Day 188
Sleeping location: Denue’s Airbnb, Eldoret, Kenya
Distance (km today/total): 98 / 13123
Estimated climb (m today/total): 1500 / 98100
Ascent: 1150m, 26km, 3hrs45, avg speed 7kph
Distance (km today/total): 98 / 13123
Estimated climb (m today/total): 1500 / 98100
Ascent: 1150m, 26km, 3hrs45, avg speed 7kph
Day in three words: Rift Blast 2
We went for breakfast at the same place as last night’s dinner, but the woman completely misunderstood our order and only brought us half of the stuff on the breakfast menu. Sometimes the fact that everyone speaks English works against us when they only understand half of what we say and assume the rest. The descent was therefore slower due to the limited weight of the food in our stomachs, but it was still fun. The road was smooth with smooth corners, and very fast and fun apart from the usual lethal Kenyan speed bumps. At the bottom we crossed the narrow valley through thick greenery and gradually segued into the Big Climb.
The section up to the “shelf” was steep and wiggly but absolutely stunning as we climbed up through more thick vegetation with gushing streams everywhere. To the left was a view up to the clifftop high above, with some incredible waterfalls falling straight off the edge and dropping 100 or more metres. I had been so “in” the descent the previous day that I had totally missed these. The climb was tough but not so tough on the light bikes. We had a nice lunch stop at an abandoned fruit stand and ate some mangoes and bananas* rolled up in chapattis. The “shelf” was easy, then for the last section we were buoyed by the thought of beer and ice cream at the previous day’s cafe and positively zoomed up. Despite this zooming we still took 3hrs 45 for the full climb; a guy from the Kenyan Riders team said they do it in about an hour and a half, but they probably don’t stop to buy/eat fruit or take loads of pictures, which I assume explains the difference in times.
We enjoyed our Guinness and ice creams with an excellent view once more, then pushed our leaving time to the very latest we thought would allow us to get back to Eldoret before dark. However, we hadn’t reckoned on the power of the combination of:
1. Lightened bikes
2. A slight downhill and a slight tailwind all the way
3. The effect of 1.5 bottles of Guinness each
4. Competitiveness
This was the first chance we’d had to really go for it on an easy stretch of road, and then we both got a bit into it, and then neither of us wanted to be the slowest, and we ended up covering the 25km back to the outskirts of Eldoret in 45 minutes. The backstreets route to the airbnb was a weird mixture of busy dirt roads and quiet streets that felt like they’d been lifted from British suburbia. The airbnb was a little apartment and it immediately felt like a home, especially as we knew we’d be there for two days and the hosts Denue and Pamela were great. When they realised we had our own food they brought us a gas hob and Denue went out specifically to get us some gas. We spent the evening relaxing and basking in the glow of a successful Rift Blast; two days of tough but very rewarding cycling.
We went for breakfast at the same place as last night’s dinner, but the woman completely misunderstood our order and only brought us half of the stuff on the breakfast menu. Sometimes the fact that everyone speaks English works against us when they only understand half of what we say and assume the rest. The descent was therefore slower due to the limited weight of the food in our stomachs, but it was still fun. The road was smooth with smooth corners, and very fast and fun apart from the usual lethal Kenyan speed bumps. At the bottom we crossed the narrow valley through thick greenery and gradually segued into the Big Climb.
The section up to the “shelf” was steep and wiggly but absolutely stunning as we climbed up through more thick vegetation with gushing streams everywhere. To the left was a view up to the clifftop high above, with some incredible waterfalls falling straight off the edge and dropping 100 or more metres. I had been so “in” the descent the previous day that I had totally missed these. The climb was tough but not so tough on the light bikes. We had a nice lunch stop at an abandoned fruit stand and ate some mangoes and bananas* rolled up in chapattis. The “shelf” was easy, then for the last section we were buoyed by the thought of beer and ice cream at the previous day’s cafe and positively zoomed up. Despite this zooming we still took 3hrs 45 for the full climb; a guy from the Kenyan Riders team said they do it in about an hour and a half, but they probably don’t stop to buy/eat fruit or take loads of pictures, which I assume explains the difference in times.
We enjoyed our Guinness and ice creams with an excellent view once more, then pushed our leaving time to the very latest we thought would allow us to get back to Eldoret before dark. However, we hadn’t reckoned on the power of the combination of:
1. Lightened bikes
2. A slight downhill and a slight tailwind all the way
3. The effect of 1.5 bottles of Guinness each
4. Competitiveness
This was the first chance we’d had to really go for it on an easy stretch of road, and then we both got a bit into it, and then neither of us wanted to be the slowest, and we ended up covering the 25km back to the outskirts of Eldoret in 45 minutes. The backstreets route to the airbnb was a weird mixture of busy dirt roads and quiet streets that felt like they’d been lifted from British suburbia. The airbnb was a little apartment and it immediately felt like a home, especially as we knew we’d be there for two days and the hosts Denue and Pamela were great. When they realised we had our own food they brought us a gas hob and Denue went out specifically to get us some gas. We spent the evening relaxing and basking in the glow of a successful Rift Blast; two days of tough but very rewarding cycling.
*The lady at the place I bought the bananas was nice and informed me that Rebecca was “very strong” for doing all this cycling
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