The Cyclist’s Bucket List

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Tour d’Afrique, Egypt to South Africa

The first Tour d’Afrique occurred in 2003, but the idea to ride across Africa from tip to tip had formed decades prior. Henry Gold, the man behind the seemingly mad event had travelled extensively in Africa as the executive director of Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief. Based on his experiences there, Gold became convinced bicycles could prove transformative for the majority of people in Africa, but he struggled with how best to bring bikes and awareness to the continent.

As told in the Cyclist’s Bucket List, during a trip to Ethiopia in the early ’90s, he came across the Russian Olympic cycling team altitude-training in the mountains. A colleague, knowing Gold’s inclination to tackle challenging projects, teased him that he should organise a bicycle race from the top of Africa to the bottom. Gold laughed, but days passed, and he couldn’t get the idea out of his mind. So he went to a friend, Michael de Jong, an inventor and bike racer, and told him about the idea. De Jong became similarly fascinated with the Africa tour. De Jong planned a route and produced an informational brochure for potential participants.

They scheduled the first Tour d’Afrique for 1994, but a terrorist attack in Egypt forced them to cancel. The two men moved on, and the event went dormant for nearly 10 years. Then, on the eve of his 50th birthday, Gold found himself seeking a life-affirming challenge. He called de Jong, told him he wanted to do the Africa tour, and gave him 24 hours to decide. Eleven months later, the 2 men and 31 other participants, ranging from world-class adventurers to a 55-year-old mother of five who’d only begun riding that year, set off from Cairo and pedalled towards Cape Town.

Gold and de Jong had estimated the trip would take 120 days, with roughly 1 day of rest for every 5 days of riding. In order to garner additional press coverage and appease participants with competitive ambitions, the Tour d’Afrique was set up as (and officially remains) a race. Riders clock in individually at the start of each day and record their times at the finish. But racing is certainly not required. Packs of riders form pacelines and push for the finish each day while others dawdle, barely making it to camp before sunset.

The first Tour d’Afrique participants, whom Gold believes were the first cyclists ever to ride across the continent consecutively, would serve as guinea pigs for the tours that followed. In Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya, Gold had to depend on his previous good works in Africa and diplomatic connections to even gain access to the countries, which were in tense political conditions. Once south of Kenya, at the halfway point, they would rely solely on maps and local knowledge for guidance, as Gold had scouted the route only as far as Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.

For more about the story of the first Tour d’Afrique—and for 68 more destinations to fantasise about visiting with your bike, check out the Cyclist’s Bucket List.

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