When it rains in Africa, it RAINS. There is no messing about, it'll be heavy but short. Frequent but never prolonged. When we reached Laisamis, the TDA staffer on site mentioned that the dried up river bed looked like a nice place to pitch our tents, soft and dry (it looked like it hadn't rained in a while) so about half the tour set up there.

People started packing up unusually early the next morning. Awakened by the flurry of activity, I was up and in action earlier than normal. Having packed up my tent and carried it to the truck, the heavens broke open. Lightning and thunder which was previously seen and heard respectively far in the distance came closer and closer until it became a murderous symphony directly above our heads.

The rain was already there but at the flick of a supernatural conductor's wrist, it doubled, or even tripled in volume. The drops were fat and heavy, bursting and soaking all in their path.

There was no shelter. It had been a dry and relatively clear evening and the tarps on top of the trucks were not put out. Riders stood with their backs flat against the truck. Those filling their lockers did so slowly in an attempt to avoid the rain. Breakfast was a meagre attempt at catering against adversity - a pot of baked beans slowly became more and more diluted as it filled with rain water. The ground around the truck was littered with the discarded shells of boiled eggs.

The river bed which had housed many tents quickly became a gushing river.

Riding onwards, the rain didn't stop. The sandy, gravelly, corrugated roads had turned into mush. The corrugations were still there but masked under their wet surface. Tyre tracks were several inches deep - there was no good line today. You'd be slightly quicker if you rode down the rocky ruts that had now become fast moving shallow channels for water and really, everything was wet anyway.

The rain died down though, to a pale shadow of its former self. We continued to crank our pedals and about 10 kilometres before lunch the beginnings of a nicer road began. A construction project that is supposed to create a paved road between Isiolo and Marsabit had just about reached that far - beginning by first creating a smooth dirt road and then adding a tar surface. At this point, they had only created the smooth dirt road.

The run off from the storm covered the low sections of the dirt road and created huge puddles. These were great fun to cycle through and luckily there were no unexpected potholes which could necessitate a swim! As my bike travelled through the puddle, every now and then a small green frog would jump across the front wheel.

For a while, this dirt road disappeared. In my state of mild exhaustion, I neglected to observe this road beginning again until just before camp. I kept waiting for the riders who were definitely close behind to overtake but they never did. Arriving at camp, they were all already there - and had apparently cycled past on the smoother road under construction.

As I wheeled my bike into camp, I caught my first offroad puncture of the tour, a thorn about an inch and a half long which required a pair of pliers to remove from my tyre.

The next morning I woke up and as I was about to leave, realised my attempt at patching my tube had failed. Thinking that the pre-glued patch had failed, I stuck another patch on the edge and put the wheel back together. Within a few kilometres, my tyre was down to low pressure again.

Giving up on the pre-glued patches, I elected to use a genuine patch. Unfortunately, my pump was with Jason (I had lent it to him the previous day) - fortunately the sweep rider (and Tour Director) Paul caught up and with an audience of construction workers, I patched the tube and pumped it up with his pump.

Air was still leaking out of the tyre though and I could feel myself getting slower and slower. Paul was riding along at a pretty brisk pace and after a while was a good way in front of me. It took a lot of effort to catch him up (only possible when he slowed to take an energy bar) - it could have been a painful day if my bike had punctured behind the sweep rider, especially without a pump!

The road soon turned to proper tarmac which was a welcome relief. At lunch I caught up with the main pack of the tour, took a brief lunch (just two sandwiches!) and continued on after pumping up my wheel again. I made it to camp but it took an unsurprising amount of effort.

The afternoon was a busy afternoon and I was pretty much busy from when I arrived (about noon) until sometime after dinner. To save on prose, I shall bullet point:
- Showered, nice and warm but tap gave an electric shock when turning water on and off.
- Changed dirt tyres to road tyres.
- Paddy arrived with my new crankset. Chris and I changed over the crankset but the old bottom bracket wouldn't fit the new crankset because of the adaptor that was installed previously. Removing this adaptor caused the bearings to come out of the bottom bracket and we ended up just borrowing a spare Shimano Hollowtech BB from another rider. In addition, replaced the chain and the cassette.
- Changed the seatpost from suspension to rigid. Dropped the nut from the suspension seatpost into the muddy ground and spent 10 minutes trying to find it.
- Drank my first 500ml soft drink (normally they are 300ml).
- Reinstalled my aerobars.
- Found the cause of the slow puncture - the thorn had gone through both sides of the tube and I had only patched one side.
Meanwhile, quite a few other riders drank a lot of alcohol in the dry warmth of the bar. Out under the truckside tarp we were subjected to the heasvy African rain several times each hour and the ground softened to a muddy mess. By the end of the day, all the conmfort food my parents had sent with the spare parts had been consumed.

Today was lovely and short. It started raining just as I woke up and in my fear of the outside, I lay in for about 25 minutes (not a good idea when the morning is so busy as it is). Luckily the rain stopped as we began the day's ride and within an hour it was dry. About twenty minutes in I had to pull over and remove my waterproof jacket because I was overheating.

The first 30 kilometres was a 1,200 metre climb and we had a view of Mount Kenya as we neared lunch. A pleasant tailwind and smooth roads made for easy cycling - although it was still hard on my fatigued legs. The only noticeable difference (apart from massively increased smoothness) of the new drivetrain was that there was no twisting motion as I pedalled which made my right leg ache less.

Lunch today was possibly *the* *best* *lunch* *yet* - French toast, made freshly by the Indaba crew. It was phenomenal and I managed to eat 7 slices of bread (and probably could have eaten more). The afternoon was ridiculously insignificant, and it took less than two hours to reach home for the night, the Sportsman Arms Hotel in Nanyuki.

Originally posted on the TDA Blog.

Greetings from your African dirt correspondant, exactly a month on from our first taste of dirt in Sudan. I'm writing from a small settlement called Laisamis, 95 kilometres from a dusty town called Marsabit, en route to Nairobi.

As we left Ethiopia, the heavy rain that had plagued the tour eased up and we were generously treated to several days of dryness. The weather changes quickly though and at 4:30 am on our rest day in Marsabit riders were busily putting their rain flies on their tents. The roads in Marsabit quickly turned to mushy mud and vehicles (including our own bucky, the 'Drama Queen') were getting stuck every few hundred metres. We've not had to ride over any serious mud so far on this tour so this was shaping up to be an interesting riding challenge.

There was no real rain overnight and as the riding week began, we were told of the muddy sections that awaited us on the road. After a pretty serious downhill, I settled down for a morning of gradual descent to lunch. Soon enough the first mud arrived, vehicle tracks were carved half a foot in and any clear cut path soon vanished.

Riding over the mud was slippery and I was very glad of my previously ill-thought out decision to use fairly skinny dirt tyres. The mud attaches to your wheels quickly and within minutes it's rubbing against the inner edges of your frame and fork and collecting on top of your brake callipers, making no sound but slowing you down noticeably.

For one of the early sections, there were a hardened section on the sides of the road which was much quicker to ride along. I was riding along merily at somewhere between 15 and 20 kmph when I caught sight of a local. He shouted and pointed straight across the road to something just metres in front of me. Slamming on my brakes and almost vaulting over my handlebars, the object he was pointing to was immediately apparent - a deep and wide crack in the earth.

Saved from this possible end to my riding day, I continued on to lunch, passing through water logged section after water logged section. The clear rain water turns brown as soon as it touches the soil and the standing water covering the depressed sections of road leaves a layer of fine grit on your skin, clothes and bicycle as you pedal through it. Bicycles were creaking for much of the day as the water washed off lube.

Visible from lunch was another water logged section of road where a truck had got stuck in a seemingly deep pothole. The cab of the truck was arched at 20 degrees to the surface of the water and it seemed that it was submerged about a metre. Normally the puddles aren't that deep, or at the very least, their surface maintains the same consistency as the road immediate before and immediately after it. Another rider Jason was standing on the other side of the puddle scraping his shoes but I took little notice of this. Feeling confident at my ability to ride such puddles, I cycled straight into this puddle, picking a line that followed the ruts on the road leading to it.

The first small puddle was fine but less than two metres into the second puddle I felt my front wheel disappear into some mysterious underwater chasm and I actually went over my handlebars this time. Luckily there was no hard impact, unluckily I was now soaked from neck down. The crew and passengers of the stuck truck broke into laughter and Jason, who hadn't see me cycle in, was shocked to see just my head floating above the water. We stood and watched as three more riders crossed, somehow picking a line where they stayed relatively dry. One of the TDA trucks tried the same and was wedged underwater within seconds.

The afternoon featured the much promised 'extreme corrugation' and arriving to camp was a timely relief. As riders came into camp, it was pleasant to see some of the chronic complainers extoling their enjoyment of the day.

My arms are quite sore. How, you might ask, is that possible on a cycling expedition? Well, our campsite in Marsabit is quite some distance from town and getting lifts is a time-saving necessity since taxis are almost non-existent (and surprisingly expensive). On our way back from dinner, we got a lift from one of the support vehicles for the tour - a huge green 4x4. The only hindrance was the lack of space inside the vehicle (it was filled with food supplies for the upcoming riding week), so Steve, Sam and I were standing on the footplate and holding onto the roof rack. Luckily the trip took less than 15 minutes, else my arms would have given up.

Marsabit is a small, dusty town - the main stop between Moyale and general civilisation (Nairobi, or even Isiolo where the road suddenly becomes paved). It almost reminds me of what an advanced wild west town would have looked like - small general stores and wholesalers down a muddy dirt street, fruit and vegetable shacks line the road and you get the occasional electronics store. There's a baker (it seems Tour D'Afrique has bought them out of fairy cakes, only bread is left - woe is me), a barber (I'm saving my beard for Nairobi) and several internet cafes. There's a couple of restaurants, I've only eaten at one but we've visited three times already. In all my visits, I've consumed approximately six eggs (or exactly six eggs if you want to be pedantic) and eight fairy cakes.

We're also having fun experimenting with the varieties of different carbonated drinks sold in Kenya. In Ethiopia we had only the standard Coke/Pepsi, Sprite/7up, Fanta/Mirinda drinks but here at least there appear to be four different types of Fanta, something akin to ginger ale and another bottle that looks like beer but is another fruit based drink (much to the surprise of those riders who ordered it, expecting a beer).

The campsite is some kind of collection of dormitories and is run by nuns. There's a big statue of the Virgin Mary near the dorms and some kind of chapel too. I've yet to figure out what this place is called but there is some kind of meteorological station nearby and two huge silos (basically warehouses) on an adjacent field. Terrorist scientist nuns? A distinct possibility.

Speaking of the weather, at about 4:30am, I woke up with a wet face. Swearing vociferously, I slid out of my sleeping bag (an easy task because of its pre-existing broken-zip condition) and stumbled out of my tent to put the rain fly on. Just about every other rider was doing the same. It continued to rain well into the morning and when I had gathered the courage to leave my tent at 9am, everything outside was soaked. The roads were an incredible mess of mud and jeeps were getting stuck every few hundred metres. We were unable to find a lift to town this early and walked in the rain, sliding across the inclined path into precarious proximity to the muddy ruts.

Returning to camp by a combination of foot power and a lift on the back of someone's motorcycle, the laundry dilemma resurfaced and I resolved to hope for the sky to clear later in the day. I washed my clothes using rain water that had been collected in a big black tank - it struck me that if this was home, the rain water probably wouldn't have been safe to use! Chris trued my front wheel, with the advice that perhaps I should 'regulate' a bit more, which I took to mean 'ride carefully'.

Since there was no point in washing my bike before another three days of unpaved road, I had the afternoon to myself and with a steady electricity supply, it was now possible to read one of the many ebooks I brought on my laptop. I'm about a sixth of the way through 'Coders at Work', a superb and inspiring collection of interviews with prolific programmers. I've also finished a short story by Cory Doctorow, 'I, Robot'. In an attempt to restart my brain I've also been blitzing through Sudoku puzzles.

If the rain returns tonight, there's a distinct possibility that we'll be stuck in Marsabit for a second rest day since any more mud would make it hard for the trucks to travel. Hopefully this won't happen though and we'll be able to attempt the 600 metre descent that awaits us out of camp.

(or This Is Africa)

Today was a long day. Some days are long, purely because of the distance, but today the distance was relatively short (87km). The ground was unusually rough and upwardly inclined. It was the second of the three hardest days of the tour - the first was the Blue Nile Gorge climb and the third will be somewhere further south where we cycle 200km in one day (the longest single stage).

As I may have remarked previously, it is days like this when you wish you had thought about your bike choice better. They throw a lot of advice out to us - about tyres, bringing suspension and all the rest. Somehow, in the bike choosing process, I settled on a cyclocross bike and in the days before today, I began to wonder if I would be able to actually ride the road (based on a photo of the lava rock fields I had seen). Luckily the road is slightly clearer than the fields, there are ruts where vehicles have driven and as such, there is a way forward.

Often these ruts will be gravelly and hence incredibly slippery - if you slow down enough you eventually lose balance. This is fine when you're fresh and full of energy but as they day goes on, it becomes increasingly hard to keep your speed up. Dropping down some gears lets you pedal easier but you tend to slip more as more torque runs through your wheel.

Every now and then you'll notice that the other rut is smoother, or less gravelly or better packed (i.e. flat) and you'll consider switching. Sometimes, it's worth switching - if you don't, you'll lose a silly amount of time. Sometimes, it's not worth switching - since 15 metres down the road it will become just as bad as your side. Sometimes they alternate and you can either switch constantly (again, requiring lots of energy) or just stick it out in your rut.

Switching almost always mandates a high chance of falling. The middle section between the two ruts is thick gravel and usually the ruts are recessed by half a foot or so, with a slight slope on the sides of the middle section. It's possible, if you have enough speed and the right angle, to ride straight up and over the middle. Not enough energy, or just mistiming things and you'll slide straight over - the cause of many riders' grazes and cuts.

I've got a few cuts to the leg, nothing serious. The skin on my index finger where I grip the hoods of my brake levers has worn down since my glove is ripped and I need to put a plaster on it to stop it rubbing down further. It hurts to grip things - I can feel it in my fingers most, presumably from holding onto the handlebars tightly for 6-7 hours. I also have some nice callouses forming on my palms from the repeated small impacts which are passed up through the fork. Saddle sores are back in fashion - presumably for several riders. Hopefully with the upcoming rest day in Nairobi and three rest days in Arusha, they'll go away quickly enough.

Riding aside, the heat in Kenya is stifling and almost as bad as that of the Sudanese desert. Normally we'll arrive to camp as the heat is about to reach its peak, although today took much longer and most of the heat was experienced while out on the bike. The beauty of these roads being so bad is that we are, for vast stretches of time, completely alone. I pulled over several times, took my headphones out and just listened to the wind, the birds and some surprisingly noisy insects. The country is very flat and you can see the bush for miles (or kilometres...) around. This is the Africa I imagined when I signed up.

Supposedly Kenya's in my blood since both my parents are Kenyan. With that disclaimer, I'll state the following: Kenya is awesome! The country is pleasant to travel through and the sky is pretty phenomenal. We've seen lots of camels today, some baboons and the occasional person too. A small bar opposite our campsite serves some superb chapatis (I wasn't aware that these were so common in Kenya).

The riding today was harder on the joints - being corrugated dirt road with a sandy surface. Foolishly, I tried to adjust my brakes myself last night which, given the large, rocky descent straight out of camp, was not a good idea. I took the descent slowly and stopped often to fiddle with my brakes (to no avail). Luckily the rest of the day didn't require as much braking and it was over relatively quickly, I arrived into camp well before noon.

The road tomorrow is similar for the first 60km before we hit the lava rock. I'm quite apprehensive about this surface, it's been hyped up ever since we started thinking about what bike to bring. This is the meanest, hardest and roughest road we'll meet during the tour. Talking to the other riders, it is rideable on a cyclocross bike and will probably need an even higher level of determination to finish. With any luck, my rear wheel will hold together.

Paul (the tour director) helped me adjust my brakes today - he's incredibly handy and they work beautifully now. I'm usually loath to complain but I find it odd how little time Chris (our bike mechanic) seems to have for actually repairing bikes. He has two pre-arranged sessions a week of an hour long and some time on our rest days. People's bikes are beginning to need a fair amount of work as we get deeper into the tour - especially as we hit the rougher terrain. Sub-optimal.

The mosquitos are biting harder now and I've picked up three new bites in the last day alone. It's also getting warmer - I barely cover myself with my sleeping bag at night now, finding it a bit on the sticky side.

We're in Kenya. A dreary 80 kilometres of questionable quality pavement and a fairly unremarkable border crossing and we're in the motherland, or at least my motherland. Crossing the border, the fact that we're in a country is unmistakeable. Aside from driving (or riding) on the left hand side of the road, the people are friendlier here and more of them speak English. The kids don't hassle you, they merely stare (which is still not ideal but always better than a barrage of rocks).

I've spent about £20 worth of mobile phone credit already just catching up with family and friends. I've managed to organise via my father a new crankset, rim, set of pedals and a helmet - with any luck these will make it to Kenya with Paddy, another rider who is in London for an interview.

Talking to my aunt in Nairobi about what I'd like to do there, I mentioned the hierarchy of desirable snack food. That is, biscuits are at the bottom - easy to buy in every city, these are a staple snack item for every rider. Chocolate bars fall above biscuits - these are considerably harder to find in less well trafficked areas of Africa and are usually expensive (not an option on my post-student budget). At the top of the hierarchy is ice cream. When I used to weigh a metric ton, I used to eat a bowl of ice cream everyday. So far in the trip I've not had a single scoop of ice cream (although some riders found some at the (amazing) Sheraton in Addis) Ice cream is on the agenda for certain.

The rough terrain is worrying me, which is annoying because I usually love riding offroad. The next few days will be concerned mainly with preserving my bicycle in its now delicate state.

I'm not sure what else to say really. I was so stoked (and hence distracted) to be entering Kenya that I cycled into a pedestrian on the almost euphoric ride out of Ethiopia through the border town Moyale. Luckily it didn't break me or my bicycle further than it has already been damanged.

Oh, and the bugs are getting bigger and uglier. Every night I battle against some dastardly insect which has had the misfortune to find its way into my tent. Some of them can fly or jump pretty high, and in a small two person tent, this is a recipe for disaster.

The rain is heavy, it's been raining every night (and often during the day too) and *everything* is wet. Luckily it was dry enough this afternoon to let my sopping wet (but clean) clothes dry. We also have the dinner truck back which means there is one less bag to find space for inside the tent.

(Or Ethiopian Roads, A Survival Story)

Friday, or stage 34 was another wet start. The roads were dry when we started riding and it was our last day of riding before our rest day here in Yabello. I started by myself, with the thought that I'd have slow legs - the previous day was slow and we hadn't had exactly had time to recover much. Luckily (or so I thought), the day involved an overall descent and I found my legs spinning up to speed quite nicely.

The road was bad pavement as before but we had a new challenge - large potholes. At first they came only every so often but with each passing tenth of a kilometre, they spread over more and more of the road before disappearing for a short while, only to return in stronger numbers further down. Feeling quick and overconfident in my technical ability, I was flying over the potholed downhills at 50 kmph, barely braking and steering through the obstacles like a commuter in London traffic.

Barely eight kilometres in the road got substantially worse. Unknowingly, I approached that downhill section of road with the same callous disregard that I had the previous eight thousand metres. I lost control. The potholes came fast and faster. I didn't brake, they came too fast. I cleared one, cleared two, cleared three, and then on the fourth the back wheel came down with a sickening 'crack'. On the fifth, the largest yet, my front wheel got 'stuck'. The hole was deeper than my wheel wanted to roll over and so all that forward momentum (at this point it felt about 60 kmph) that my body was carrying threw me over the handlebars and I rolled straight over, landing on my back.

Moments later, I stood up, shocked, slightly grazed but conscious and with a full memory of the reckless idiocy that had just preceded. Hardy, one of the German cyclists, was behind me when I fell and stopped immediately to help me. He described the accident as 'just horrible'. He took me by the shoulder and told me to take a seat. The locals started to gather. I looked around, my right shoe was missing, my glasses were on the ground, the bike was lying on its side several metres from the pothole and my drinks bottles were scattered around it. My MP3 player was still playing music. Shockingly, my shoulder was still in its socket.

Hardy brought my bike, glasses and shoe over. My wheels were severely buckled - we spent a good 15-20 minutes trying to get the bike to turn without the brakes rubbing on the rim. The crowd of locals grew stronger. Several other riders passed, some stopped but we motioned for them to continue and they did. The TDA truck stopped but again, we gave them the thumbs up and they continued. Once the wheels were spinning and everything looked like it was in working condition, I tried cycling again.

The right hand side crank is bent. This is supposedly almost impossible and for a while we suspected it was just he pedal but swapping it with another pedal didn't fix the feeling of lopsided pedalling. Now, when pedalling, the right hand side ellipse is smaller than the left hand side ellipse. My right hand side brake lever was completely loose - presumably as a result of bearing the full impact of the ground. The rear wheel is irreparably bent (Chris tried straightening it but there are clear signs of stress on the rim).

Riding for the rest of the morning, I paused a couple of times to check my injuries. I have some grazes on my leg, but nothing too deep. My ankle is grazed, presumably as a result of losing the shoe. The back of my right shoulder is also grazed. The worst injury appears to be a swelling just below my stomach where I made contact with the topcap of the fork assembly. My shorts were ripped. At first I thought this was just on the side but was informed at lunch that a small amount of my backside was also now visible - I guess that explains the giggles as I cycled up hills. My face was scraped around my right eye where the goggles cut into my face. My helmet is largely intact but about of half of the front half is scratched where it made contact with the ground.

The rest of the day was another stark change in scenery. The hills are omnipresent but the crowds subsided to give relatively peaceful, almost desert-like red soil. Termite mounds were scattered along the side of the road, some in early stages of construction while others towered above the road like nature's skyscrapers. My camera was broken by the crash, so I have no pictures of these strangely beautiful creations.

General consensus is that I got off lucky. At that speed, on that road, it could have been much worse. Calamity Jane took the brunt of the impact and while I might be pedalling lopsided this week until my spare parts come through, at least I'll be pedalling and still EFI.

We're in Yabello now and about to leave tomorrow. It's a really boring town and there's no internet cafe. It could be yet another week before anyone reads this. Kenya approaches in just two days and I'll be able to talk to relatives again. It's been an intense week. And with that, February is over.

So we finally had our first experience of rain whilst riding. Not only was it there while we were riding, it was there while we packed up ou tents. Dan doesn't consider it 'rain' but 'spitting', but then again he's Australian. In England it would be considered rain - much like what we get about 60% of the year. Just about everything is now unclean - my tent has splodges of dirt on the side (the inner part of the tent is white, the rain fly is green - it shows up very clearly on the inside). My Thermarest, bags, bike, cycling clothes, casual clothes are all splashed with muddy water.

Today was our second mando-day, and we didn't receive much description in advance. They're trying to maintain the number of mando-days
year to year, except we're taking a different, slightly shorter route to Kenya to make up for the extra rest day. It was pretty difficult, similar to the previous mando-day (about 2,000 metres of climbing this time) and I definitely suffered. In addition, my legs are tired from the three days I've ridden hard and the stomach issues of that last couple of days have made it hard to eat enough. So it was a slow day snd my race position will be pretty poor.

The roads weren't too bad but coupled with the rain, quite an adventure to cycle down - reminding me of some of the mountain biking trips we've had to Wales and the Peak District. A couple of guys crashed on the downhills and I suspect rain was a factor in one out of the two. The rain cleared after lunch and it became more pleasant as everything dried off. My logic behind buying a cheap cycle computer was that it would be more reliable. This logic was thwarted by the rain and for the first 71 kilometres (confirmed by my GPS unit which sits in my Camelbak), the cycle computer didn't work.

Once it started working again, and I had managed to find one of the few spots over 100km that are private and hence suitable for taking a 'comfort break' the ride started feeling a lot better. The children were out in force today, there were houses pretty much constantly along the road. No rocks were thrown but lacking my MP3 player (for fear of water damage), I was forced to listen to approximately 2,000 'YouYouYouYou's along the way. There were a few interesting variations though, including one man who asked if I spoke Hindi, and a few 'Good Marning's. I also figured out that a good way to get a few moments of peace and quiet was to tell the kids to 'shh' and put your finger to your lips - it appears this transcends cultural and linguistic boundaries.

Finally, before my laptop battery runs out, the timing Gods have spoken and I did win yesterday's stage. Superb.

I don't know where to place the cause for the events of today. It was unexpected, a first in my life and yet for every second of it I had the sweet mesmorizing thought of victory in my head. For the not inconsiderable period from 73 kilometres (lunch) until 128 kilometres, I was leading the race for stage 32 of the Tour D'Afrique.

Yesterday I was with the lead group, one of the late starters (which meant my day's time would have been less than anyone in that group who had started before me) and trying my hardest to stay with them. This is something that would have unfathomable at the beginning of the tour but which was made achievable by nearly 6 weeks of cycling. Early on in the day we had a crash. We were riding in a group and it was my turn to pull (so I was at the front).

As we entered one of the first of a number of villages, we widened our group, slowed down a bit and prepared to dodge pedestrian, vehicular and animal traffic. It was a group of unruly youths whose alpha male swagger led them to touch shoulder with Dan that caused three quarters of the peloton (i.e. the three people after me) to go down. Besides Dan, Stuart and Marcel went over their handlebars into each other. I managed to glance back quickly enough to see them just as they all collided with each other. The group of youths scattered, presumably suspecting they'd caused an accident and not wanting to get in trouble.

The aftermath of the accident was mainly centered on Marcel - his rear derailleur had bent into an unnatural angle and his wrist was damaged. After an x-ray today, it seems he won't be riding for a few days because it is strained - luckily not broken.

Now, I hate to sound so conceited (?) but this meant that the next few stages were open. Marcel is a fantanstic cyclist, both on road and off-road. I don't think I might be able to beat him, at least not for the foreseeable future. Having ridden the last two days hard, most riders (and therefore racers) were slower today. In addition, stage 32 was the longest stage of our five day week, at 133km. From the morning, it was obvious in my mind that today would be a day to push the boat out a little and try for a good ranking.

In the morning I tried riding by myself but was soon caught by Dan and Gisi who are usually part of the fastest group. I joined them since they were going at a reasonable pace and it seems that this pace was faster than most of the field as we were quickly overtaking other riders. It was useful riding in a group as there was a heavy headwind in the morning and drafting provided some protection (although I gather that I should have drafted less). When we arrived at lunch there were just three riders ahead of us, Rod, Juliana and Tim, all of whom who had left earlier than us.

I stayed ahead of the group (now Dan, Gisi and Stuart) as we returned to the road after lunch and waited for them to overtake me as usually happened. For some reason, it didn't. The first climb was long, straight and on a narrow road which was being refurbished. I went at a pace that seemed workable to me and just kept pedalling. Soon, ten kilometres had passed and there was no sign of the trio. I had overtaken Rod and Juliana and Tim had left after us at lunch - I was at the front of the pack.

I kept going at a pcae that seemed comfortable to me, pushing myself every now and then to up the speed a little bit. The road got worse and worse, at some points being rough and pot holed, at others being smooth but with bumpy patches of tarmac which would throw your bike all over the road. The children were as annoying as usual but I was in the zone and concentrating enough to ignore them.

Every minute I would think to myself that I'd be overtaken any minute soon - that I should just prepare myself for the possibility. My brain fixated on the chance that I might just win the stage, winning something truly meaningful for the first time in my life. With each passing kilometre the chance that I'd be overtaken seemed to reduce in my mind.

At 120 kilometres I ran out of energy. This happened at 100 kilometres the previous day, about 10 kilometres from the finish (I wonder if this is a mental issue) and I continued to consume an energy bar in chunks. At 128 kilometres I was finishing this off and from the corner of my vision came Stuart on his bright yellow (or 'golden') bicycle. The probably of winning the stage shrunk considerably in my head and I put everything I had left (not much at all at this point) into trying to catch him.

He had gained about 250 metres in the overtake (I was going slowly as I ate) and we raced through a village and down the road. I lost sight of him as a considerable 'valley' approached (a downhill followed by an uphill).I cranked up my speed to 60 kmph on the downhill whilst realising that the orange finish flag lay at the bottom of the hill on the right. Coming in hot, I braked as hard as I could near to the flag, locking my rear wheel for several metres and then pelted down the grassy embankment, veering into the side of the water trailer at the back of the dinner truck. Touching my i-Button against the reader attached to the truck, the day was over.

The time difference between us has yet to be determined. We both left in the morning at virtually the same time and so the overall result depends on how the afternoon reading was processed. My guess is that the best result (for me) would be a draw. Alternatively, Stuart will have won by a minute. I'm looking forward to finding out from Kelsey, the race secretary, tomorrow.

Post race, my stomach has been acting up a bit. Not wanting to be another statistic, it has of course happened - I have become ill in Ethiopia. Luckily I think I've avoided the bug going around camp still and my problem is related to acid reflux, a problem I've had for several years and most certainly caused by the buffet breakfast at the Sheraton. I'm certain the buffet is also one of the reasons behind my racing energy over the last three days.

Our convoy out of Addis Abeba was as unofficial as the convoy entering it. The only difference was this time we were riding on a Tuesday morning and not a Sunday evening - this brought the added challenge of heavy traffic. The traffic brought with it the pollution I remarked upon yesterday - a putrid layer of black smog that we had no choice but to breathe in. Our new sectional riders found it difficult to breathe with the combination of poor air and altitude.

The smog didn't ease up as the convoy came to a halt (nearly 20 kilometres out of our campground) and with a brief gathering of riders, we were given the all clear to take off. The rest day (incorporatimng the Sheraton buffet) has had a positive effect on my speed and I was able to push it quite hard, keeping up with Marcel, Jerry (a new sectional rider) and a group of Ethiopian racers from Addis Abeba. This was going terrifically well until we got to a railway crossing and my bottle decided to jump out off my bike in its usual fashion. One of the Ethiopian riders waited for me, we managed a good 10-15 kilometres before I stopped to pee.

Just as I was getting back onto Calamity Jane, the second fastest convoy passed by, I was unable to catch them, lacking the drafting advantage. A couple of riders dropped out though (Viv, another new sectional and Tony - both British) and I rode with them to lunch.

When we arrived at the lunch bus, lunch was only just being laid out and this eroded any time advantage the group in front had. I managed to leave with the first group out of lunch and kept up with them for the relatively short 40 kilometres to camp. My heart rate was pushing a good 170/180BPM, on the extremely high side - I highly doubt this will be achievable tomorrow!

Riding in a peloton was useful today since we had a strong head/cross wind and it shows in the average speed of 30.7 kmph for the day (bearing in mind that the convoy was pretty slow for the first fifth of the day). As we got closer to camp, it was clear that no one was going to overtake us and that we were the fastest group. It came to my turn to pull the group, about 5 kilometres from camp and after a short while I was puzzled to see some of the riders overtake and sprint past into the distance. Soon though, it became clear that we had reached the trucks, although for some reason they had sprinted some distance down the road (apparently looking for a Finish flag).

Because of the short day, the flag hadn't reached camp yet and Stuart, Dan and I were first to the scanner on the side of the truck (this is what records our race times and determines the race winner). Conceivably I could have tagged in first and 'won' the stage but seeing as Stuart and Dan had done the majority of the pulling in the group, they tagged in first and Stuart was our new stage winner! My highest ranking yet - third.

We had the whole afternoon to ourselves, we played a game of Settlers of Katan (a board game of conquest similar to Risk), I took a nap, read more of 'The Life of Pi' and photographed the large number of storks nearby. At dinner, I contemplating trying some of the meat. Today it was less processed that normal (chicken wings versus some sort of curried meat) and I couldn't bring myself to eat something that looks so close to an actual animal part. I remain vegetarian.