Dunne's African Adventure: Cycling in Congo

Road cycling is one of my passions and something I have largely sacrificed to serve onboard with Mercy Ships. For the last few years I have clocked about 10,000 km per year. This year I will have been lucky to have done 2000 km. I left my road bike at home in Australia and on the advice of a few others onboard purchased an ex-hire mountain bike in Tenerife. This was good advice. Although I did come across guys riding road bikes in the dry season in Congo the road conditions were not conducive to regular road cycling. And in the wet, a mountain bike was the only option.

My regular ride became a 24 km round trip from the ship out to a local boulangerie where I would buy 10 baguettes, bananas and avocados when available. Typically we would eat 5 of the baguettes and bless others onboard with the rest.

I occasionally met up with some local guys on road bikes on a Sunday morning for their local bunch ride. They would typically do 100 km and I would sometimes head out an extra 20 km with them, taking turns.

The conditions were harsh on my bike. I replaced almost every spoke on both wheels due to a combination of salt, corrosion and spoke type (thin brittle ones), wore out the big chainring, rear cassette, chain and brake pads, all due to the sand that got in the drivetrain despite my washing and cleaning efforts. By comparison, I only had one puncture in ten months, much lower than I experienced in Sydney.

I only had one crash when I rode into a bike eating man hole during the wet season. Nothing major injured except my pride and a bit of skin off due to the sand. I was more worried about being run down by a taxi behind me.

And the traffic? Surprisingly courteous. I found that vehicles gave me much more clearance when passing than in Sydney. 2 to 3 metres was the norm. Plus many vehicles would sound their horns when passing. The only real hazards were taxis pulling over suddenly to pick up or drop off passengers without indicating - nothing changes. And I was always nervous when being passed by large log trucks.