To begin with we go to Guinea and Guinea Bissau…

Video of Biking the Guineas’ Backroads

(well, I say ‘backroads’… there were ‘main’ roads too, but they all look the same! Dusty.)

Biking in Guinea

You can check it out on my new website:

Helen’s Take On… video of Cycling Across the Sahara

You can check it out here on my new website: Helen’s Take On…

Since Yaounde there has been little to fix – the wobbling wheel got worse but I lived with it, I did another oil change, the cable of the Rohloff internal mechanism frayed and had to be replaced and I got two more punctures. That’s all.
And now for a detailed run-down:

Frame (Thorn Raven Tour)

A few scratches but otherwise good for plenty more km’s.

Racks (Thorn)

Paint has gone where panniers have rubbed and so some rust where metal is exposed. Otherwise good for plenty more km’s too. Not a single loose bolt the whole journey.

Tyres (Schwalbe Marathon XR)

Moved front tyre to back at 12,000km and replaced rear with spare. Not really necessary though. Less than 10 punctures in total. Both good for many more km’s.

Wheels (Rigida, ceramic)

Never needed truing and not a single broken spoke. Minimal signs of wear on rim. So no problems, good for more km’s.

Brakes (v-brakes)

New pads at 17,000km. Current pads ok for a summer of cycling in the uk but will change for the next trip. Cables lasted whole trip… just (should have changed them at about 24,000km but struggled on to end) and having removed them now I can see the wire is frayed at the lever end. The cable housing has split at ends also. Brake levers still work fine. So, cables, housing, v-noodles and rubber boots all need replacing.

Chain, Chainring and Rear Sprocket

Replaced at 15,000km. Needs changing again, but nowhere near as worn as last time (remember the ninja-style sprocket weapon)!

Headset (Cane Creek with Orbit sealed bearings)

The headset is fine except that the sealed bearings are badly worn and will need to be replaced.

Handlebars (straight bars with ergon grips and bar-ends)

The grips are totally worn and splitting so will replace for the next trip. Although, having suffered with loss of strength in one hand and some minor pain due to pressure on the palm trapping the nerves, I will probably look into alternative styles of handlebars – possibly the butterfly style.

Saddle (Brookes)

– very comfy now it’s well worn in and don’t even wear padded shorts. Difficult to keep out of wet for entire trip and now the rivets are rusted. Otherwise, it’s fine.

Rohloff Hub

Besides the oil changes, no maintenance required. Unfortunately the rear wheel started wobbling at 14,000km and progressively got worse, but made complete journey… just. Wobbling due to worn hub cap bearings. Desperately needed replacing so I took it to SJS Cycles for repair – read more about this at end of post.

Rohloff Internal Mechanism

The cable runnning through the mech frayed and caused the unit to jam so couldn’t change gears at 20,000km. It was an easy roadside repair to remove the internal mech, trim the frayed wire, put it back together and keep cycling with all gears working. I then changed the whole unit when I got to town.

Rohloff Twist-Shifter

The rubber twister is totally worn with no grip remaining, once triangular in shape, it’s now round. The rest of the unit is still in working order, but looks rather battered after attacking it with a screwdriver to loosen it after it seized up after 15,000km – due to cycling in wet season with sweat and dirt and grime getting inside. Probably in part due to the o-seal which broke at 13,000km. Still usable for now but I will replace at same time as replacing the gear cables.

Rohloff Gear Cables

The cables are just about ok, but since these are the originals they are near the end of their life. The housing has split at the twistshifter and where it bends to go along the frame. The bayonet connectors and cable stoppers look pretty old but still do the job. Will replace whole system for next trip.

Notes on Rohloff Hub and SJS Cycles

After email with both SJS and Rohloff while in Africa, they agreed that the wobbling wheel was due to worn hub bearings. I could send the wheel back to either SJS Cycles or Rohloff and it would be repaired under warranty. I was told I would do no further damage to the hub if I continued cycling. It would be about at least a 2-week turnaround. I continued cycling on it.
Last weekend, now I’m back in the UK, I took the wheel to SJS Cycles expecting to leave it for repair. I explained the problem and Dave said he’d take a look to check it out. Five minutes later he returned and said that if I could wait half an hour, he would fix it and I could take it away. That’s what I did. The sealed hub bearing was worn, as suspected, but on further investigation, the axle was wobbling within the assembly and a groove had worn into the internal mech due to continued cycling on the wobbling wheel. The whole unit was replaced, including the internal mechanism and a new rear sprocket put on at the same time. All covered under warranty which meant I walked out without spending a penny – oh, except that I bought a few Schwalbe Marathon XR’s to stockpile, since Schwalbe don’t make these long-lasting tyres any more and they were on offer. Excellent service, which has gone a long way to reversing my original opinion which I wrote about SJS before.

In short

I’m just sourcing all the new parts I need so the bike is ready for the next trip. It’s quite a lot, but that’s to be expected: new brake cable set, gear cables and housing, twist-shifter (think I’ll buy the ‘light’ one which is cheaper too), chain, chain-ring, sprocket (replaced at SJS), headset bearings, and handle bars/grips. And as mentioned, I have a new hub now too.

It’s a great feeling!

Anyway, here are some pics from the last bit of the trip from Namibia into South Africa and along the West Coast. I spent the weekend by the Berg river in Velddrif (Thanks to Rusty, Kim and co who put me up and put up with me) before the last push to Cape Town.

Photos of the last part of the trip coming soon…

About time for some fun. Time to hit the gravel and leave a trail of dust.

Just out of Khorixas I got what I was looking for. But with gravel roads come corrugations. They are not so much fun. Time to shake, rattle and roll on slowly. Dust in my hair. Grit in my teeth. Time to grit my teeth and bear it. With a dramatic change of scenery and plenty to look at I now had to carefully watch the road. Lose concentration – lose contact with the bike. Simple. I was not about to fall off. But it was hot. Scorching. Draining. Must stop frequently. So I took lots of photos. Photos of rocks. An arid landscape of rocks. A few trees. Last week life was green. Now it ranged from golden yellow to a burned rusty red.

Damaraland

Selecting a route that passed through as many of the ‘sights’ marked on the map as possible was the plan. First the petrified forest. Clarification – pay some dollars to see a large lump of stone that looks like a tree trunk. Alternatively just pull off the road at night, pitch camp under some trees and see three chunks of petrified tree being used for cooking over a fire. Second the rock art of Twyfelfontein. Clarification – pay some dollars to see the child-like engravings of oryx, giraffe, lions and many footprints. Alternatively go for a walk in the mountains, and where you find rocks and caves, you find more animal outlines. Third – by this stage don’t even bother to see the ‘burnt mountain’. Clarification – this mountain looks like it’s burning in the setting sun. Alteratively keep your eyes open and see all the other mountains here glowing a similar hue at that hour of the day before day turns to night.

Sarcasm aside, this region, Damaraland, is simply stunning. And I might have missed it had those ‘tourist sites’ not been marked on the map.

Next stop. The Brandberg mountains. But first, getting there.

The sun rose in the blue sky and beat down without remorse on anyone or anything that dared stay out. Which as far as I could see, was just me. No shade. Nowhere to hide. Or take cover. Take a stand. Hold out. Endure the heat. What you know has an ending can be endured. It’s the same with a race or a bad book. With the end of the day, the sun’s siege would lift. But first it must get hotter.

View of Brandberg mountain from White Lady Lodge campsite

The atmosphere was alive. High voltage buzzing. Electric Static. But the air was dead. Airless and Dead still. Not an animal in sight. Only me. Not a blade of yellow grass moved. Only I tried. But then I would see a cloud of dust rising in the distance and I knew that a vehicle was on it’s way. Tourists in air-conditioned cars. In a bubble of cool, flowing air. They were not seeing the same scene I was. Same rocks rising out of the orange earth. Same yellowing grass and maybe a tree here or there. Maybe if there was an observant passenger he would see, as they rush past, the perfectly constructed weavers’ nests in that tree here or there. Unlikely. But what they see is just a real-time photo. Could be back flicking through the National Geographic. Your eyes cannot truly see the whole picture unless you can hear and smell and feel and taste it too. Hear the buzzing of the insects and smell the sweat that runs down your neck onto your salt-encrusted shirt and feel the hard earth defiant under your feet and taste the fine dust that sticks in the back of your throat with your tongue sticking to the top of your mouth that even a gulp of your sun-warmed water cannot moisten and never satisfies your thirst either.

I take a chance and take the back roads to the Brandberg mountains. Advised against it. Easy to get lost on the many tracks. Sounded like fun. Not possible to get lost as far as I could see. Follow any of the tracks in a downhill direction and eventually you get to the riverbed. Rivers do not defy gravity. Besides, I could see trees that must flank the riverbed, for trees need water, if only occasionally. Follow any of the tracks along the riverbed in the direction of the mountains. The Brandberg, the only mountains in that area, could be seen days away. I knew there was a lodge by the riverbed at the base of the mountains. Impossible not to find. Especially when you have a GPS!

So as the day wore on and the sun passed it’s zenith so I wore out and passed my peak too. A long day on gravel roads. But as the gravel turned to dirt and took a meandering course like a stream, and rose and fell and wound it’s way down so I could enjoy the biking. No more corrugations to shake and slow you down. Only your nerves and the strength in your legs to limit your speed. For me, just the strength in my legs and I still had more than enough (enough strength that is, I only have two legs).

Wild camping on the way to the Skeleton Coast

I pass a farm and stop. Best to get more water. A farm, falling slowly into decay. Fencing fallen. Cars stripped and rusting. Donkeys stood, heads down, dejected. The fierce sun has won this fight. Even the colour of the earth here was a faded greyish-brown. The survivors sat in the shade silently. All around was silence. It surrounded and enveloped as real as a blanket wrapped around you to keep warm. Only now there was a gentle breeze. You could feel it gently cooling on your damp skin and see it in the spiky yellow grass that rustled and you could follow the wind’s path like an animal in the undergrowth. A tiny red lizard would dart across the track and a curious croaking would cause you to stop and investigate the source of the sporadic sound.

Down by the river I kept a keen look out for elephants. But the only sign was of trees stripped bare. I dragged my bike through the dry, sandy riverbed. Sweating profusely. And push on up the other side. Eventually I reach the lodge and cool down with a cold beer and then warm up with a hot shower.

From the mountains I head to the sea. In between is desert. Not much else.

A pit stop to refuel in Uis and I take refuge from the sun in the shade of a bar. Late in the afternoon I leave this mining town and cycle west. The wind is strong in my face. Unrelenting and unforgiving. My shirt flaps wildly behind me. With the sun low in the sky, it is surprisingly cool now. But still I am sweating and barely moving on this gradual upward incline battling against the elements. Out of Uis and past a few weather-beaten shacks made of scrap metal and old wood. Large Castor oil barrels beaten flat and bolted together now someone’s shelter. And then into a barren wasteland with just one road and a line of telegraph poles running to the sea.

Kites going home to nest at sunset

Stopping just before sunset, I pitch my tent and watch the kites against a orange sky. They leave the thermals and fly over my tent to their nesting grounds. Hundreds of them. They watch me watching them until they have all settled on the ground and it is too dark for me to see any more.

Predictably, the wind dies down in the night too and the morning brings with it a beautiful sunrise. Smoothing and soothing this stark desert landscape. I would like to linger longer but the longer I leave it the more pedalling under the intensely hot sun and unforgiving headwind.

The road is long and straight. Gradually the peaks of the Brandberg disappear out of sight and the landscape is flat far out to the horizon. The rocky ground is now bleached white. The coastal fog lingers low in the distance but where I am the air is crisp and clear and the sky a bright blue.

Road to the coast

Kilometre after kilometre is the same. Mindlessly following the road. Empty thoughts. Eyes seeing everything. The goshawk on the telegraph pole. Gems for sale at unmanned roadside stalls – large rocks of crystal pink and jade green. The rusty shell of a burned-out car and blown-out tyres now marking some unseen track into the desert. A pool of water shimmering in the road ahead… but this is the desert and there has been no rain here. As Ernest Hemingway said, “In Africa a thing is true at first light and a lie by noon and you have no more respect”. He is talking about “the lovely perfect weed-fringed lake you see across that sun-baked plain. You have walked across that plain in the morning and you know that no such lake is there. But now it is absolutely true, beautiful and believable.” In the heat of midday your eyes truly can be deceived. And so when I see the outline of buildings faintly flickering through the haze I am not sure if I really am seeing the town of Henties Bay on the coast or just seeing what I want to believe.

Henties Bay in the haze

But it is Henties Bay. And now it is cooling down again with the refreshing salty sea air. I cycle towards Swakopmund and camp on a lonely stretch of beach. Watching the clouds come in and the last light fade over the white crashing waves and the fog slowly envelope a wrecked ship in the distance that I had passed earlier and spoken to the solitary fisherman sat by his bakkie sipping a sundowner and admiring the harsh beauty where the desert meets the Atlantic sea.

After that, it was a real slog south to Aus where I planned to take a rest. But Aus was a disappointment and so I continued to the coast for Luderitz, which is lovely. And on the way I saw the wild horses of Garub and also stopped by the ghost town of Kolmanskop.

I was definitely ready for a break from the gravel roads, incessant wind and irritating hordes of flies that would get in my eyes and ears and occasionally swallowed or snorted if I closed my mouth and breathed through my nose.

But at least the scenery was lovely. Here are some pics:

Here are a few pics from a lovely, unexpected, day out which ended with an almighty thunder and lightning storm in the evening…

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