cairo mountain biking

Somewhat skint after the usual xmas heavy lifting with plastic- but in need of an adventure- answer: get the bike out. Cheap and cheerful bicycle adventures take you places but under your own steam so you actually get to talk to people- when you stop. Otherwise breeze on by and just watch their faces. Or, if heading into the desert, you get to feel the breeze and find interesting things. The less there is the harder you look- and it’s almost all in the looking.

The aim is to keep the cost way low, way way low, and, as always, this seems to INCREASE the A(dventure) level. For example: today instead of buying a new smart bike and ditching the rip-off Chinese Peugeot rotting on my balcony I emptied a can of WD40 on said Chinese mountain bike and revived it- kind of. Took the back wheel down to the local Cairo bike shop, sat with the owner who told me he’s been diabetic for 13 years- no sugar in his tea he added, indicating the track marks on his inside arm. While somewhat guiltily drinking my own sugared tea I watched the young guy there make a new wheel liner from an old inner tube, replace the bearings and free up the freewheel- all for about $3. Then I splashed another $5 on a crap Chinese front rack and back rack. They are HEAVY but you can’t argue about the price. And walking there and back (I only took the wheel not the bike) was my exercise- instead of paying for a taxi. Win-win!

OK, fast forward a week or two. I’ve been out a few times up at the nearby canyon, Wadi Digla. It’s got a lot busier in the last few years. Egyptian mountain bikers have discovered the place, as well as boys who like to whoop from the hilltops and this is all to the good as it forces me to go outside the central canyon in search of not greener, but at least newer, pastures.

 

I’ve made a couple of trips with my nine year old daughter. We lit fires and boiled up water in an old sardine can to make soup, hot chocolate and tea. We used fluffed up strands of old rope as tinder and old bits of other people’s firewood. Even in the most unpopulated bits of desert you can always find enough wood on your way to where you want to make your fire.

I’ve been getting fitter and taking it easy at the same time. I watch all the ‘keen’ mtb-ers coming off the slopes at 11.30am covered with a sheen of prideful sweat- well they earned it for sure- probably been up since 6.30 or 7.00am. That sounds like work to me, and now, in the winter, finally, it’s pretty nippy too at that time. And I’m through trying cram loads of stuff into the day. Instead I’ll go out for longer and start later.

Today I’m off on my own. It’s a weekday and this counts as work in a different sense to the above. My current experiment is to put adventure (you might even call it life…) ahead of writing, sitting dutifully at the desk, pumping out the words. The strange thing is, I’ve been doing far more writing at this time than I thought I would. Enough, anyway, to satisfy the conscience- often late at night – but stuff I am happy with in more than the sense of word-count. The experiment seems to be working. But I know I’m going to need more than just kicks to keep up the current mountain biking phase- hence this blog writing, and perhaps others things will suggest themselves too.

Back now after a four hour small adventure in the wadis, hillocks and stone laden plains that extend for MILES all around the main 14km strip that is Wadi Digla. This was the big surprise for me as I’ve never really gone that far along the top before. I pioneered a new way of ascending…but wait, when I arrived there wasn’t a single car in the carpark- excellent! But then I heard the telltale snap, crackle and pop of small arms fire and I thought ot oh maybe it’s closed today. Despite being a ‘protected wildlife area’ Wadi Digla backs onto an army shooting range. Only in Egypt would mountain biking include the additional hazard of stopping an FMJ. Years ago I remember walking in wadi digla and hearing bullets zing over head – at the end of their trajectory way above you bullets don’t crack they zing- but then you read about people being killed at Afghan weddings by bullets fired upwards in joy falling out of the sky so you get a bit nervous…but it was open and I rode down the central gully to avoid the potential fireworks. They certainly made a racket firing though- really loud (I assume they were AK74s) like massed fireworks it made me think how deafening a real battle must be. Anyway with such thoughts in mind I ‘cleared’ the firezone and then climbed up the side of the wadi. It was steep and I am unfit, fittingly I used the bike like a zimmer frame on the steeper bits- lifting it bodily front-on, anchoring it with the brakes and then stepping up a few footholds while steadying myself using the bike parked laterally on the steep rocky and gravelly slope. Halfway up I transferred the rucksack with water, food and tools on the Chinese back rack, off the back to my back- it unbalanced the bike too much. But I replaced it at the top. Part of the motivation for these mtb adventures is preparing for a multiday mountain bike expedition later this month. Carrying gear whenever I go out will help prepare me for that.

The top of the wadi is actually the flat bottom of yet another wider wadi. Think of a series of cliffs and valleys, one wider valley appearing either side as you ascend from the bottom, all carved out by successive bouts of geological time- that’s the wadi digla area- what I call wadi digla is actually just the deepest valley at the very bottom. So now I was on level 2. The going was softish until I hit one of the many singletrack trails- all of which criss cross a lightly used set of car tracks (minimal corrugations). I rode for what seemed like hours (actually it was an hour) and the feeling I had was that I was getting drawn miles and miles away from the deepest wadi digla valley. All the side wadis, which exit into wadi digla as dramatic hanging valleys, needed to be ridden around. It was like circling a fjord and having to go around every mini fjord that grew off the main fjord. I couldn’t see anything I remembered and eventually, confused and eager for a cup of tea, I followed bike tracks that cut in the direction of where I knew, eventually, the original wadi had to lie.

Something strange and wonderful about the desert is that one change of light changes everything. Add a slightly different elevation and a valley you have walked along twenty times looks completely different. I identified it by the excessive corrugations in the road track up the middle- only wadi digla has anything like enough cars to develop such things. But that was quite amazing, that I was doubting where I was even though it was completely familiar. When you think of people getting lost in the wilderness add in the factor of everything looking different because you are there at a different time and are feeling tired. It’s worthwhile testing your confidence in your own navigation on hometurf before going further afield.

Time for a brew. I scrunched up some dry dead bushes and used paper and a lighter to light the bundle- too thirsty to make tinder. I copied the Bedouin way of using the initial flare of ultra dry twigs to boil a kettle (desert brush is bad for embers), stacking the flaming sticks all round and under the mess tin I held by the handle to keep it in optimum position. Tea in minutes! Faster than gas!

Then back, thundering along the wadi floor avoiding rocks and gravel. When I was in my car driving home I found I was avoiding potholes in the same way, but enjoying it for once, rather than just putting up with it as I usually do. For the first time I am beginning to understand the addiction to exercise that you see in people- usually as they get older. The reason is simple- the buzz is as good as drugs with side effects that are mainly beneficial. You find yourself thinking, in an idle rather than a nervous way- why didn’t I work this out sooner?