“The best rides are the ones where you bite off much more than you can chew, and live through it.”

— Doug Bradbury, MTB pioneer

Prologue

In the latter week of April 2023, I joined a group of sixteen people from nine different nations and cycled across Kenya, from the “Place of Cool Waters” Nairobi to the “White and Blue” Mombasa. We had embarked on an ambitious goal of cycling five hundred kilometers in five days on this trip. This was the pre conference bike tour to the IPPNW World Congress in Mombasa. 

I joined my first IPPNW bike tour back in 2012 in Japan from Nagasaki to Hiroshima. I had just passed my medical school and started working as a physician in India. I was a novice cyclist and hardly had any physical fitness. We covered over 600 km gradually in two weeks, but it was still a challenging bike tour for me. A much water has flown down the bridge since then. I am now an Internal Medicine Specialist. I had participated in the German Bike tour (200 km) and organised the Kazakhstan Bike Tour (700 km). I am a professional mountaineer and have summited peaks up to 22,000 ft including Mt Kilimanjaro, the highest peak on the African continent with IPPNW Africa. I am also a marathon runner and hold a Guinness World Record for running the highest frozen lake half marathon at 14,000 ft. 

With that background, I still found cycling 100 km every day for five days a very challenging event. It requires at least 6-7 hours of cycling every day even at a conservative pace. It involves negotiating upslope, humidity, and headwinds. Of course, it also carries the inherent risks of bike breakdowns, flat tyres, and suffering grievous injuries. This tour was also unique, as the route also involved cycling through Kenya’s largest ‘Tsavo National Park’. So I was eagerly looking forward to this exhilarating experience.

Day 1: The First Step

“Moving forward requires that one first take a step.”

― Chase S.M. Neill

The bike tour was due to start on 20th April 2023 from Nairobi. The capital city is situated at an altitude of 1800 m above sea level. It is the multicultural hub of Kenya. The team started assembling a few days prior and had a good time interacting with each other. They also explored the city before the tour started. I was the last one to join the team, so I missed the pre-tour fun. 

The city of Nairobi flagged off our bike tour with an early morning drizzle and an overcast sky. That was a perfect start. But after that, things became chaotic for some time. The team had had a tough time negotiating through the streets of Nairobi. The traffic was worse, roads congested and narrow, and even the drivers were not considerate. One of the cyclists nearly got his head crushed under a truck. Everyone had to push really hard to get out of Nairobi. It also took some time for everyone to find a comfortable pace and understand the group dynamic. It turned out to be overwhelming, and a few of us got really exhausted and retired into the recovery bus. I believe that was the lowest point for the team during the whole trip. 

The things began to streamline once we were outside of Nairobi. The roads were comparatively wider with less traffic. So everyone got space and time to cycle comfortably at their own pace. The group dynamics also gradually improved. So everyone was back in the saddle by lunchtime. We successfully finished the 120 km on the first day with no major incidents. 

Everyone was exhausted but was proud of this unbelievable feat for a team which assembled for the first time in the morning. The evening was spent celebrating in the pool, followed by the delicious meal in the hotel. We sorted out the logistics, and based on the feedback from team members, necessary amendments were made!

The team was ready for another day of a 100 km ride!

“The first day’s always the hardest, because it moves so much faster than a film does, and once you get into that rhythm, though, you feel like you’ve accomplished so much in such a short period of time, so there a bit of comfort in that. You just have to find your rhythm.”

– Jaimie Lauren Alexander, American actress

to be continued….

Next chapter: My tryst with Kenya – 0.2