~For
what is life without memories and experiences? An empty void~ Mbugua
If you have
been cycling for some time in this country then I am pretty sure that there are
a few rides that you can mention off the top of your head that stood out to be
quite challenging. If not, then I would suggest that you start thinking
seriously about creating such memories. It is such experiences that will make
you fall deeper and deeper in love with cycling.
Personally I
have several such experiences warmly tucked at the back of my mind and as long
as I live I honestly don’t think I will ever forget them. As the title suggests
these are my most challenging rides TO-DATE because I have EVERY intention of
challenging myself on the bike even more in the months and years to come.
So here is the first one, the rest will follow in subsequent posts.....AS ALWAYS, IT'S A LONG ONE!
For a few
weeks I had been checking out this segment on Strava by the name ‘Highway to
heaven or hell’. It’s only 27.6KM in length but the elevation gain is a whooping 1008M. Strava gives the average gradient as 3.6% which doesn’t really sound like a massive challenge
until you dig into the finer details. You know what they say about details right? That's where the devil resides!
Back then I
was only a year into cycling – an infant by all means. In addition to that
I only used to cycle once or twice a week. But I didn’t care, I loved going on
long rides as far away from home as possible. I took a great deal of pleasure
in getting back to the house spent, sore and covered in salt. Call me
masochistic.
On the day
of the ride I woke up pretty late – that was error number one. The second one
was filling a two-litre bottle of water and placing it in my backpack. I was a
proper newbie and I didn’t disappoint when it came to making mistakes. I loaded
more water bottles into my bike water cages, took breakfast, dressed up heavily –
another mistake – and headed out on my 16KG steel Nishiki Bravo MTB with a
48-38-28 crankset with only 7 gears at the back! I had no idea what awaited me.
I left the
house just a little past 9. I decided to take a back route which went through
the now defunct Ngong Hills Individual Time Trial route. It’s all off-road up until Kisamese town.
Allow me to explain the route to you at this point. Basically my plan was to
use the all-tarmacked route which goes something like this:
Thogoto-Karen-Ngong-Kona Baridi-Kisamese-Ole Polos- a wide expanse of savannah
then Oltepesi. That’s what Google maps told me. The round trip was supposed to
be 120KM.
By taking
the off-road route I would be adding a little over 10KM to the final distance. I
didn’t know this at the time. It was cold and slightly foggy hence the
aforementioned dress-code. With around 10KM to Kisamese town, I got a puncture
but I didn’t care, this was going to be a wonderful day on the saddle and
nothing was going to ruin my mood. It took me the better part of half an hour
to fix the puncture with a few Maasai boys and goats as my audience. I got back
on my beloved Nishiki and zoomed off.
There was
only one challenging climb before the tarmac which I tackled at a moderate
effort because I knew that I had a long day ahead - Long and extremely difficult.
Once I hit
the tarmac at Kisamese town I took a right turn and from here to Oletepes it
was all downhill with just a few slight inclines which I simply glided over
because of how fast I was going. Despite the numerous crater-like potholes that
the road had then, that 20KM descent to Tinga (or helltown) was one of my most
exhilarating experiences on two wheels. I felt like a little kid without a care
in the world.
I knew very
well that I had no family or holiday home in this part of the country; that at the end of the
day I would have to go back home. This meant that all the descents I had just
enjoyed were going to turn to continuous climbs. During those 30-40 minutes I was
zooming down I didn’t care. I should have, but I didn’t.
As you
approach Tinga there is this flat arrow straight stretch of road that spans
across 2 or so Kilometres. It is at this point that I discovered just how hot
it was. Midday temperatures in these parts can hit mid to late thirties on the
months of January and February. It was June (one of the coolest months on the
Kenyan calendar) but things still felt pretty toasty.
Once I got
to the town, I bought a few bananas as I had some biscuits in my suddenly very
heavy back-pack. I think I ate two bananas, looked around and turned back for
home not too long after. There was really nothing much to see other than curious pastoralists and dry Savannah.
The very
first pedal-stroke on my way back informed my body that life was about to get
very hard. With the change in gradient I came to appreciate just how
rough the road was. Add a newbie carrying a 3-4KG back-pack on a 16-KG MTB with
knobby tires with a 48-38-28 crank and only 7 gears at the back and you had the
perfect recipe for a sufferfest of epic proportions.
The 2KM flat
section was manageable but I still felt it. Now I had 25KM of unforgiving
gradients to tackle. The cussing started when I hit the first climb at KM 3. By
the 5th kilometer I was already soaked in sweat. I stopped to drink
some water and strip off whatever excesses I was still wrapped up in.
From here on
it got worse with every push of the pedal. Even the brief descents did little
to offer any reprieve from my suffering. The gradients here touched
double-digits, 60-70% of the time. I found myself on the 1-1 gear combination
most of the time and it still felt like death. I cussed so much under my breath. I felt like crying but remembered that I was the one who had
brought all this upon myself.
The heat was
unbearable and then there are the flies. Anyone who has ridden on this road
will attest to the fact that the flies here are probably the most annoying in
the country. I was moving at single-digit speeds most of the time and so these
flies were having a field day humping my face. It pissed me off so much and I found
myself expending a great deal of energy trying to swat them with my hands. But
they did not relent! This would definitely have qualified as one of Dante’s
chambers of hell.
I zigzagged;
I stopped; I lay on my handlebars in agony; I sat on the roadside; I drank my
water; I ate whatever was in the bag; I threw my bike to the side of the road,
I questioned life in its entirety. I did it all but the one thing I DID NOT do
was push my bike. Up to date, I would rather stop and recover than push my
bike. I have always felt that such an action is tantamount to giving up and I am
yet to give up during any ride regardless of how tough.
With well
over 8KM of climbing left, I had exhausted all my drinking water. The sun was
beginning to set to my left. This was both a good thing and a bad thing. Good
because it meant that my need for water would reduce and bad because I was
still very far away from home.
The last 1/3
of Highway to Heaven or Hell is the toughest. This is where the steepest parts
are located. There are three climbs in particular that will simply take your
breath away quite literally. There is the C58 climb, Ole Polos aka chairman and
finally Kona Baridi. Ole Polos is by far the worst. By the time I was riding
here the second or third time a few months later, I had already decided what I
was going to name them on Strava: ‘The 3 demon sisters’.
The C58
climb was bad but not as much as Ole Polos which by the time I started climbing,
my mind was made up. I would NEVER return to this place and I would quit
cycling once I got back home. These sentiments were however temporary since
they were influenced by extreme physical and emotional distress.
Ole polos
hits you with consistent 20-something% grades. If you want to know your
absolute maximum heart rate, I suggest you attempt this climb. By the time I
was going up this monster I was thirsty and hungry beyond measure. With
approximately 300M to the top of Ole Polos I spotted a chunk of meat on the
side of the road and I will tell you without shame that I considered stopping
and eating it. Doing so however would have killed whatever little momentum I
had and this would have forced me to push my bike the remainder of the climb so
- onwards and upwards – not the idiom but quite literally so.
 |
| Young Chris Froome chilling at the top of Ole Polos. Source: https://twitter.com/chrisfroome/status/484752305632608256 |
After Ole
Polos there is a nice descent that allows you to breath almost normally for the
very first time in almost 20KM. I left it all to gravity because up ahead was
Kona Baridi – the last of the demon sisters.
At the foot
of Kona Baridi I found a car stopped by the roadside. I asked the occupants for
water of which they had none. I could see pity on their faces. To date I still have no
idea why I didn’t stop to buy water at Kisamese town 2KM back.
I tackled
Kona Baridi on full auto-pilot and when I got to the top it was probably one of
the best feelings that I have ever had in my life. Probably how it would feel
to be released from jail after 20 years; or 27....get it?
I was still
30KM from home and it was going to 1800HRS – not a good situation to be in. I
descended to Kiserian town where I managed to get some water and something to
calm the pangs of hunger. At Matasia I stopped again when I spotted a man
roasting ‘mutura’ aka African sausage. I ordered some worth 50 bob. This was
really not something I should have been eating during a ride but I didn’t know
that then and even if I would have I still would have indulged. From here on it
got very dark very quickly and as such extreme caution was required.
Once I got
to the Southern Bypass I couldn’t see much. Back then there were no lights on
this road. The good thing about riding in the dark is that you cannot see your
suffering. There is also the adrenaline aspect; that lovely agent of the
endocrine system that keeps you on high alert and temporarily numbs your agony so that you can survive the next few minutes.
By the time
I was hitting Thogoto climb, it was almost 2000 HRS. I was numb and so it felt
like I was cruising. When I got home I parked my bike against the wall, opened
the door and collapsed at the entrance. I lay there for a good 10 minutes
trying to understand what was going on in my body as I fended off the grim reaper. If someone had given me an
offer for all my cycling paraphernalia at that point I would have gladly taken
it. I am happy no one did because once I had properly recovered I was itching
for more suffering.
To be continued……
