ESTHER LEWIS
Staff Reporter
DUTCHMAN Robert Knol has cycled from Cairo to Cape Town in 71 days, in what he believes to be a new record.
A visibly exhausted Knol ended his epic solo journey at the Dutch consulate in the CBD at 3.35pm yesterday.
Knol rolled into town with six small pieces of luggage attached to his bike, four spare tyres and a map.
According to several websites, Dutch cyclist Ralph Tuijn rode the 11 200km journey in 80 days in December.
While this record could not be found on the Guinness World Record website, Tour d’Afrique founder Henry Gold congratulated Tuijn on breaking their record set in 2003.
Tour d’Afrique is an annual cycling tour between Cairo and Cape Town.
Knol said a GPS camera, which recorded the dates and co-ordinates of all his pictures and video clips, was proof of his journey. He also had a logbook, signed by officials along his 10 country route.
Knol started the tour at the Dutch consulate in Cairo on January 24 , following much of the same route as Tuijn did. His goal was to do the trip in 77 days.
“For the first few weeks it was very hard. I came from freezing Holland with my winter legs into the desert,” said Knol.
He managed to do about 180km a day in 43°C heat.
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After that, I became stronger and managed 200km per day. This is nearly double the Pick n Pay Argus Cycle Tour distance of 109km.
“The best part of the journey was riding through Tanzania. “The scenery was beautiful, the people were friendly, it was just a great experience,” he said.
However, the biggest challenge was riding through Sudan with its unrelenting heat. Knol had to make plenty of nutritional salt-infused drinks to prevent leg cramps.
South Africa was also not without its difficulties. He said that during the last five days he had become weaker as winds hampered his progress. “The wind was frustrating and cost me a lot of power.”
Knol, a civil engineer, has done several long-distance cycling holidays across the world.
This journey was to raise funds for a project to supply safe drinking water to thousands of school children and teachers in Nyanje, Zambia.
Knol will stay in the city with his sister and brother-in-law before going back to the Netherlands. But he’s not getting on a bicycle for a while.
Would he do the trip again?
“No,” he said. “Well, maybe after five years when my office job becomes too much.”