Tour of Cameroon Stages 1-3

The Tour of Cameroon caught me by surprise. I didn't know I was going until a week before the race. I didn't even know that I was going to even ask about going until a week before the race. Out of the blue I emailed Ido, and he said there's a spot for me. The race was delayed ten days and two guys from the team dropped out. I'm in. Forget about training, I barely had time to get my vaccines in order.

I got myself to Brussels in a flash, bike in tow. I almost missed my connections in Philly and Brussels. At the check-in counter in Brussels they even told me I wasn't allowed on the plane I was so late. But I made it all the way to my flight to Yaounde. That's the capitol of Cameroon in case you were keeping score. I looked for my team on the plane and couldn't find them. I thought they really missed the flight. Just before take-off Ido found me and it was really happening.

Seven hours later we entrusted the Porteurs to put our bikes on the roof of a bus.

Yuval and Ilan hoping our stuff doesn't fly off the roof. Don't get used to the legroom, because it's the last time you'll have any.

The day after we arrived, we were scheduled to fly up north to Maroua, close to where the race starts. This is classy, a stage race with air transfers. We got up early and got to the airport about 9am. Then we sat around until 1pm or so before we flew anywhere. I started getting suspicious about the level of organization of the race.

This fine piece of American technology is a C-130 Hercules. This particular one belongs to the Cameroonian military. It would be our transport twice.

At first we were excited for our ride. Ilan had previous Hercules experience. And upon landing, it would be the first time that Yuval touched down in a Hercules in six flights.

After all that, we still hadn't ridden our bikes. It turned out that we didn't ride until stage one. It was almost three days fully off the bike. Rest is nice but too much rest isn't good for the legs, especially cramped legs fresh off 24 hours of travel.

Day three we finally get on our bikes, and it's to start the race, stage 1 . It was about 120 degrees outside without any shade. No joke. And for our entire three days in the north the weather would be the same. During the race I would find myself crossing the entire road to ride under a tree for two seconds. My bottles tasted like hot tea. Even if I came from New England summer, there is no way I'd be physically prepared for this.

But alas, I was optimistic. I know how to race bikes and this is a bike race. We roll out and bam! A crash four kilometers into the 900 or so we'd race. I ran over some Slovakian guy but stayed upright. The peloton rolled away and I was already in emergency mode. It was wind and echelons all day, so it behooved me to get myself back into the shelter of the peloton.

I was told that the locals won't work with you off the front or back so I buried myself getting back to the race. I looked back and waved the guy on my wheel through, taking a chance. He wasn't a local, but from Rwanda, quite far from Cameroon. It was clear we had the same intentions and drilled it together. We made it back safely and it was time to hide for a while.

We lost Asaf, my roommate, and Yuval in the crash. I think it was really two separate crashes but they both happened about the same time. Matan also flatted and didn't get a wheel for ten minutes because the team car was tending to the crashed. Amir forgot his shoes so he was riding through the desert in sneakers. That left me and Yossi in the peloton.

Somewhere around 50km in, Ido called me back to the car to get bottles for me and Yossi. I had to make a pretty big dig to get back in the group and then chase Yossi around until he would take a bottle. While I was doing that, guys were opening gaps and making my life hard. Then I popped. I was flapping in the breeze like a lost sheet of paper. And I just gave myself a really long day. Remember children, stay in the peloton, even if you start to black out from the effort. What follows might be ugly.

In the end, I rode with Obed, the rider from Rwanda, for about 80km in the wind, with riders cycling in and out of our group. I couldn't have chosen a better person in the peloton to spend the day with. Despite the difficulty of our effort in the wind, we had a few laughs and tried to tick the kilometers by at a meaningful pace. By the end we were rolling 20 kilometers per hour. Because it was that hard in the wind.

I don't know if all I wrote here conveys how hard of a day on the bike it was. Let me assure you that I wanted to quit a few times but a few things kept me going. First, I traveled all the way to Cameroon to race, so I couldn't quit. Second, Ido was breaking my balls to keep pushing. Third, I kept thinking of all the bad things Obed must have experienced in his life in Rwanda and he kept it rolling with a smile.

It turns out that the whole Rwandan team were the friendliest guys in the peloton. It got me thinking about our cushy lives in the US or wherever else you're reading this. These guys have been through a true hell. Yet they are some of the most genuine, humble and kind people I have even met. On a much more mellow level, even the kids in mud huts in Cameroon seemed much happier than the average American. Why is every asshole here walking around with a chip on their shoulder? They never had to struggle for anything. I'm still scratching my head. Maybe it's all relative; one man's traffic jam is another man's genocide. But with relativity should come perspective. And now back to bike racing.

Stage 2 was some more of the same, some different. It was a tailwind over the entire course but it was a degree or two hotter. I was now thoroughly dehydrated and struggling. After a while I popped off the back of the race again and struggled in a small group. Remember rule number one, don't get clipped off the peloton. The best part of the day were the buckets of water that fans on the side of road dumped on us. Without it I probably would have melted to the chip seal.I struggled in, almost got hit by a motorcycle 200 meters from the finish and was happy to be done with the day.

Then we started climbing on stage 3. It was a short stage, only 80km, but I was smoked. I just kept putting my head down and rolling. There was some rolling road before a 19km climb, followed by some descending and flat roads to the finish. I popped early on the climb and suffered. Yossi abandoned somewhere on this stage. That left only me and Matan in the race.

Fortunately for me Amir and Asaf were still riding the course even though they weren't racing. They helped me along and kept my motivation up to the finish. I am still appreciative, because it allowed me to continue on the next four stages, which were significantly cooler and after a rest day.

We had a 220km transfer to the start of this stage and we were supposed to have a flight after. That makes a really long day. In reality what happened is that everything started late, only one flight took off and we stuck in the town we finished in. There was a fistfight outside the plane because everyone was pushing to get on. Some race official yelled at me for even coming close to the plane to check out if there was space. It wasn't only the temperature that was hot.

Amir confirms that this is a properly loaded bus.

Properly loaded inside the bus. Maybe we could have squeezed in a few more.

I mostly only took pictures from the bus. A nice mountain in the desert, nothing more.

All of our bikes went like this.

Yossi is amusing himself with my sun hat. Hours on a bus will do this to you.

Yes, that trailer is on its side in front of that village.

That's a mother and baby drill. Our bus driver stopped so we could photograph it.

Get us out of the desert!