jonnywhite

Winhoek is a distant memory. Once we left, the road got slightly hillier and people started talking about the finish. The eight riders who joined us in the last month, and were just starting their own adventure, bit their tongues to put up with 50 cyclists who spoke of little other than the end. We were putting in long days of riding when mentally we were already there. With a set routine and the end in sight (so to speak, we still had a couple thousand km’s), we became antsy for distractions from the agony of waiting for the finish line. We came up with a few. The evenings were now peppered with events. Prophet-run blindfolded tent-erection contests, tire-changing races, trivia, and singing and playing music about the trip entertained our big family. Throw in a naked kilometer in Namibia (that was extended to 15km to the amusement/utter confusion of the locals), some funky riding tricks (see Superman pic), a great crash (riding 50km/h downhill into a dam with unseen knee-deep water while blaring rock’n’roll on the headphones), and preparations for the finish, and I had enough to keep me laughing all the way to Cape Town. On that note I’ll add a little story about my friend Tom Baxter.

Tom joined us at Victoria Falls, and despite being a ‘new fish’ he integrated into the group quite comfortably, to the point of being one of the few to participate in the much-anticipated naked kilometer. This is a legacy performed on many bike tours, not just a perverted gag, so on a sunny day in Namibia five of us decided our tour deserved the honor as well and stripped down. With our biking clothes in our packs and tied around our handlebars, and lots of giggling, we began our bold trek. Having been in biking gear for 14 weeks the change was actually quite comfortable and welcome, to the point of out-weighing any shyness, so we decided to keep going. Plus there wasn’t much traffic. After six or seven kilometers we noticed Tom was missing. He was having fun when we last saw him, and standing around naked is much more awkward than riding naked (I don’t know exactly why, but can tell you it is), so we kept going. We would later learn that Tom, in his eagerness or anxiety, had left his clothes on the side of the road. This meant doubling back naked to get them, which would not be a big deal except that there was a significant contingent of 30 or so slower (and generally older/more mature) riders behind us that he would have to pass, naked, on his way back to look for his shorts in the desert. Our plan, when we discovered this eventuality, was to deny the existence of any ‘naked kilometer’ event to the rest of the group, singling Tom out as a rogue unaccompanied backwards-riding nudist. Tom, however, revealed his plight to another rider who happened to have been wearing two pairs of biking shorts (to alleviate saddle-sores) and got away with the blunder to everyone else’s chagrin.

At this point I must honor Lyle, a fellow Canadian and good friend throughout the trip, who heard about the naked kilometer while passing other riders on the road. Not wanting to be left out, Lyle stripped bare and rode, otherwise as usual, with his (clothed) wife Krista, to the bewilderment of riders passed and passing, not to mention traffic, who knew nothing about the naked kilometer.

We are fast approaching Cape Town. Just a matter of carrying out the routine and keeping the legs moving for another couple weeks.