28. There’s No Way In Hell I’m Riding That Bike.

26.05.24 – 05.06.24 : Stone Town – Stone Town

It was 5pm on a Tuesday in South London. Ellie and I stood beside one of the capital’s ubiquitous Lime bikes, stuck at an impasse. There is no way in hell, she said, that I’m riding that bike. Our friend, Aidan, had graduated from UCL earlier that day, and a group of friends were gathering for a picnic on Telegraph Hill to celebrate. To make the journey from TENZING Basecamp, our shared office in Bankside, there were three options: an hour and a half by foot, an hour by bus, or half an hour by bike – less if you take London’s traffic laws with a pinch of salt.

At this point, I was at the height of my two-wheeled activism. Having just read The Immortal Class by Travis Hugh Culley – a book that heralds the supremacy of bikes as a form of transport – I was evangelical in my mission to convert the masses. There was no way I was going to let Ellie worm her way out of this bicycling baptism. Eventually, no doubt to avoid yet another reference to cycling as the most energy efficient combination on the planet, Ellie caved.

In hindsight, the Old Kent Road, one of the capital’s busiest thoroughfares, might not be my first pick for someone’s inaugural city commute. For the entire ride, I flanked Ellie like a bodyguard as the rush hour traffic careered around us, drivers spitting profanities at London’s slowest cyclists. Despite Ellie’s electric assist, my theory of the cycling’s efficiency began to wither. We made it in one piece, though I fear it might have harmed the cause more than it helped.

In truth, the Old Kent Road incident wasn’t Ellie’s first cycling experience. This took place a few months earlier, during another baptism (this time into the ranks of TENZING, with all new employees encouraged to have a crack at the Blenheim Palace triathlon). Having powered through the 750 metre swim of her first ever sprint triathlon, she emerged from the water at the front of the pack. Ahead of her, however, lay the 20 kilometre bike ride. Having taken the blissfully ignorant approach to training, opting to supplant time on two wheels with the pounding beats and handlebar press-ups of London’s spin studios, Ellie left her debut bike ride until the race. Safe to say, spending nearly 90 minutes on a twitchy carbon road bike with no idea how to change gear – all the while enduring bellows of on your left! from the competitive cyclists scything past you – is enough to put anyone off the sport. 

All this might make you wonder, how in the world did this poor soul find herself on two wheels yet again? Let alone on a six day bike tour lapping a remote African island. Well, to answer that, I have to start with a geography lesson. 

South-East London is the Bermuda Triangle of public transport. There’s almost no underground infrastructure, buses are slow and infrequent, and the overground merely serves to whisk you further away from the city centre. As a resident of this neck of the woods, unless you resign yourself to the life of a recluse, a bike is an essential tool. Luckily, Ellie’s brief move into our Peckham flatshare coincided with her birthday. Like something from a childhood novel, that year, Ellie woke to discover a crimson red Pashley Britannia – complete with bell and basket – waiting for her. Talk about subtle manipulation. 

The Pashley Britannia, in all her crimson glory!

In this case, necessity was the mother of re-invention. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes of adamant cycling cynicism, Ellie was reborn. Thanks to the sheer weight of the Red Peril – something in the realm of 25 kilos – getting it up to speed was a tremendously strenuous affair. It handled like a ship and liked to be treated as such. With impressive confidence, Ellie would hold the crown of London’s roads, stopping for nothing and no-one as the Pashley steamed grandly along. I’d cruise along in her wake, proud as punch, as she turned a colour-blind eye to traffic lights, hoping to avoid any more arduous acceleration than was strictly necessary. Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the roads!

When the time came to move to Barcelona, the decision was made to leave the Pashley in her eponymous home; mostly for the sake of the Luton luggage-handlers’ lumbar health. I certainly didn’t expect to hear that Ellie was looking to add another bike to her quiver. In no time, we’d found a true peach – a featherlight carbon De Rosa – going for a steal online. After a family effort to retrieve it from Whitley Bay – during which, my 89-year-old-grandmother took it for a rigorous test-ride – the De Rosa was brought down to London and shipped off with Ellie to her new home. But it would take more than two bikes in two countries to persuade me that my work was done. To mark her full conversion, there still remained one last hoop for Ellie to jump through. A bike tour. 

The De Rosa, the delivery driver, and the test rider.

For a long time Ellie had felt some indignation at the expectation that she should join some part of the trip’s cycling. And rightly so. Just because I’d chosen to chain myself to the bike for the best part of a year, it shouldn’t mean she was obliged to share the same fate. In fact, she was doing more than her part just putting up with this mad adventure of mine, not to mention hauling herself halfway across the world to meet me at various points along the way. Yet somewhere in the planning of our East Coast rendez-vous – after we’d decided I’d probably encounter enough big game along my journey, without the need to seek it out on safari – the idea was floated to visit Zanzibar. However, with two weeks of holiday in hand, it wouldn’t do to just stay put. An offhand remark from Ellie was all the bait I needed. Maybe we could cycle…

I clamped down on the idea like a crocodile, dragging it down into an indurating death-roll. In seconds, I’d pulled up Komoot – my navigation app – and begun to pore over the vascular network of tracks and roads that circumnavigate the island. Riding the perimeter of Unguja, the largest island of the Zanzibar archipelago, looked not only feasible, but downright beautiful. Soon, the idea had snowballed into a fully fledged plan. From Stone Town, the island’s main city, we’d travel north up the West Coast to Nungwi, the northernmost point. From there, we’d weave together a network of forest tracks to reach Kiwengwa, on the East Coast. We’d then charge south down that coast to Chwaka, where we’d load our bikes onto a small boat and ride across the bay to Pingwe, the most northerly point of the Michamvi peninsula. Another stretch of coastal riding – along with some sorcery to connect two seemingly unconnected tracks – would see us in Kizimkazi, the island’s southernmost point, before a final day’s riding on a straight shot back to Stone Town.

Mid-ride, after a successful crossing to Pingwe.

So that’s where you find us, leaving Stone Town on the first of six days in the saddle. Staying true to form, by way of preparation, Ellie had once again opted for blissful ignorance. Bar a few cruises along the Barcelona beachfront on her De Rosa, actual cycling had once again been subjugated to spin classes, runs and HIIT workouts. Despite arriving at Bluebikes, the hire company, a day in advance to reserve her bike, in typical sanguine style, she refused a test-ride. As we saddled up, I couldn’t help but feel an uneasy sense of déjà vu. This is Africa, after all. Like the Old Kent Road, it’s not forgiving for those still on training wheels. 

Preparations.

I needn’t have worried. Ellie was leaps and bounds beyond all that. Clearly, the lessons of London had stuck. She skilfully navigated Stone Town’s squirming traffic, squeezing through impossible gaps and pressing on unflinchingly, despite the Dala Dalas – the island’s sardine-tin buses – passing within a whisker of her newly mounted panniers. Before long, we settled into the rhythm of a day’s riding and, after a Fanta-stop or two, we reached the northernmost point of the island. 

Nungwi is home to one of Zanzibar’s most beautiful beaches, so it’s not surprising that the town is clad with all manner of tourist comforts. Bad news for cultural heterogeneity, but good news for hungry cyclists. In the first deli I’ve visited since leaving Spain, we worked our way through three solid and two liquid courses. I broke out the Scopa, and we played cards late into the afternoon. After what’s been, on reflection, a fairly gruelling few months on the road, this felt like a welcome reversion to some truly pleasurable cycling; a style reminiscent of those long afternoons spent in Spanish cafes with Doug, all those months ago.

After lunch, with the sun low in the sky, we backtracked the 10 kilometres of coastal road to our night’s accommodation in Mbuyuni, with Ellie about ready to call success on her first day of bike touring. That was, until I took us onto a jungle track – a surefire shortcut – that wound down from the road to our lodge. The dappled evening light shone through the canopy above, and the red earth of the track peeped through long grass of its verges. It was, objectively, very pretty. So, hearing Ellie pipe up behind me with This is very pretty! I pressed on, safe in the knowledge she was enjoying her first detour into the wild. Moments later, though, I heard a muffled shriek behind me. Babe! I’m down!

Really pretty? Or something else entirely…

As it turns out, rather than commenting on just how scenic my shortcut was, Ellie had been trying to let me know that this riding was very tricky. Not having ridden a bike off-road before, she’d been thrown in at the deep end, and had ended up tangled in the long grass. Thankfully, she was unharmed, and, better yet, the accomodation at the end of the trail was so breathtaking that all sins were swiftly forgotten, and my neck was spared a wringing for such reckless navigation. 

Steps led from the lodge straight into the limpid water that lapped peacefully at the white sand around our feet. Zanzibar’s geography is such that, at low tides, the sea escapes more than a kilometre from the shore. Fortunately, for our week on the road, high tides were in the morning and evening, meaning we could start and finish each day with a dip, without incurring a substantial hike. I couldn’t help but imagine what a game changer this would have been in the 45 degree heat of Mauritania. But these crystalline waters weren’t mirages. Living up to its reputation of tropical paradise, the aquamarine and white of Zanzibar’s two-tone beaches are something straight from the faded pages of a travel catalogue. I’ve never been to somewhere quite so archetypically picturesque.

Sunset in Pingwe – beach for two.

After the long months in my nylon cocoon, having our accomodation planned each night was nothing short of luxury. As well as the certainty of an undisturbed night, this pre-planning also took care of our meals. Breakfast was often included – a veritable feast of local fruit, juice, chapatis and eggs, more than enough to sustain a day on the bike – and dinner was usually available on request. As a consistent feature of every menu we encountered, we soon settled on vegetable curry as our staple. On reflection, the whole trip was somewhat analogous to last year’s Irish excursion with Seamus; it was essentially an elaborate tour of Zanzibar’s veg curries – the Guinness replacement – with a bit of cycling thrown in on the side. 

It was unsurprising, then, that the one night we deviated from course, and attempted to cook for ourselves, things swiftly degenerated. That day, we’d been at the mercy of another of my alleged shortcuts – the ephemeral link-up of Kizimkazi’s yet unconnected tracks. It must be said that since the pretty/tricky incident, Ellie’s off-road riding had improved dramatically. This shortcut was home to everything from twisting single-track to hike-a-bike scree slopes, and landed firmly on the side of tricky. Yet Ellie navigated it without complaint, even though it required, in her words, some Big Girl Energy. 

By the time we finally emerged from the bush, we were badly in need of a good feed. Having become somewhat saturated on the veg curry front, we stopped by the market to pick up some supplies. Plans soon changed, however, when we cracked one of the six eggs we’d bought, only to release its putrid contents into our only pan. The foul stench of the rotten egg hung stubbornly in the air, and we were forced to flee to a nearby lodge where, you guessed it, a veg curry was swiftly rustled up. 

The daily divide of two varieties of veg curry.

Besides the food – when it plays ball – another bonus of planned accommodation is that when something goes wrong, there’s someone on hand to help make it right. When you find your tent covered in huge, fabric-chomping ants, there’s little to do but hurl your abuse at the hills. But when you’ve paid for a room only to find that the power is out, or the air-conditioning doesn’t work, or even that your booking has been totally forgotten, leaving you stranded at the gate, pleading with the guard to let you in, then there’s someone at the end of a phone who’s committed to rectifying things. 

One such rectification found us whisked off on a free snorkelling tour. We rode the choppy waters out from the beach and, after about half an hour, found ourselves floating in open ocean. The captain switched off the idling outboard, nodded at us, and nodded at the water. Swim. We silently changed, both feeling a little apprehensive at the prospect of hurling ourselves overboard into the deep sea (when I say deep, remember Zanzibar’s geography – we’re talking four metres at most). When we did, the apprehension quickly hardened to fear. Simultaneously, we arrived at the same conclusion. We’ve been abandoned. This is what happens to customers who dare to complain. 

Ellie, who’s a strong swimmer, immediately shot back to the boat, which had drifted considerably in the moments we’d been submerged, and asked to get back in. I trailed behind, spluttering, fearing my childhood of fake swimming – wildly flailing your arms while running along the pool floor – was coming back to bite me. The ladder was lowered and the captain, clearly bemused by our behaviour, welcomed us aboard again. Once we’d calmed down, we gave it another shot. And so the cycle began. Get in. Get scared. Get out. After several iterations, we insisted that we were such fans of the boat that we might prefer to stay firmly on board. And so concluded our cumulative minute of diving in one of the sport’s most popular destinations worldwide. 

The boats of Kizimkazi.

But never mind the snorkelling, the cycling was a resounding success. Our final day presented the first tail wind of the trip and we flew across the island, refreshing our reserves periodically at the roadside fruit stalls, where we gorged on tart passion fruit and fresh coconuts. By the time we’d navigated the unforgiving traffic to re-enter Stone Town – and resourced ourselves with a veg curry and a big juice – Ellie admitted she felt ready to do it all again. Not bad for someone who, three years earlier, put riding a bike in the same boat as going to space. 

So this goes to say: kudos, Els. You survived your first bike tour and came out smiling. It has been a pleasure to welcome you to the world of cycling, even if you reject the identity of cyclist.