us a step closer to the communities that we will be passing through on our journey, as well as the issues they are facing.  With only two weeks to go, it has made us all the more excited to get started!!!

For more detail, have a look at Simon’s blog: http://www.colalife.org/blog/

Simon & Jane Berry with one
of the ColaLife AidPods

Hop, Skip and a Jump

If only getting from Cairo to Cape Town was this easy...

Cycling Jerseys!

A little a while ago, one of our friends, Ant, designed an awesome logo for our trip, which you can see over to the right of the website. We loved it so much we thought we would get it put on some cycling jerseys that we can wear as we ride across Africa. We reckon they look amazing - excuse the gormless looks and crazy hair - this photo was taken very soon after we got out of bed! (although, for the record, we hadn't slept in them).

Winter Riding

Our training rides this weekend were the first really cold rides we have done. Last weekend, our planned training rides in Devon were curtailed by all the flooding. This weekend, frost and ice on the road almost did the same. We persevered, however, and were rewarded with some stunning early morning views of frost-caked fields (quite a contrast to Cairo in a month's time!)

 

Sadly, with the lovely views came quite treacherous road conditions, some with my name on it. Going straight along an undulating road, I hit some black ice and the rear wheel kicked out and I went down - my right hip, right elbow and rear derailleur bore the impact. The hip has turned a lovely purple (see below), the elbow of my brand new rain jacked has a terminal 8-inch tear and the rear derailleur bent enough to mark the end of the ride (after only 40 miles of an 80 mile ride). Lizzie's Mum came to the rescue, we got to a bike shop and just about patched ourselves up,  managing a 50 mile ride the following day, with some equally stunning views, and a lot more care on any icy patches!

 

Our training!

Click here to watch our training video! 

Over the past couple of months, we have been taking out the GoPro on our training rides - by good fortune, the weather has generally been kind to us (sadly I neglected to bring it out the day that there was hailstones the size of large grapes). Here is a nice montage of some of our rides - we think it almost makes training look enjoyable!

Chilterns MS Centre

 

As one of the charities that we are raising money for, I thought I’d share a bit more information about the Chiltern MS Centre, which my Mum attends. 

When chatting to Mum about the centre there were two things that struck me – firstly, and not unexpectedly, the sense of community there.

MS is an idiosyncratic condition, affecting everyone differently; the centre is a place to share experiences.  There are a range of services available, including a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, which enables users to breathe high pressure oxygen into your system.  This is a done as group activity and there is always friendly chatting about how people are getting on and tips about recent discoveries, such an accessible shop or a comfy make of knee support. 

Central components of that community are the team of friendly physios who have a range of expertise and are a key source of keeping those who attend the centre tapped into the fundraising and other activities taking place.

The second less obvious thing, but in many ways more important, is that it is a place where it is OK to be disabled.

Mum has had MS for around 10 years.  During this time, amongst other things, she has qualified as a psychoanalyst and like many other disabled people has a busy working life.  In fulfilling her day job, there are any number of things that Mum has to consider that her more able bodied contemporaries take for granted; getting from the car to any given appointment being both the most obvious and most time consuming.  These things cause considerable pressure, but in her determination to live her life as she chooses, these are complications which to a large extent Mum makes invisible to those around her.

At the MS centre, there is no pressure to hide the wiring.  Surrounded by others with similar constraints there is no expectation that life flows smoothly.   Being in an environment in which it’s OK to acknowledge that provides important respite.

The centre has recently moved from a portacabin to a new plot.  Of course this new more solid building brings all sorts of opportunities, but also costs with that.  Impressively, there is a hydrotherapy pool on site which is a valuable facility for those with MS and potentially for other users.   As a psychoanalyst, Mum is working with counsellors to make use of the new space to set up some counselling, for both patients and carers.  Using trainee councils, once up and running this should be a cost neutral service, but like other elements it requires investment.

The Man Who Cycled the World

It wasn’t long after we decided to cycle the length of Africa that I was in Waterstone’s looking through some books and noticed a front cover showing a man on a bike. I smugly picked it up, imagining some relatively easy challenge and promptly had my bubble burst, by reading about Mark Beaumont, who at 24 set off to cycle 18,000 miles around the world in 195 days. Suddenly, our heroic and Herculean 7,500 mile challenge seemed rather trivial (although I will maintain our road conditions will be much worse…).

Last night, Lizzie and I were lucky enough to go along to a talk he was giving in London and he said some things that made me feel a whole lot better about the ride:

·         The hard bit is before you set off – once you are on your bike, the challenge is simple. You just get on it, peddle the right number of hours each day, and you will get there. There are not lots of complicated decisions to make. This resonated with me, because at the moment there seem like a thousand and one decisions to make and I look forward to the impending simplicity once we arrive in Cairo! [Note: this is not the same as it being easy!]

·         Don’t focus on the challenge or the destination as this will be mentally exhausting – enjoy the journey. I found this out cycling from John O’Groats to Land’s End and it is something I want to ensure I do from Cairo to Cape Town. I don’t want to think about Cape Town until the day before I arrive there. When I wake up each day, I want to immerse myself in that day’s challenge and discovery.

·         It is natural not to feel elated or celebrate at the finish  line – again, a learning from John O’Groats to Land’s End. When we arrived, we were exhausted and relieved we had been able to conquer the challenge. Feelings of elation and celebration do not kick in until the days, weeks, months and years that follow. So when I get to Cape Town, have a sip of champagne, and promptly fall asleep, this will be acceptable behaviour in front of my parents who will have flown all the way to Cape Town to see us finish (just setting expectations…)

·         And the one that worried me: Mark said “It is natural when you finish these challenges to think about the next, bigger and better challenge.” I dread to think what that might look like as this will take SOME beating…although I don’t intend to make any rash Steve Redgrave-type comments when I finish.

Stats

Some time ago my parents gave me an atlas – one of those really big hard back ones that you can’t hold but have to lay out on the floor and crawl around to properly inspect the countries on the other side of the page.  Whilst google maps in the palm of one’s hand may make us feel like the world is at our finger tips, shrinking and enlarging beneath them, there feels to be a greater sense of discovery in making my elbows sore, tracing our route through the pages and marvelling at the unknown names of exciting places that we will pass along the way. 

So where will we be going? 

-          During the ride, we will pass through 10 countries – Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa.

-          The total distance is 11,718 km – that is roughly 7,500 miles.

-          Distances each day will range from 80 km on rough terrain to more than 180 km on the best paved roads – that will average out at about 80 miles per day.

-          Total days in the (blazing) saddle will be 94, but there will also be some rest days along the way.

We leave in January – with our flights now booked, we start the ride on the 11^th. 

I’ve also recently found out that there will be 50 of us in total – 33 men and 17 women, ranging from 18-70 years old.

Human Pin Cushion

One of the downsides of visiting Africa is the enormous number of diseases that can get you – as we’re passing through pretty much every strata of Africa, we need to protect against pretty much every disease I’ve ever heard of, except Japanese Encephalitis (I’d be surprised if I could get that outside of Japan…) and Smallpox.

The reason the latter is of no concern is that it is the first disease to have ever been wiped out from the whole planet, and I found out why the other day. Up to the 18^th Century, doctors used to try and protect children from smallpox by cutting them, inserting a dried smallpox scar from a previous victim and hoping that would mildly infect them and they would develop immunity. The downside with this is you could also die. In 1796, a rural English doctor began investigating an old wives’ tale that if you had cowpox, a non-fatal disease, you could not catch smallpox. His research involved grabbing a farmhand, cutting them open and pouring in puss from another victim’s cowpox pustule. The farmhand, as expected, developed cowpox and subsequently recovered. At which point, the doctor, Edward Jenner, tried to infect him with smallpox in the method stated before. However, the boy did not fall ill and thus, vaccinations were born - so named after the Latin ‘vacca’, meaning cow.

So, it was armed (no pun intended) with this bit of knowledge, that I have valiantly been striding between various doctor’s surgeries and travel clinics to get all my vaccinations, safe in the knowledge that at least I won’t be cut open, and I definitely won’t develop the disease and die. So far, I’ve had tetanus, diphtheria, polio, Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B and the first of three rabies. So only meningitis, typhoid, cholera and two more rabies to go. Just think of the poor farmhand who made this all possible…

How I Feel At The Moment

I'm not even going to get started on my current trial of the anti-malaria drug, Lariam - which can make some people hallucinate so I'm trying before I fly to Africa. A couple of funky dreams so far, but nothing worse!

Hopes and Fears

There is so much about our trip that feels unknown.  Churning out the miles in the British drizzle it is hard to imagine ourselves pedalling away through the African heat.  To help prepare I’ve been having a think about the things I am most worried and most excited about.  Let’s start with the worries.

Number 1 – Saddle Sore.  This is every cyclists unavoidable and impending reality.  Recommended remedies range from generous dollops of Vaseline or nappy rash cream to a nice cut of wagyu beef down the pants. Yum.

 

Number 2 – Thunder Thighs.   Apparently this German started with matchsticks for legs – need I say more!?

 

 Number 3 – Terrible Terrain – upsettingly this is an actual photo from our route and makes Islington best attempts at an assault course look like the Olympic Velodrome.

I know that there is little that I can do about these, so instead I distract myself with the reasons that we are really doing this trip:

 

Number 1 - With an average of 80 miles a day under our belts for four months, I’m pretty sure that we are entitled to eat whatever we want/can lay our hands on.

Number 2 - Sunrise in Africa daily- magic.

Number 3 – these are going to be the best days.

Health MOT

Lizzie and I recently joined a gym round the corner from where I work to squeeze in lots of spinning classes, pump some iron, argue on the squash court and then relax in the sauna, although we've only done the first one so far...As part of joining, you get a complementary health MOT, so I went along thinking I would be told I looked great and had lovely eyes, but was just told I didn't need to pay.

As I went through, I had images of me running on a treadmill with an oxygen mask on my face (like you see in sporting documentaries and Lucozade adverts), but instead I just went into a little room where I had my heart rate measured over a few minutes and my finger pricked.

Cholesterol Test - apparently I eat too much cheese!

So what did I find out? My resting heart rate is very low, my VO2Max (ability for body to absorb oxygen) whilst good is only about 2/3 that of Bradley Wiggins, and my cholesterol isn't in danger territory but I could do with eating less red meat and cheese (probably my favourite two things, especially when put together!). My view is that if I'm cycling 80 miles/day for 100 days I can eat whatever I like, especially leading up to Christmas!

Our shiny new bikes!

We have finally got hold of the bikes that will power us (that's the dream anyway...) all the way from Cairo to Cape Town! After settling on the Salsa Fargo, a good bike that is closer to a mountain bike than a road bike, we discovered that one of the few stockists was a stone's throw from our flat, Mosquito Bikes who were amazingly friendly and helpful.

Our shiny new bikes!



We trundled on down for a fitting, got some top tips on how to sit on a bike (which is surprisingly complicated, it turns out), and had our respective Pegasuses/Pegesai(?) ordered to fit like gloves (or a nice pair of slacks). Although they did turn up without pedals which slightly defeated the point of ordering complete bikes, I thought. This weekend will be the first test ride so fingers crossed we like them!

Lizzie and her Argo (she hasn't actually named it that, I am just trying to show off some iota of cultural knowledge)