Well now, here we are again about to start on a new tour and
this time for reasons that escape me, we are going from somewhere
called Ljubljana to Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik I understand, a world heritage site,
this beautiful medieval city at the southern tip of Croatia is a place I am
told, that everyone should visit at least once. The fact that a great friend of
mine is getting married just up the road Trebinje the day after we are due to
arrive, is of course a happy coincidence!
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| Our destination |
No major changes for any of us since we last got together
for our Lisbon to Valencia ride in 2014, Chris and Jeremy still rule their
respective areas of the software industry, Graham still has an ever expanding
garden maintenance business and Harley will probably be ‘in oil’ for the rest
of his days. For my part I’m still in Khartoum, working for the largest food
company out here and learning to navigate the extraordinary challenges of
trying to run an honest, ethical business in a country with a chaotic and
corrupt regime. On the personal side, we all seem to have arrived at that point
in our lives when most of our children have buggered off to various
universities and if mine are anything to go by, they are still struggling with
getting the balance right between partying and actually doing some work.
As you might imagine, my training regime is somewhat
different from the guys back in the UK, whilst their rides rarely miss out on
plates of scrambled egg for breakfast and pints of beer for lunch, my weekend
rides are somewhat more austere; rides through the Sudanese desert in 50
degrees of heat is kind of the norm out here.
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| Typical training session in the UK |
Mind you, being a middle aged man in Lycra in Sudan is not
as odd as you might think, My friend Abdel Rahman introduced me to a bunch of
Sudanese, Ethiopian and Eritrean cyclists last year who meet up on a certain
street corner in Omdurman every Friday morning for a peddle into the desert.
OK, their equipment varies from something close to my mum’s old shopping bike
through to the latest Specialized carbon frames with electronic gears - but
don’t be fooled, these guys are fit. Try and keep up with them and you’ll end
up profoundly exhausted and flagging down a Toyota pick-up for a lift back into
the city which has happened to me once or twice – much to the amusement of an
Irish accountant with whom I used to cycle.
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| Typical training session in Sudan |
Cycling out here is not for the feint hearted though, since
our Spanish trip, a pot hole sent me flying off my bike with such force I broke
the top off my femur. My leg is now full of pins and plates, an operation I
actually watched in glorious Technicolour, as my very competent Sudanese
surgeon only thought it necessary to give me an epidural!
To give you a sense of how warm people are out here, I must
have had 50 visitors and well-wishers when I got out of hospital, a series of
visits which culminated in about 20 of the ‘Omdurman Crew’ turning up at the
house in sweaty lycra to see how I was doing, after one of their long desert
rides.
There is a slightly darker side to this place though, in
March this year I had rather an interesting run in with the Secret Police on
one of my rides. I was peddling down a rather nice long road around the back of
Omdurman when some Kalashnikov bearing young men in a Toyota pick-up drove up
beside me and started shouting and waving their guns. The next thing I knew,
one of these guys had lent out of the pick-up and pushed me off my bike, he
leapt out and pointing his gun at my head, told me to get down on the ground.
They didn't speak English, but their instructions were clear enough, no
talking, hand over your phone and get into the back of the pickup. I did as I
was told and still at gun point I was whisked off into the desert and after
some time arrived at a sinister looking army compound. Anyway my bike was duly
unloaded and I was marched into an office and ordered to sit whilst lots of men
made lots of phone calls and all this time, I was none the wiser as to what was
actually happening. Eventually an ‘Officer’ turned up who spoke English. “What
the F***S going on?” I enquired. “You’re not supposed to be on that road” he
said. I asked why and what was wrong with me, as it seemed to be a pretty
popular road and he said “well you can be on the road but you need a license”
so I asked where I might get one, he didn’t know and after having thought for a
moment said “the only reason we stopped you was we were concerned for your
safety, stranger in a strange land and all that”. “You might have mentioned
that to the guy who threw me off my F***ing bike and pointed a gun at my head”
I responded. “Fair point” he admitted and shortly after that I found myself
peddling back through the desert, shaken but not stirred, as they say.
Anyway, back to the matter in hand. Chris has put together a
splendid route, although it may have a few too many mountains for someone who
has only seen desert for the last 6 months. As we only have a 6 day trip this
time we are aiming to complete a rather more modest 824 km but with over 13,000
meters of climbing (rather more than Everest) Our route sees us starting from
near the Italian Boarder in Slovenia, crossing into Croatia and tracking down
the Dalmatian coast to Dubrovnik where our wives will have flown out to meet us,
Inshallah! We all meet up in the UK at the end of this week and set out from
there. I think we are all set…
Keep you posted
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