Zambezi Cycle Challenge

(Paul) The pre-race briefing started like this: “We are very fortunate to be able to cycle thru the Zambezi National Park. We will have rangers stationed around the course with rifles to protect the riders from elephant, lions, wildebeest, and cape buffalo.  If an elephant charges, hold your ground, yell like crazy and throw your bike at him. You will need GPS because you will get lost. There are no signs on the course. The course is 76 kilometers, with a sprinkling of sand. Good luck everyone.”

While in Victoria Falls, I learned that there was this one-of-a-kind mountain bike race through the bush lands of Zimbabwe. The wife of our safari guide, Josie, arranged for her friend to bring me a mountain bike, helmet, gloves, shoes and entered me into the Zambezi Cycle Challenge. Josie told me, it will be fun and it’s only 40k long (or something like that). Great, I have not exercised for months and I could use a good workout, how hard could it be?

Then I go to the pre-race briefing and find out it is 76 kilometers with a 120 riders from Cape Town, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, New Zealand and one stupid American. I leave my hotel at 5 am in the morning and bused out to the starting point. The woman sitting next to me on the bus had an Ironman 70.3 (half Ironman) water bottle, so of course I ask, “Have you done a half Ironman?” “Not a half, but did a full Ironman last year and the year before and the year before that”. What I have got myself into?

The 76 kilometer race starts. We start on a paved road, I’m thinking this will be fun, then after 1 kilometer, we turn into the National Park onto uneven dirt roads and SAND. 5 minutes into the race, I hit a patch of sand and go flying. I land on my shoulder, wonder what just happened. I quickly get up and for the next 10 kilometers I am fighting through pricker bushes, more sand, and thorny trees. I am now bleeding, covered in dirt and I have 66 kilometers to go. I said to one cyclist from Zimbabwe, I thought they said “a sprinkling of sand,” he said “oh they were just being funny, the road conditions get much worse.” It was like riding on a beach.

I make it to the first water stop at 25K and think surely it cannot get any tougher. The next 20K are through these beautiful open plains where the grass is above your head. The problem is the path is an elephant track and when I hit one more sand patch and fall for now the fifth time, I am eye level with elephant dung, missed landing in it by inches.

By the 50K mark I’m hurting and my leg starts cramping. Miraculously, a guy from behind says, “you cramping mate” as I hop around on one leg. He says, “take these two no cramping pills”. What a savior, whatever he gave me, it worked, the cramping stopped.

We are now on a dirt road that is in decent shape, except for one thing, we are now biking into a strong headwind. So it can’t get worse, right? Think again, we get lost. After climbing a sand dune, carrying the bike while walking up the dune, we realize we don’t see any riders and my riding partner looks at the GPS and realizes we must have taken a wrong turn. We then hear a cape buffalo in the distance and I’m thinking, this is not good. Miraculously, we here hear a motorbike in the distance. It is one of the park rangers to the rescue. He has been tracking our tire prints in the sand and points us in the right direction.

My riding partner, an amazingly nice South African named Ted Knight, kept motivating me to finish the race, offering all kinds of encouragement. As we finish, I see 4 beautiful little girls waiting for me, running alongside as I cross the finish line.

Now that was a bike ride. Oh, I forgot to mention, it is a three-day race, fortunately I only did the first day.