FANTASTIC Ein Sukhna Ride!

I just have one word to describe the Ein Sukhna ride this past Friday and that is FANTASTIC!

Friday, April 30th at 7am DST (thanks to our indecisive Egyptian government) there seemed to be a good energy in the air as a large group of us cyclists gathered in front of CAC in preparation for our 125km ride to Ein Sukhna.

Everyone was in good spirits and genuinely excited to begin. There was talk of whether we would have a unfavorable head wind or if it would get too hot during the ride. Well, EL HUM DEL ALLAH everything turned out in our favor with a wonderful canopy of cloud keeping the Egyptian sun off our backs and even a few sprinkles of rain to cool us off a little along the way. The wind seemed to be working with us most of the day making for absolutely perfect riding conditions.

The splitting of the group into CCC1 and CCC2 worked out very well allowing the work horses of CCC1 to take off and enjoy their day with the CCC2 group including Roberto, Pascal, Daniel W, Damian, David and Michael working together and stopping frequently to regroup to fully enjoy the ride. I heard that CCC1 had a little sub division develop with Sherif(Helwan), Yasser, Luis and Bert slightly falling off the back and forming CCC1.5 and the rest of the group Seth, Tai, Sherif(Maadi), Marcel and Dan L sprinting most of the distance to the beach, you guys are ANIMALS. We will have to wait for Pascal to post the updated sprint classifications.

Along the way we also passed a large group of cyclists from the Egyptian cycling club who were also riding to the beach from Maadi. There were probably a good 25 of them riding mountain bikes mostly, some wearing headphones and others without helmets. I heard they were training for a ride from Prague to Dusseldorf this summer. Our passing was mostly friendly and uneventful except for one of our own, Luis. Luis had unfortunately come across two of the cyclists stopped in the middle of the lane chatting when he unfortunately collided with them and went down hard. He had a few scrapes and bruises but cracked his helmet in the process. He got up and continued to complete the entire ride, so well done Luis.

Upon arrival the clouds parted, the sun came out and the sea welcomed us in for a cooling dip, followed by a nap on the sand and a relaxing day at the beach! All in all one of the best one day getaways from Cairo!

I would like to thank everyone for participating and making it another great day on the bikes which I am sure we will all remember. See you all on the road and we will definitely do this again with some alternative rides to come as well.

Sincerely,

Roberto

Dahab Underwater Ride

It’s Friday again and I have to take my bike for a spin. This weekend however is rather a long one because we’re celebrating Sinai Libration day on Sunday, and what better place to celebrate this event other than in Sinai? so I went to Dahab with a bunch of friends mainly for diving and chilling out.. but I decided to take my old road bike”‘Nie’ma” along with me and see if I can take it for a ride underwater. So we arrived early in the morning on Friday and pretty exhausted so I had to shift my plans to Saturday.

The overall experience was so great. I enjoy diving in general, but having alien objects with you makes it more interesing. With hlep of my great friend Haitham, who’s a dive master and a professional photographer I was able to have those great photos that I like to share with you..

Yasser

TABA-SHARM REVIEW (March, 2010) Over Due!

Ride Participants: Pat, Luis, Pascal, Jose, Erika, Marc, Michael, Mohamed, Daniel and Myself (am I missing anyone?)

The evening prior to the ride upon arrival into Taba began Egyptian style as per usual with the last arrival, Pascal, being stopped by the police and his license held because he mentioned that we would be commencing a bike ride the next morning down the coast. Well they said this would not be possible and told him to return later that evening to pick up his license and they would decide what could be done. Our ride almost ended before it started but El-humdulillah they gave us the go ahead with a support vehicle of officers to follow along (more to come on this).

Due to some road work on the way to Taba most of us arrived with black tar covering our vehicles and for those of us with bikes on a rack (myself) had a thick layer of tar covering my rear wheel, brake caliper and derailleur, which I had to spend the evening cleaning with gasoline.

The morning of started without a hitch and looked to be a beautiful day with a slightly ominous breeze and a tinge of warmth for that time of day and time of year. We arrived at the first police check point in Taba where we were all stopped initially but amazingly enough they were prepared for us and let us proceed without too many hassles. Now about that support vehicle, they started with us and as usual they left us within the first 20 minutes of the ride due to boredom, so much for that.

The ride from Taba to Nuweiba was fantastic and beautiful with a slight headwind but very manageable rolling hills and amazing scenery. Then we hit the Wall (18km up to just over 800m) which we typically will stop prior to commencing at the base of the climb in Nuweiba. This year there was no stop as few in the lead decided to continue and not get off their bikes which started a chain reaction and therefore very few if any actually took a break at that point. Well, as it turns out during that portion of the ride it was a boiling 38 degrees with no breeze and I personally started the climb a little dehydrated with no breaks and at one point even went blind momentarily due to excessive sweating and burning eyeballs. Riding with my eyes closed proved challenging but I pressed on and said to myself, this year I will complete this damn climb!!!!!! 5 minutes later I got my second wind and started catching on riders ahead of me, I was really moving and moving fast. Cant remember my speed but I will have to ask my driver how fast he was driving up the hill with me attached to the car. On the way to the top I saw looks of anguish and desperation, some riders pulled over and were folded over their bikes in exhaustion and others took A/C breaks in their support vehicles before continuing on until of course I reached Jose and Erika near the top who were all smiles and thumbs up the whole way!!

All in all I believe about half of us used a support vehicle at some point in the climb to complete it, I wont mention any names here. The descent from the top into Dahab was quite windy making it a challenge to descend after a grueling climb. Upon arrival into Dahab we were greeted with fresh juices at the entrance of the hotel and later that evening complimentary Heineken thanks to Marc. The next day from Dahab to Sharm began with a long 20 km climb as well which I personally bowed out of after spending the evening up all night vomiting from heat stroke and dehydration I presume. Everyone else continued as planned. At the top I couldn’t resist and got into my riding gear and hoped on the bike for the long fast descent which was fantastic! Everyone made it to Sharm one way or another for a relaxing afternoon on the beach!

A big thank you to Pat and his wonderful administrative assistant for organizing the logistics of this ride and all our hotel arrangements.

Once again a terrific weekend for all on a truly amazing ride which I am sure we all look forward to next year in which I will tell myself once again, I will complete this damn climb!!!! See you on the road

Roberto

Qatar Chain Reaction and my first Road Race

I’m here in Doha, Qatar for a 3-week trip. The weather is great at this time of the year and I like it here so far; a lot of activities and events going on. So I’ve done some research and discovered this group of avid cyclists who actually have some fantastic roads to go cycling in.

Qatar Chain Reaction is a multinational group of avid cyclists living in Qatar. Apart from their weekly rides, they also organize: Time Trials, Century Rides, Off Road (Mountain Bike) Races, Special Seasonal Rides, Biathlons (Bike and Run) and Group Socials.

Line up for the start of the Race

So on Saturday 20th of March, at around 3:30pm the planned “Qatar Cycling Federation 50Km Road Race” kicked off. The weather is great this time of the year and today it is fairly windy, with wind blowing from north. The race started very tough (it was actually a 66km race not 50) it consisted of 6 laps 11km each. As we started, everybody seemed to know what they’re doing except for me. They attacked and the peloton was formed so quickly, I seemed to have missed it but for the first lap I managed to stick with a group of a tri-athlete, two other guys and me, then I managed to break away with my tri-athlete friend for two laps before he slowly attacks and leave me face the wind on my own with no aero-bars for the rest of the race.

Race Course

That was my first race and I am very happy to have finished it. I’ve done much longer distances before but those 66km were really intense.

Good day everyone and I hope things are going great back in Cairo,

Yasser

Tour d’Afrique Review

Hello everyone,

Myself, Jose, Erika, and Sherif (Helwan) decided to join the Tour D’Afrique group for their inaugural ride which started on saturday at the pyramids and ended in Ein-Sukhna about 120km. This group of 70 riders will be traveling from Cairo to Cape Town, a total of 12,000km over a period of 4 months with a total of 96 riding days. They have support vehicles follow them that provide them with breakfast, a lunch stop and dinner upon arrival each night. Other than that, the riders provide their own tents, visas for each country and have to setup and breakdown their own tents everyday as well with no showers or bathrooms for 4 months. All this for the give away price of just 8000 EURO!

So, in true Egyptian fashion we were supposed to meet at the pyramids at 7am which of course we did and we were ready to go, only to find that no one else was there. we thought they would arrive any minute and we would get to cycling, but they did not. Any minute turned into 8:30am. We then rode up to the pyramids plateau for a ceremony, pictures and television interviews all the while wondering when the hell this ride was going to start. Finally a 9:30am they corralled everyone and we were off, finally we were riding, well not quite. We had police escorts from the pyramids all the way to the entrance of ein sukhna toll road which blocked cars and kept us all together. The problem was we were riding 10km/hr, plus a few flats, plus erika and I get scolded by the tour leader for rolling slightly ahead of him at the front of the pack (I was scolded 3 times to be precise), we then arrived to the toll road at 11:30am, I repeat 11:30am, two hours to travel 20km.

We were finally let loose and we took off, well I should say Sherif(Helwan) took off with Jose and Erica following, leaving me behind! I had the last laugh though as Sherif(Helwan) in his infinite cycling wisdom never thought of bringing water with him, so half way there he started dying off and getting muscle cramps in his quads and Jose ended up getting a flat which allowed me to catch them all.

We met quite a few people from, Canada, USA, Europe, Australia and South Africa on the ride and all varieties of bikes with probably 50% mountain bikes, 40% hybrids and 10% road bikes. I would not have wanted to have a mountain bike for this stage of the tour. After lunch we were leaving Ein-Sukhna at around 5:30pm and saw people still arriving on their bikes from 9:30am. Some of these people have never really trained for anything like this and most were not avid cyclists. I foresee some difficult days ahead!

Last I heard Sherif (Helwan) has recovered and has arrived first on each of the rest of the stages on his way to Sudan. his tour of Egypt was almost non existent if it were not for a last minute save by Dave Marlowe providing Sherif with a chainring replacement, so thank you dave for the rescue! I also gave sherif my water bottle to continue his tour without further dehydration.

Fun times on the bikes once again, but if you consider doing the ride one day i suggest a hybrid bike with two sets of wheels (road and mountain) if you want to enjoy every one of those 96 days. Being independently wealthy and being able to not work for 4 months may also come in handy.

See you on the road
Roberto