Day Five - Mike Savage Safari Camp to Nairobi

Distance: 136.50km
Ride time: 6:37
Climb: 1606m

Non-race day. Yay.

I was kind of surprised to find out that we had 1600m of climb for the day. And that there was a convoy half-way through the day.

To avoid the fast people having to wait for _all_ the slow people to turn up at the convoy start, there were going to be three convoys. The first 15 would head off with Chris, the mechanic, and probably make good time. Each subsequent group would be slower and have to wait longer to get going. That meant that for a non-race day there was a bit of pressure to still make good time up the hills. I wasn't really too keen on this, what with the stomach cramps and all. Instead, I set off pretty early and tried to get a head start. Even so, it was only a couple of hills before Stuart and Gizi caught up to me.

I would have been happy to ride by myself. I think that I could have gone an easy, comfortable pace and still made the first convoy. Gizi figured that we might as well ride as a group though - being a non-race day and all. This meant that I had to ride a bit faster than I felt good at and Stuart and to ride a bit slower. Oh well.

We made it to the lunch stop and convoy start with plenty of time to spare. Enough time to chow down on some really nice honeydew melon and eat a mango. Then I got some Africa cold cokes and we had those. I think that this was my fatal mistake.

By the end of the convoy (only one flat: Jethro, and one broken bike: Marcel) I was feeling pretty terrible. For about five minutes I would feel strong and could power along. Then I'd have cold sweats and stomach cramps for the next 20 minutes. Not ideal for riding up heaps of hills (the outskirts of Nairobi are pretty hilly) and through a lot of traffic.

Apart from the cramps, it was a pretty nice day of riding. We had a sweet section of dual carriageway before lunch that was packed with real rollers. Could fall out of the sky like a fiery meteorite (well it feels like that to me), wait until the speed dropped below 50 then power back up the next hill. Some of them were just the right size to stay in my hardest gear all the way to the top. Others I had to spin a bit. They were all fun though.

Even the cramp inducing, heavily trafficked hills on the outskirts of Nairobi were pretty nice. Plenty of views across the suburbs and hills.

I even saw a car coming down a hill get massively sideways, locking up all four wheels. I'm not sure what they were trying to do, but heaps of the Kenyan drivers are pretty keen overtakers. It wouldn't surprise me if they had just had to emergency brake before they flew through the safety barrier and sailed into space.

Rod's Camping Tip: Bring earplugs. When the party is still going at 2am or the person next to you is letting them rip - you will definitely want them. Pro tip: good airlines will give you free ones on your flight over. Etihad will even give you a nice soft case with your airplane socks, eye mask and ear plugs.