Dublin to Capetown on a bike

animal

There's a lunatic call Dave McLaughlin who is a member of Dundrum Shopping Center - Orwell Wheelers who has just begun an adventure. He's cycling from Dublin to Capetown. He has started an online journal and hopes to update it on Saturdays. He thinks it will take about 8 months.

Previous adventures of this guy are as follows:
1.He cycled to Italy from Dublin to a training camp.
2.He did the Paris-Brest-Paris endurance event last August in about 75 hours i think.
3. He holds the national record for the 24 hour time trial. I think he did something like 427 miles in the 24 hours.
4.He did the Wicklow 200 last year and took a detour to Dunlavin to ride a race. Did a total of 350kms that day....

There are numerous other adventures i could go into. He's basically a lunatic! If you'd like to read more you can check out his online journal here:
http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/Hatchetsholidays

kincsem

My guess is there are no roads as we know them, down the coast of Zaire and Angola. Maybe someone might correct me. I was on the other side, Mozambique, in 1977, for a couple of months, and there were stretches of hundreds of miles without roads. I wonder has he checked with the Department of Foreign Affairs about the situation. They could have put him in touch with the Irish diplomat/counsel in each country (often a local Irish person with an honourary position).

I flew over Angola from Luanda, Angola to Lusaka, Zambia in daylight in 1978, and didn't see any roads or infrastructure. It might be different on the coast.

The bike looks the business. Too good in fact.

A better route might be the Boorman/McGregor route, down through Uganda, tanzania, Zambia, Botswana, South Africa - tarmac.

kincsem

I've just looked at the coast "road" in Angola and it ends at a place called Porto Alexandre at 15" 48' South, 11" 51' East. Nothing but sand south of that.

sportswear

2 of my mates are cycling to beijing at the moment....

should take them a year

www.biketobeijing2008.com

supertramp

check out

www.roundtheworldbybike.com

Alaistair Humphreys spent 4 years cycling from Greenwich through Africa, got a boat from Cape Town to America and cycled from Patagonia to Alaska. He also cycled from Australia back to England.

He spent only 6,ooo sterling. He started it in 2001

boomdocker

I have travelled by road in Angola. From Luanda there is tarred road south for about 150 km, then good dirt road from there down to Lobito/Benguela. From there he will have to head inland to Lubango and on to the border post at Santa Clara, about 500km inland. The Portuguese had a very good infrastructure in Angola, which the Chinese are now pumping billions into re building. The coast is beautiful down there and excellent climate too.

animal

Thanks for the info - i'll pass it on to him. Might be a couple of months before he gets that far!

Mothman

he will meet plenty of travellers en route who will advise him of routes though its a bit late in Morrocco to decide between starting at west coast or the previously mentioned Boorman/McGregor route. The are companies doing overland trips throughout Africa. The drivers will probably have loads of priceless advice.
I'd say, where planning will pay off is regard to visas. They are required for many countries and usually got in advance of arrival at borders.

I travelled along much of route in 1995. Politically things change quickly in Africa, and it would be foolish to take specific advice based on experience 12 years ago.

I'd would imagine the first major hurdle is getting from Morrocco to Senegal. I'd say the Western Sahara/Mauritania route may be opened up, but I doubt its paved. It wasn't open 12 years ago.

Nigeria was a very unpleasant country. It felt quite unsafe with plenty of armed checkpoints. Hopefully its improved there.

Its an awesome trip

Good luck to him

kincsem

If you log on to Google Earth, and in the Layers section on the sidebar click Gallery, then click Tracks For Africa, then click T4A Roads, the tar roads are overlayed on the satellite images of Angola (blue lines). Other roads are shown in orange (major roads?).

The coast road south from Luanda to Benguelu looks best, then inland to Lubango, The road south from Lubango can take a traveller south to Windhoek in Namibia (although turning off this road part way down and taking a more easterly route may be better).

kincsem

GPS maps of Africa, and probably more.

http://www.tracks4africa.com/