“To raise exposure, funds and books for Shine, I will endeavour to cycle from Cairo to Cape Town arriving in time for the 40th Cape Town Cycle Tour on the 12 March 2017. One week later I will be on the start line for the toughest mountain bike stage in the world, The ABSA Cape Epic which will kick off 8 days of grueling riding on the 19 March 2017. One week after completing the Cape Epic, I will line up for the IRONMAN SA Championships in Port Elizabeth on the 2 April 2017.”

19 January 2017

After our long day in the hills and dirt roads to Kolo, we left our slightly questionable accommodation early the next morning for what was going to be another big day to Dodoma (the capital of Tanzania amazingly enough). We went in search of food and were also praying that the tar we had found towards the end of the day would continue now until Dodoma, 175 km away. Sadly not, as the lovely smooth beautiful tar ended 35 km later and we found ourselves on even worse roads in some huge hills and crazy heat. We had covered 35 km in just over an hour when we hit the dirt, it took us almost 3 and a half hours to cover the next 25 km! Our bikes were taking a hammering ?. We stopped at a village to consider our options as We did not know when the dirt would end and by now we weren’t going to reach Dodoma by sunset even if we were on tar. There was also nowhere obvious to stay for the night up ahead. Then Pete’s shoe broke! That made the decision a bit easier and we hitched a ride with a local truck. Just as we were congratulating ourselves on our good luck, bang, the back tyre of the truck blew out! ? Amazing. While the guys were fixing the truck, Pete managed to tape/glue his shoe together and we eventually got dropped off 50 km outside of Dodoma and made it into town just before sunset. Quite a day all in all…