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ALEX CYCLES AFRICA
  • Home
  • About
    • Who’s Alex?
    • Tour d’Afrique
  • Itinerary
    • Interactive map
    • Planned itinerary
    • Detailed schedule
  • Gear
    • My bike
      • Selection criteria
      • Bike specifications
      • Packing my bike
    • All other gear
      • My packing list
      • Packing my gear
      • TDA packing list
  • Countries
    • Botswana
    • Egypt
    • Kenya
    • Malawi
    • Namibia
    • Rwanda
    • South Africa
    • Sudan
    • Tanzania
    • Uganda
    • Zambia
  • One lesson a day
  • Social impact
  • Links
Status

Goodbye Europe, hello Africa!

January 7, 2017 2 Comments 2057 Views

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Gear

Packing my gear for TDA—a miracle of organization and compartmentalization

January 5, 2017 Leave a Comment 8047 Views

As a novice to camping, cycling, and gadgets of all kind, organizing all my gear has definitely been the biggest hurdle for me. I cannot yet conceptualize that actually cycling through Africa might be any more cumbersome than that. After weeks and weeks of visiting cycling and outdoors stores, researching online, and box after...

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Tips

Packing my Koga bike for the flight in 25 simple steps

January 4, 2017 Leave a Comment 5374 Views

Managed to pack my bike on my own—wahoo! Can’t wait to unpack this in Cairo and find out whether I did well enough to keep things safe, or screwed up big time. Fingers crossed for now!

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Gear

What to do when it’s too cold to clean my bike outside?

January 2, 2017 Leave a Comment 2095 Views
Cleaning my bike in the bathtub

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Gear

My almost perfect bike that won’t make me a racer

December 31, 2016 Leave a Comment 5377 Views

New to cycling and touring, organizing a suitable bike turned out to be quite a challenge for me. Scared of all things that could go wrong, I set out to find a bike that would meet each and every of our tour operator’s recommendations. Here’s the result, the details of which I’ll explain further below. First,...

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Social impact

3 ways to have a social impact, or why I’m not fundraising directly

December 29, 2016 Leave a Comment 3339 Views

At the outset, I had very ambitious fundraising ideas for cycling Africa. I didn’t want my adventure to be just about me and my personal achievement, but to use it for a bigger purpose. Now you may wonder what happened to those ideas, or perhaps even how you could contribute to such bigger purpose. Before I explain...

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One lesson a day

The idea behind “one lesson a day”

December 27, 2016 5 Comments 4013 Views

Throughout my cycling tour from Cairo to Cape Town, I’m planning to write one (very) short story each day about something I’ve learnt. The idea is very simple—share my experience with you in a more interesting way, leverage the power of writing to accelerate growth, and keep it in a format that hopefully I will find manageable. So...

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Tips

How to save TDA’s cycling route for offline map viewing

December 24, 2016 Leave a Comment 1729 Views

Hello fellow riders! While setting up my interactive map for this blog, I’ve learnt that it’s very easy to save the TDA cycling route onto our smartphones for offline viewing. I thought you might also want to do so. The same, by the way, applies to all cycling or other routes created in Google My Maps. If you haven’t done...

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Video

Acclimatizing in Dubai

December 24, 2016 Training 2 Comments 1723 Views

  Admittedly, the temperature in Dubai in winter is rather pleasant. Neither did I cycle hard enough that it might qualify as proper training. However, cycling in Dubai helped me test my gear and get used to my new gadgets. For example, I learnt that tablets aren’t powerful enough for video editing. So, to my wallet’s...

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Map

Interactive map

December 24, 2016 10 Comments 15449 Views

On this map, I’ve overlayed our planned Tour d’Afrique route (red) with my actual cycling data from Garmin/Strava (green), as well as photos and other interesting information. While cycling, readers were able to track our progress and follow my experience live.

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LET ME HELP YOU EXPLORE AFRICA

I found my purpose while cycling through Africa: To help you too experience the beauty of this continent and the warmth of its people – safely and responsibly.

At Fair Voyage, we partner with local sustainability leaders to curate socially and environmentally responsible travel experiences. You get personal travel advice directly from local experts and tailor-made trips crafted just for you. Tell us your trip ideas to speak to your advisor today.

Before cycling through Africa, I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, became aware of the exploitation of porters working on the mountain, and wrote the book Kilimanjaro Uncovered.

Appalled by the continuing exploitation of human life in travel, I partnered with the Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project (KPAP) and volunteered with them as advisor and board member to help make a difference.

At Fair Voyage, we treat our porters fairly, which also leads to a safer and more enjoyable experience for our travelers. See what our travelers say.

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Been to the top of Africa yet? I’d be excited to help make this happen for you. Ask to speak to your Kilimanjaro advisor today!

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  • Popular
  • Recent
  • Interactive map December 24, 2016
  • Packing my gear for TDA—a miracle of organization and compartmentalization January 5, 2017
  • Day 3: Losing EFI is like losing your virginity—supposedly January 15, 2017
  • My almost perfect bike that won’t make me a racer December 31, 2016
  • Packing my Koga bike for the flight in 25 simple steps January 4, 2017
  • 20 months post TDA – a truly life-changing journey September 8, 2019
  • Sudan Video—unembellished footage of what it’s really like January 28, 2018
  • Riders sharing their lessons learnt and inspirational stories September 10, 2017
  • Day 121: The journey is the reward May 13, 2017
  • Paul’s humorous Pirate Speech about our staff May 12, 2017

RECENT COMMENTS

  • Alex on Sudan Video—unembellished footage of what it’s really like
  • Stephen Owen on Sudan Video—unembellished footage of what it’s really like
  • Alex on Riders sharing their lessons learnt and inspirational stories
  • Rohit on Riders sharing their lessons learnt and inspirational stories
  • Alex on Day 121: The journey is the reward
  • Alex on Sudan Video—unembellished footage of what it’s really like
  • Victor on Sudan Video—unembellished footage of what it’s really like
  • Helen Dawtrey on Day 121: The journey is the reward
  • Dale M on Day 121: The journey is the reward
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  • Jeannette Gravett on Paul’s humorous Pirate Speech about our staff
  • Kim on Day 121: The journey is the reward
  • Gun Frisk on Day 121: The journey is the reward
  • Alex on Day 120: Don’t drink and ride
  • John on Day 120: Don’t drink and ride

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