As Gravel Alliance rider Saoirse Pottie writes this article, she’s staring at a beautiful view of Table Mountain overlooking Cape Town from the window of her B&B. In a couple of days, Saoirse and her friend, Abby Popplestone, will cycle out of the city and begin a 10,000km cycle that winds its way across the African continent, eventually finishing in Nairobi, Kenya.
It’s a journey that’s been a long time in the pipeline and we’re so excited to be here!
My desire to travel through Africa began after spending a year living and working in Mozambique in 2017. I was struck by how vastly different people’s perceptions of Mozambique had been in the UK before I left, versus the reality that I experienced. My time in Mozambique was filled with postcard-worthy beautiful empty beaches and incredible wildlife encounters but it was the people and rich sense of community that stole my heart and filled me with the desire to explore more of the African continent.
As with any bikepacking trip, there have been many logistical challenges involved with getting to the start line, but the most mentally challenging part has been learning how to deal with other people’s projected fears.
For myself and Abby, this trip is about exploration, adventure and also challenging those perceptions. We want to provide an honest lens of what it’s like for two women to travel through these countries.
The route
From Cape Town, we will head north along the coast into the Namibian desert, hook a right into Botswana (cycling along the elephant highway), we cross the border into Zambia by Victoria Falls and cycle east until we reach the shores of Lake Malawi. From there, we follow Lake Malawi north into Tanzania, onwards to the famous hills of Rwanda, Uganda (GORILLAS!) and finally finish in Kenya.
Both Abby and I share a love for taking the road less travelled. At a finer scale, the route encompasses some awe-inspiring sections of African bikepacking endurance races, like the Rhino Run and Race around Rwanda, and other well-researched bikepacking routes, like the TransUganda and the Kenyan Odyssey.
Bikepacking is always an adventure and bikepacking through Africa is going to be an adventure like no other!
You can find all the details of Saoirse’s route here:
Our setup
Both Abby and I have selected gravel bikes as our trusty steeds to carry us and our kit on this adventure. Where Abby has chosen steel as her frame material of choice and is riding a Cotic Cascade, my frame is made from bamboo.
Bamboo is still a niche bike frame material, but it is growing in popularity. Bamboo is strong, durable and its flexibility gives it great shock absorbing properties – perfect for the hundreds of kilometers of washboard corrugations that we will be crossing in Namibia.
Bamboo grows naturally and is harvested in several African countries, such as Uganda, Ethiopia and Ghana. The selective harvesting method and its quick growth rate, make bamboo one of the most sustainable bike frame materials.
My frame was custom-made by Kasoma Noordin from Boogali Bikes in Kabale, Uganda - a rural area of Uganda where bamboo widely occurs. Like many places around the world, people living in rural areas have to choose between staying with their families or travelling to the urban centres to find employment. When choosing my bike, I wanted to use my purchasing power to support grassroots initiatives like Boogali Bikes that are helping to provide employment opportunities in rural areas.
I’ve been following the process from harvesting the bamboo into its transformation to a beautifully hand-crafted bike frame. The rest of the bike is composed of Shimano components and parts such as the flared handlebars and forks from my Ribble gravel Al E bike, that I’ve been riding for the last year. I am in love with this bike and I can’t wait to cycle it across Africa!
Follow the journey
If you would like to follow our African adventure, we will be recording the highs and lows on our social media and via a podcast, which you can find here.