Steve's Cycling Blog

I had expected there would be dew or condensation on my tent this morning as by around 0400 it had cooled to the point that I had to pull the fly over the end of my tent, and my sleeping bag liner over me.

As I’d been heading into my tent last night my camping neighbour Rob – one of the new riders who joined us in Dakar – asked me if I could make sure he was awake in the morning. That didn’t prove necessary as by the time I was up just after 0600 his tent was already down!

This morning the usual suspects set off together and were making reasonable time switching out who was leading every 4 or 5 kms – the wind was such that it was harder to be leading, but not significant.

We’d caught pretty much everyone else as we rolled into the 40km coke stop and took our morning tea break. Australian Kevin set off a little ahead to take a break in the bushes once he was out of time. The others of us timed things just right and we found him just as he got back on the road.

In to lunch which had been sold as being under two large baobab trees, but at least one of them has passed on and fallen – of the other there was no sign – perhaps this wasn’t the planned location?

One of the advantages of spag bol for dinner is leftover mince at lunch the next day – there were also chicken schnitzels and more of the flat breads we’d had yesterday to make for a real red-letter-day lunch.

With such a short distance to cover today nobody was in much of a rush to head away, but even so we were done with ‘lunch’ by not much after 1000. Canadian Kevin was planning to ride more slowly through the ‘afternoon’, so the other three of us set off together. A while later Kevin stopped to phone home, so Mateo and I carried on together.

Sophie was riding this afternoon and we saw her a little while later stopped to also take care of communication needs. We stopped at the coke stop at 82km during which time both the Kevins, Sophie, Jacqui, Paul, Paye and ???? all came in for a break.

I managed to get my maths wrong and had worked out that we had another coke stop in 18.5km, so Mateo and I set off again intending to stop there – it was however in 8.5km, at which point we didn’t need another break (or even realise that we were there) and at the point we did want the break there was nothing to be seen – doh!

With little other option (other than going back I guess) be carried on and were soon turning off the main road onto a track which lead through the baobabs to camp.

As advertised there are lots of baobabs here, and I’ve set myself up between a couple of them to provide me with all-afternoon shade (I hope!) because the clouds have cleared and the temperature in the shade is 38 degrees – out in the sun it’s so hot that the charcoal the crew have put into a pit for tonight’s BBQ has spontaneously ignited!

I got my tent up, had a wash, rinsed out my riding gear and hung that all up to dry – it’d only been up for about 15 min and it was mostly dry!

Tonight’s beverage seller seriously underestimated the opportunity he had and was out of stock by 1500, even though his rates were about 30% higher than last night – I was glad that I’d had a beer reasonably early on – others were waiting for dinner, but that didn’t end well for them.

There are also lots of locals in and around camp and Sharita has been off to purchase a 100m long rope to use as a ‘perimeter’. She’s concerned that it’s not long enough so several of the crew and trying to untwist it to give them something three times as long – honestly, it’s not going well – it’s damn hot work and I’d estimate that they’ve done about 10m at most!

In the end I helped to get the rope out straight and convinced Lezinda that they were on a losing mission, so she cut the three strands they were making from the rest of the rope which I then coiled up – it’s still a very long rope!

Some of the perimeter rope was deployed once the crew were ready to start putting dinner on the BBQ, and a reasonably large group of children had gathered. A couple of riders took a photo of the group, and I got the impression that they said something rude in Wolof because the boys laughed, and then Phillipe yelled at them, and they promptly scattered – not to be seen again!

By riders’ meeting the cloud cover was building up again which was helping to take the edge off the heat – now as I’m writing this at 1930 it’s under 30 and feels like it might continue to cool down.

Tomorrow’s route is as simple as today’s was – out to the road, turn right, ride 141km, turn left, camp again. Hopefully the road stays as quite as it was today.

BBQ steak for dinner – the bit I got was tough as an old boot! The vegetarians had grilled aubergine, and didn’t seem to want it all, I had a couple of slices of that which were much better.

A cup of tea, a bit of a chat and most people have now headed into their tents. My solar panels have got my laptop back to a useable state and now that it’s cooler getting this written – even if I can’t upload it on the level of connectivity here is a good way to pass some time.

Last night there had been some boys kicking round a half-flat soccer ball beside camp, so I went looking for a ball needle which I managed to find in the lunch-truck pump. MJ took a couple of photos of me pumping their ball back up.

Earlier Canadian Kevin had also taken a shot of me sitting under my tree as a herd of cattle were passing

View from my tent

Selfie of the day

Riding data