Cycling For Rangers - Update From Africa

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3 filming locations, 4 countries and an average of 75km a day to go

Things are heating up for Theo, Will, Charlie and Johnno as they are now racing against the clock to cover the remaining distance to reach Nairobi. Their flight home leaves on August 28th and with 3 filming locations, 4 countries and an average of 75km a day to go; it's going to be a dramatic finale.



They are roughly 300km south of Dodoma in Tanzania, having just cycled the hardest part of the trip so far. Despite feeling absolutely shattered, the Cycling For Rangers team are pushing ahead in a desperate attempt to catch the Lions game this Saturday! We can confirm that they reached a TV in time!



In their rare moments of spare time, the boys have been busy keeping everyone up-to-date with interesting musings, observations, successes and challenges of the journey thus far.

Johnno has recently written a piece on 'Livingston to Liuwa National Park', and Charlie has blogged about 'Zambia: eye-opening, challenging, incredible.'

The boys have also had a recent feature in The Times of Malawi!


Here are a few questions we posed to the CFR boys

Do you still have all of your possessions?
Charlie was heartbroken to lose his birkenstocks on Day 3. Additionally, we somehow managed to forget Johnno’s iPod on the till of a local South African bakery pretty early on – a bitter realisation. But since then, we’ve been lucky to keep the majority of our kit in check! This is somewhat surprising given that Theo seems to have items continuously dropping off his bike at different intervals throughout the day.

What have you picked up along the way?
We bought a set of children’s camping chairs in Botswana which has to be the best buy of the trip so far. Theo and Charlie have red, Johnno has purple and Waddi has green - we use them everywhere we go!

If each of you were an animal that you'd met along the way, what would it be and why?
Theo would be the dog we met in Mfuwe called Zulu. He’s half spaniel, half Labrador and had more energy than he knew what to do with. Like Theo, he bounds around with endless enthusiasm for life (but can also send you slightly insane).

Waddi is a domesticated hippo called Douglas. He enjoys people’s company but also likes to retire back into his pond for some lone time (whilst keeping a beady eye on the group).

Charlie is Pinco, the giant, angry, sun-burnt hippo from the river. He enjoys terrorising Douglas when's he's hungry or generally fancies a fight.…

Johnno would be the old bull elephant that disliked cyclists and heavily guarded his territory. They say that elephants never forget and neither does Johnno.



Which photo makes you laugh the most?
We met George (left) and his friend at a petrol station on Lake Malawi. The tartan beret with rather illustrious ginger locks flowing out of the back and the Islamic cap his good friend was wearing made for quite an eclectic combination. Our stifled chuckles were overpowered by the pride with which our Scottish brethren was wearing his hat. In the context of the tragic events across the UK recently it was a powerful reminder to us all of our natural ability to cooperate as human beings and live together harmoniously.



What's the latest topic of conversation as you ride your bikes?
We’ve been having an interesting debate focused on the best way to eat the local dish nshima. We've been eating it with our hands since Botswana, but in Zimbabwe we were taught to break it up into small little balls which line the plate and make it cool down. In Malawi the locals take a fist full of this crushed up maize and start compressing it in the palm of their hands before dipping it into the gravy-like sauce. The debate on how best to eat this African rocket fuel is ongoing…

Which photo really captures the essence of that moment and why?
The photo of the four us sitting in front of the classroom that we ended up sleeping in, with all of the children from the school standing behind us is a photo that really captures the moment. We had just spent 10 hours travelling along a dirt road, biking over rocks, sand and even through fords. We were mentally and physically exhausted. Tensions were running high because we had failed to make the 130km mark we’d been aiming for and all we had to eat was pasta, coriander curry paste and peanut butter. These kids just sat and watched us go through our evening routine from a safe 3 metre distance, occasionally uttering a 'howa you' or 'what is your name' followed by a round of giggles and little, if any response from 4 weary cyclists. Finally we decided to get them involved in a group photo which provided a new stimulus for endless giggles and excitement! Looking at the photo now, it's funny to see what we must have looked like to them…

July 8, 2017