In mid January the mornings in Cairo are cool. The riders who embark on this epic journey will shiver a little as they prep their bikes in the early hours of January 16th. Pumping tires, packing bags onto the support trucks, and filling water bottles all in time to depart shortly after the sun has risen for the day.
Each participant has spent months preparing, and asking many questions to many people about what to expect. They all are certainly curious to know what it will really feel like; standing at the base of the great pyramids at Giza and looking out over the 12,000 km that stands between them and Cape Town and the completion of their goal.
Here’s a quick pre-view of the 2010 Tour and its participants:
- 50+ full tour riders – those that will start January 16, 2010 and cycle almost 12,000 km to arrive in Cape Town on May 15, 2010.
- 30+ sectional riders who will join at various stages through the tour to cycle a portion of the tour in support of a friend or to experience the part of the tour they are most interested in. (while still keeping family and career in tact back home)
- At any given time there will be between 60 and 70 riders plus 10 to 12 staff on the tour.
- One third of the participants are female.
- The riders come from US, UK, Ireland, Canada, South Africa, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, France, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Italy, and Venezuela.
- The youngest rider is 18, and we have a few riders who are 60+.
- Staff include drivers, medics, mechanic, tour leaders, and a chef.
- One third of the riders are interested in racing the tour, while the rest are just hoping to complete it while seeing some sights along the way. Those racing will be timed and their results posted on our website. (Last years winning time; a mere 380 hours, 43 minutes, and 34 seconds)
- The goal of many racers and expedition riders alike is to ride the tour EFI (Every Fucking Inch) from Cairo to Cape Town without once getting on the support trucks.
- The participants stay in a hotel in Cairo and Cape Town and camp every night in between.
- The tour first ran in 2003, and this will be the 8th annual Tour d’Afrique.
- The tour travels through 10 countries in Africa: Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa.
I will be traveling to Cairo in January and hope to do some more reporting from there during the first several weeks of the tour. Before the tour gets underway I will also do a few more posts to give you some insight into what this tour is really like.
In the meantime, our website has extensive information on the upcoming tour, and on the other cycling tours we run…
