Ride Report: Kigali to Ruhengeri (92 km)

On Saturday, June 7, we went on a great adventure to deliver mountain bikes to Ruhengeri. The bikes will be used in August during the Wooden Bike Classic. They are very nice bikes, GT Marathon Pro Carbons, and some of them were used in the Absa Cape Epic earlier this year. Our route was the standard ‘black road’ (African term for paved road) that we took last weekend during our travels around the country. We faced two significant climbs; the first was just a few miles into the ride at the edge of Kigali, and the second was about 20 km from the end of the ride. Each climb gained about 1500 feet and took about 30 minutes. They both reminded me of climbing Mt. Diablo to the ranger station (a popular cycling route in Walnut Creek, CA). On the first climb we were plugging along, conserving our energy, when a super-fast Rwandan woman on a Trek road bike (unlike any other bikes we’ve seen here so far) came up the hill behind us. She was wearing street clothes, had toe clips, and was riding very strong. She seemed determined to show us Mzungus how to ride in Rwanda. She attacked our group near the top of the climb, leaving most of us in the dust. The ride was beautiful, long, and strenuous. Once we reached the top of the first climb, we had a lot of tough rollers to contend with. People came out from their houses and lined the roads to watch, yell, and wave as we rode by. A lot of kids ran next to us on the climbs, some kept up with us for upwards of a mile! We met an Irish guy that had been riding his bike for 2.5 years. He started in London, biked through Europe, took a boat to Morocco, biked to Cameroon…it was a lot of traveling, and he only had 3 small dry bags on his bike.

After the rollers we had an awesome descent into a beautiful green valley. The vistas were amazing, with rolling hills as far as the eye could see. During our ride in the valley, we were joined by some bike taxis that rode with our group for a while. Their bikes were singlespeeds, and many of them had busted pedals with only a small spindle to pedal with. Soon we crossed a brown river that looked like chocolate-milk, which meant we were heading toward the second big climb. Our support vehicle passed us near here, and we stopped for some Kirkland trail mix (definitely an imported item…thanks for sharing Jenny!) and some photos. There were light showers here and there, but the sky was looking dark and ominous in the direction we were heading. The second climb bordered on brutal since we were about 70 km into the ride. It was a little steeper than the first and it started raining near the top. On the descent conditions deteriorated rapidly and it started pouring. I tried to ride behind Elliot to conserve energy, but I was afraid of drinking his spray. Finally, we saw a sign that said 4 km to our destination, but the road turned up slightly and was a hard finish to a brutal day. Just as it got too dark to see, we reached our guest house. We were soggy and cold…and looking forward to a hot shower. No such luck, as our scary, horror-film quality shower room lacked hot water. It was sad, and we had to rely on tea to warm us up. After a nice dinner with friends, we went to sleep, exhausted and happy.

Thanks for reading!

-Maureen