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@Ndeipi
I was still buzzing from the Savannah Classic just 6 days previous so I was keen for more racing. I certainly got some!
**Hazardous Highlights
**- My friend Stevo went to hospital after a crash at the finish
Numbers
Distance was apparently 104km [64.6 miles] and 335m ascent, I finished 13th in 03:10:00 for an average of 32.8kph [20.4mph]. Well I didn't actually finish 13th, but a few riders were disqualified for U-turning early and for holding onto pickup trucks. Drafting trucks was implicitly allowed - it is de rigueur for Kenyan racers.
Start
It took 8km of navigating Nairobi's toxic sprawl to get from my white-man's-castle to Dandora, conditions deteriorating both on the roads and in the skies. An omen of the tough race ahead! Dandora is a part of Nairobi known for its colossal mountain of trash and its thugs [see Britain's finest ambassador]. The race started a full 150 minutes late, proper Kenyan styley.
**0-50km
**The obligatory clandestine flag poked out of a vehicle to tell the bunch it's race o'clock and the flagpole almost jousted me. The bunch picked up pace and I clung on for about 50km of cracked pavement, surprise pot-holes and regular shouts of SPEED BUMPS - bunny-hoppable at 40kph if you see them in time.
After 15 minutes fellow mzungu Kieron hit a pothole and punctured, see you later! Then as a cameraman leant out of a car window to film us I felt my rear wheel drift a little. My rear tyre was singing the tune of ZZZZZZZZZ-SSSSSSHHIPP, until the unmistakable sound of aluminium & limbs on tarmac made the penny drop - someone was looking at the camera, got too friendly with my rear wheel and hit the deck along with another rider. I must track down this video.
Bunch riding was not without anxiety. There was lots of jockeying for position and no proactive cooperation between riders. I clung the to back, got dropped during climbs and then caught up on each descent. Three times I thought "You'll never pull this one back, Ndeipi", but closed the gap each time. The fourth big gap felt like game over until Kieron appeared miraculously like a knight in shining armour and nursed me back to rejoin the group just as a breakaway started, so the whole group accelerated and I was insta-dropped AGAIN. I'd lost the peleton forever. Figsticks.
**50-90km
**The race route was out-and-return, so at around 1-2km before halfway I was descending a hill whilst the leading bunch were ascending back towards the start/finish. I will forever remember the gritted teeth on the leader's face, two other riders nipping at his rear wheel. Powering up the ramp, they pushed so hard over speed bumps I thought they'd leave 23mm grooves straight through them.
Initially alone on the return leg, I remember catching up to one powerful Kenyan rider who'd punctured out of the leading group. He attacked me like crazy but wasn't particularly slick - he would drift right to leave me in the wind, CLICK CLACK CLICK up the gears, stand and then sprint. He tried weaving right-left-right-left, inviting me to copy to stick to his wheel. I laughed because I felt like Sep Vanmarck chasing Cancellara in the 2013 Paris Roubaix, then screamed repeatedly "FANYA KAZI KWA MOJA" [work together], as this proved successful historically. He chilled out and asked me for a banana. "If I give you this banana will you work with me or just leave?" "I'll work with you." "Promise?" "Yes!" After a couple of turns each I was only able to cling to him for about 15 minutes until he blurted 'YOU'RE NOT WORKING. If you don't work I'll just go." I explained my lack-of-legs situation, sheepishly took a weak turn on the front, clung onto him for five minutes and was summarily dropped. Regardless, I feel I got value from my banana.
I caught another rider who'd managed to stay ahead of me on a MTB. A cocking MTB, for christ's sake! Races in Kenya only attract riders if they have prize money. The prize for winning the road category was about £120, but for MTB it was about £135 so riders were chasing the cash, fair play in a country where minimum wage is like 25p/hr (which explains the cheating, more later). This MTB rider was in his thirties and I valued his maturity in comparison to the uncooperative, attacking teenagers. We made a good team as I, heavier & more aero, could lead downhill whilst his lower weight helped us both fly uphill. At a junction with a highway an oncoming truck failed to yield, instead it turned across us and I had one of those awkward moments we've all had walking on pavements, i.e. "I'll go to the left - oh no you've gone left too - fine I'll go right - DON'T GO RIGHT AS WELL! AAARGH". The truck's brakes squealed as we stopped nose-to-nose. Oh the calamity.
**90-104km
**The congested, undulating road climbed back to the finish at Dandora, seemingly packed with every heavy goods vehicle in East Africa. My MTB chum ran out of puff, leaving me with a 14km solo effort to the finish. I was suffering but perversely enjoyed the stinging. I found a comfy, dark corner in my pain cave and didn't stop pushing. I flew. I was forced off the road by a petrol tanker as it tried to overtake and then veered left till I dropped off the jagged tarmac cliff-edge. I hopped straight back on and pushed hard again, overtaking rider after rider, using a year's experience of Nairobi-traffic-dodging to keep the pace high. The trick is to scare oncoming vehicles into giving you some wiggle room for overtaking slow cars at speed bumps. A man standing in the middle of the road held a sign (scrawled in biro) "FINISH 200m". Ahead I could see another rider moving slowly towards the finish, so I shifted up four gears and sprinted. The other rider saw me and tried to accelerate, but I was moving twice as fast and just caught him at the finish line, beating him by half a bike length. As I pulled over to the side of the busy road I noticed it was James Karanja, the 15 year old kid who beat me in the Savannah Classic. He reluctantly shook my hand but I could tell he wasn't happy! I'm sure if he was 25 like me then I'd have lost that sprint, but I'll take these victories where I can get them. I was so short of breath that I must have appeared mid asthma attack - I couldn't gasp the air in fast enough. I was dizzy and could see whirling shapes when I shut my eyes. I then saw my friend Stevo, covered in scrapes, being helping into an ambulance. Apparently there had been a crash at the finish.
So overall a dangerous, painful, exhilarating race. Kieron summed it up well: "A stupid place to put a race. I smashed a carbon front wheel, but someone could have been killed."