The morning of day 7 arrived with a sense of relief but
an awareness of not letting our guard down.
40 flat miles to Bujumbura, a little naked hippo riding, and the Tour is
done. But our route took us on a busy road
and we had to stay sharp to avoid any last minute accidents. To this point, 380 miles and 29,000 feet of
climbing into the ride, we had sustained zero flat tires, or punctures as the
Brits like to say, no accidents, and nothing was stolen. Pretty amazing when you think of the roads we
had been on and the terrain covered. We did
have one bike breakdown but fortunately had a spare, and the most serious health
issue was Dean’s knee, which hampered him since Day 2 but he made it to the
end. One word for Dean, “Gamer”.
Happy to report the final 40 miles were accident free and,
after riding about 10 miles of the 40 on extremely rough roads, we triumphantly
cruised into Bujumbura being met by Simon’s lovely family, and Ladd’s, Josh’s,
and Dean’s wife as well as other local supporters. It was a tremendous feeling. We stopped briefly at a spot on the lake
where hippos frequent hoping there would be some there to ride, but we had no
luck, so we kept our clothes on and deferred the naked hippo riding to a later
date.
We encountered some interesting sights over the tour but
none more than these guys. Bushes on
bicycles.
Also, we decided to hold a 5k race to give the riders who
had been holding back for six days, in support of slowies like me, a chance to
blow off a little steam. I was
positioned at the 3K marker and you can watch James, Andrew, Matt, and Ladd fly
by in this video.
Ultimately James was victorious. The night before Day 7, when we discussed the
format of the 5K, the question was raised, “What’s the prize for winning the
race?” Simon suggested a pair of his dirty underwear would go to the victor. We
laughed. Well, Monday we received an
email from James saying, “I arrived home
safely this morning bike and all, and after a bit of nap discovered a lovely
pair of underwear stashed in my luggage... serves me right for drafting!!!” Indeed Simon did stash a pair of underwear in
James’ luggage and replied to James’ email thusly, “James was so smug in the back of the bus when he said to me: ‘Simon,
you'll have to post those dirty underwear to me sometime!’ Little did he
know... and that gave me a lot of pleasure. Treasure them, James, that's six
days of usage and will be worth a few bob in a decade or two!” I don’t know what a “bob” is but I do know it is really funny.
Our time together as a team ended at the Burundi Youth
for Christ offices where we were treated to an amazing drum show put on by
these guys. We were even able to take a
team photo with them!
I’ll put together my final post tomorrow but I can tell
you I will never forget the selfless support I received from the men of Team
Blazing Saddles.
Pictured from left to right: Simon, Matt, Josh, Paul A.,
James, Burundi Dave, Andrew, Dean, Ladd, and Paul S.
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| Team Blazing Saddles - 2013 |
