Hello my hometown family! First, Thank you for all the words of encouragement on the web site. I am absolutely elated right now. And I will challenge myself to reach back to your words when I am 4 hours into my next ride.

Second, I need your help with a name for my bike. I had named it slow-poke (will expound on that in a moment) but I think I need to show these other bikers my Philly pride. So, gimme your suggestions. (It's a light blue Gary Fisher mountain bike, if that helps)

OK, now for my riding update. Today was our 7th consecutive cycling day and 9th total since I have been with the tour. I cycled 8 of those 9. I skipped today and rode the lead truck in so I could get to Iringa early and take care of business - shower, laundry and internet in that order.

You already know the first day out of Nairobi was all paved surface and pretty flat so distance was lengthy (169 K). I biked 90 K, or about 62 miles.

Cycling day 2 into Arusha, Tanzania was quite hilly and partially unpaved. I biked about 66 K, half the day's distance of 132, and got on the lunch truck after lunch.

While one of the support trucks drives all the way out ahead of the riders to that day's destination, the second truck drives half the day's distance and stops to serve us lunch. Riders can get on the truck at that point if they need to. Once you finish lunch and fill up again on liquids, check your bike over if you need to, you go on cycling. Once the truck has served everyone and the crew cleans up, it heads to the destination of the day. The crew in that second truck checks on riders as it passes. And if you are OK you give a thumb up. If you have bike trouble or just can't go on, you give a thumb down. The truck stops then and helps with your problem or picks you and your bike up to take you to the end.

We had two days off in Arusha, then headed out on Monday.

Cyclists can leave camp for the next destination any time after they have eaten breakfast and loaded their gear into the trucks. The cyclists competing in the Tour for time sign a time sheet when they leave and then sign in their time when they arrive at the day's destination.

Those not competing for time don't have to sign the sheet. So some of the slower riders (me included) like to get out ASAP. The fast riders can do 80 K of hills on unpaved road in 3 to 3½ hours so they are done when the worst heat hits around 11:30.

But us slower riders are out there much longer. So I and a few others have been leaving at about 7:15.

More to come (be sure to check out the pictures in the entry below)...

Here are some pictures from the trip so far. To keep the main page loading fast, they're inside - you gotta "CLICK FOR MORE" to see 'em...

OK, here's a bunch of us at a makeshift campsite along the way:

Here's me fixing a flat in my inner tube:

And here I go pedaling away in Tanzania, south of Arusha:

Hello everyone. My introduction to the bicycle tour has been "luxurious" according to the cyclists who have been along since Cairo. I arrived in Nairobi, Kenya, a day ahead of the group and stayed 2 nights in a beautiful, secure hotel. Even the campsite I moved to on the third night to be with the group was 4-star compared to most of the other places they had stayed, they tell me.

Then, Thursday morning (3/18) we all left together about 7:30 at a moderate pace so police could halt rush hour traffic for us. Usually the riders who are actually racing this thing head out first on a timer and the others follow at widely varying paces. This means you have individual bikers battling for space on narrow roads with lawlessness that makes Roosevelt Boulevard look tame. Since Nairobi is the capital the roads there are also pretty smooth.

So how did I do on my first day?

I was nervous as heck as I packed up all my gear that morning. Since I was so focused on being ready on time I missed breakfast, served promptly at 6:30 and gone by 6:40. So instead of porridge (which no one calls a real treat anyway) I had one of the many protein bars I brought from home.

Daily riding distance is determined by road conditions (paved, rocky, dirt, sand) and terrain (mountainous, flat, etc.) So this day we did 169 kilometers (about 100 miles) because it was mostly flat. (As I winced on the inside, a few of the riders told me that was the most they'd been assigned in a day since smoth-sailing Egypt, so at least my nerves were founded.)

The first 15K we did together behind the police escort. Everyone had to stay together so cars wouldn't cut in. Rush hour in Nairobi looks like rush hour in any other major world city.

I was feeling so good in this cycle-cade of about 30, the sun just gloriously warming the air, me chatting it up with a few riders, marveling at the crowds this pack of helmeted spandex wearers constantly draws.

Then once out of town tour director Henry Gold started the clock and the racers disappeared. Moderates eased out of site. And the slowpokes (that would be me) picked up the rear.

A doctor named John Brewer rides about 15 miles an hour with his wife daily. But she was bent over sick that day so I rode with him instead. Having been over here in Africa on various excursions since September, he had great advice for me on how to greet the locals in Swahili, how to ease my soreness and pain while riding - and how not to get killed.

When I go up hills, for example. I tend to put my head down to focus on my movements and not the climb itself. But at first I wasn't looking far out enough ahead to see potholes or rickety trucks bearing down on us from the other direction.

At least while riding I remember more frequently that vehicles drive on the left. But in Nairobi I was constantly looking the wrong way and stepping into the street in front of speeding cars. I promise I am being more careful now.

The tour has two support trucks that carry all of our gear we don't need while riding. Of of those trucks goes all the way to the next town ahead of the cyclists. The other drives half the day's distance, parks and makes lunch. (The non-human speedsters are so fast they don't even stop for lunch. They're ar the next camp in 3 hours and change most times).

John and I reached the lunch truck about 50 miles in (and not dead last either, thank you very much). Everyone tells me my standards on pretty much everything - manners, personal hygiene particularly - will plummet as time goes along. So I was fixed with a dilemma as I looked at lunch sitting out on the table with the crew. Flies were on my sandwich like they had more right than me. Back home we know what to do with food that has flies on it. (But, frankly maybe we need to stop wasting).

I hesitated for about 3 seconds and scarfed down my two tomato-cheese sandwiches, pretending to eat around where the flies had been.

Lunch and time off the ass-killer of a seat really rejuvenated me. So I told John I'd try to do the second half. But we told the crew that as they passed, look at me to see if I'm giving the thumbs down, which means "Stop please. I am ready to die."

John and I set off. 5 miles in I tell him I better get on the truck as it passes. So a few minutes later he looks over his shoulder and says "Is that the truck?" I turn around and reply, "no, I don't think so." Seconds later the @#&%! truck zooms past us paying no heed to our frantic hand signals.

Luckily a man driving a car with government plates stops, tells us he is also heading to Namanga and asks if we want a ride. John asks him to tell the crew when he catches them to please come back for me. They did just that, ending my day 1 ride at 63 miles. Personal record, Henry kept teasing me.

Friday was hilly-er but shorter distance - 130K (about 80 miles). I did the first half again with John. Felt great except for a soreness you know where. Had the good sense to tell the crew at lunch I was getting on the truck after I ate. A super biker named Yuko Isuzu rode my bike the second half because she was having tire problems so that worked out for everyone.

Going over as a humble journalist. Hoping to add respectable bicyclist to my resume.

I don't think any amount of training, researching and mental prepping can match what I will face once I get to Nairobi, Kenya on March 15 to join the 40 or so cyclists participating in the 2004 Tour d'Afrique. It has finally hit me that instead of working 8-10 hours a day in this comfy newsroom, fitting in a workout before or after and winding down at home with an hour of "Law & Order," my daily responsibility will be to transport myself the distance of Baltimore or New York - with only the power in my two legs.

Just imagine DRIVING to New York or Baltimore from here 10 straight days with two days off and then back at it again.

Yeah. I'm tired, too, thinking about it.

My official role in this is writer - covering fellow Philadelphian (and fellow Central grad!) David's Sylvester's mission of honoring his friend who died on 9/11). I could ride in the support vehicles all the time if I wanted.

But who wants to see Mt. Kilamanjaro, Victoria Falls and crocs taking down zebras from inside a hot van?

I sure don't.

I don't have to ride as fast as the skeletal, world-class speedsters leading the pack. There are some riding at a more moderate, fit-person pace. And still others who ride like they want to enjoy every moment. Last year there was even one 50something gal who hadn't trained a lick lagging behind the slowest of slow by miles, one of the tour's directors told me. I'm hoping her twin joins the ride in Nairobi as well so I have a buddy.

Seriously, all. I will bike my hardest those 3300 or so miles, try to get stronger mentally and physically, but really just appreciate all the life around me. I truly look forward to your words of encouragement and inspiration. Anybody running the Broad Street Run for the first time or the 10th time; anybody completing the Race for the Cure walk or run; anybody reaching any fitness goal no matter how small it may seem to you - brag about! Revel in it! Then top it!

Catch you later.

Y

YVONNE: OK girlfriends, your favorite running snob is in danger of becoming a bicycle snob.

Some of you may know I have been training for the last two months to participate in the 2nd half of the 2004 Tour d'Afrique bike event. I will be joining about 40 competitive, amateur and leisure cyclists in Nairobi, Kenya March 16. The group began in Cairo, Egypt Jan. 17. I aim to continue with the group from Nairobi to the finish more than 3,000 miles later in Cape Town, South Africa. There are support vehicles I can ride in if on some days I can't do it (And if I have to invoke that right I'll just tell the other riders, sadly, I have spend the day on the laptop because I'm on deadline. Evil editors , you know.)

I will be sending regular updates for this Web site and hoping to get encouragement and questions from all of you.

Biking outside and talking to people who believe that biking is a way to better the world has threatened to make biking No. 1 in my heart over running.

Here's my Q&A with hot shot mountain biker Joe Breeze, who just might make you feel the same. (He'll give a presentation at 5 p.m. Sunday at Trophy Bikes, 3131 Walnut St., in Philadelphia. Phone registration (215.222.2020) strongly suggested.)