The average South African cyclist is probably not familiar with the acronym E.F.I.
Maybe it will remind them of science fiction, something like U.F.O. for instance. But, whatever they guess, they will be totally wrong.
Actually the Tour d’ Afrique, from which the acronym E.F.I. originated, can be seen as a futuristic sports event. It is certainly no ordinary cycle contest. Even the figures used seem to be disproportionate, i.e. 12 000km and 96 stages, crossing 10 countries. The countries involved are Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa.
Any cyclist who manages to complete this exhausting race, will have covered the equivalent of four Tour de France races in a row. In other words, the Tour d’Afrique is one of the longest bicycle races (or expeditions) in the world. It runs every year from January to May, from Cairo to Cape Town.
Most of the participants are expedition riders who do each day at their own pace, stopping in the villages and at roadside cafes. The racing format is that of a stage race, with daily distances varying from 40 km to 200 km.
In the ten-year history of the Tour d’Afrique, just more than a hundred riders managed to complete E.F.I., which literally means that they rode Every F***ng Inch.
Gerald Coniel, the founder of Junk Mail, joined that elite club in 2010 when he rode every single one of the 47.2 million inches from Cairo to Cape Town.
His book on his E.F.I. experiences, The Slow Way Down, has just been published. Coniel admits that he had experienced some amazing moments during his odyssey, but there were also some harrowing adventures.
The Tour d’ Afrique gave him a whole new perspective on the continent. “It turned out that I would never struggle to find a positive story. Africa was full of good news, as well as bad. Maybe BBC and CNN reporters should think about getting on a bicycle. In Africa you could judge the economic success of a country by the amount of litter. In very poor countries, like Malawi, litter was worth recycling. It did not take long before it was picked up and re-used.
“Egypt was in African terms a relatively rich and developed country; it could afford to have a throw-away culture. Plastic bags, bottles, cans, spare parts and dead animals were the norm on Egyptian roads.”
In Sudan Coniel experienced what a political rally is about. “It was something I had only seen on TV. A few pickup trucks suddenly pulled in with soldiers standing on the back while dancing with AK47 weapons in the air. We watched from a short distance, half amazed, half scared, when the cracking sounds of the Kalashnikovs, now shooting in the air, made the people go absolutely mad, hailing the soldiers as God himself.”
Something that Coniel found very interesting was the Sudanese men’s obsession with motorized vehicles. “Even if they could not afford one, they would decorate their bicycle or their donkey with the logo of their favourite car brand. Surprisingly, it wasn’t Mercedes or BMW that collected the most support, but Toyota! One of my best pictures of the Tour turned out to be a Toyota donkey parked outside a mosque.”
Riding a mountain bike through Africa can become a real dirty affair.
While in Sudan, Coniel and some of his fellow riders were really in need of a clean-up, but all their efforts to find some sort of restroom were in vain.
But, in the end, as the saying goes: “’n Boer maak ‘n plan.”
One of the riders mentioned that Muslims always wash their feet before entering the mosque, so it was concluded that there must be a tap somewhere near the mosque.
Next to the mosque was a smaller building which, on closer inspection, turned out to be some sort of wash room with three taps lined up against the wall. “Without wasting time we all undressed and started splashing ourselves with refreshingly
cold water. Six naked hairy men, bending on top of each other, sharing three taps to wash their filthy bodies was not the most romantic scene …. “Suddenly a very upset man dressed in a white tunic appeared. He started shouting something in Arabic that we could all guess….the man understood the financial opportunity we represented.
“He claimed 5 Sudanese pound ($2.5) each for the few litres of water we had used. This was an insane amount for a country where most people lived on less than one dollar a day.”
While riding through Ethiopia Coniel had the unfortunate privilege to be ambushed by a group of very angry children “It was like being in a war movie under the fire of the enemy. Stones were suddenly flying all over me and I was cycling for my life. One of them threw a stick which bounced off my forearm, but since then I must have been generating more adrenaline than a Labrador produced saliva in front of a cake, it did not even hurt.”
In South Africa taxi drivers are often perceived to be the eternal enemy because of their lawless behaviour on the roads. In Ethiopia things do not seem to be any different. “The taxi driver drove through the streets of Addis Abeba as if he was qualifying for a starting position in a formula one race and it soon became obvious that a few more blue Fiat drivers also believed they were reincarnations of Fangio!”
The driver explained to Coniel that his worst enemies were the police and pedestrians. “According to him the police were corrupt and had to be bribed while the pedestrians were a problem because they simply didn’t look.”
At times Coniel get quite lyrical about the hospitality of the African people, as well as some of the beautiful places he was privileged to see during the Tour.
The Slow Way Down will be a motivation to every reader to get off his coach, switch off his television set and start living life to its fullest.
Africa is there to be discovered. What better way to do it than on a bicycle from where you can use all five senses – hear, see, smell, taste and feel.
