Bike Kenya 2012 Plans Continue to Develop

Plans for a 600-mile bicycle tour through Kenya in May 2012 continue to develop.  Recently, International Child Care Ministries Director Linda Adams visited the school at Nyakach and toured areas where our Bike Kenya 2012 team will be riding.  She brought back photos of the people and places which our cycling effort will support. This girl is a student in the primary school at Nyakach.

Vickie Reynen and Bishop Nixon, our primary hosts and guides in Kenya, are continuing to communicate with me about possibilities for routes and arrangements.  Until recently, Vickie was Africa Regional Coordinator for ICCM.  She lives in Nairobi and will be in a vehicle that will accompany our team throughout its 11 days of cycling and several says of sightseeing.

I have received from several friends a YouTube link of a cyclist being butted by an African antelope during a ride in South Africa. I've had lots of fun with that. Along with this are stories of baboons grabbing lunch right out of tourist's hands.  I don't doubt that these possibilities exist.  I doubt their probability of occurring with us.  Vickie assures me that the areas and roads our team will travel are quite safe from such.  If this ride is like my rides in India and Vietnam, here will be enough humor and wonder along the route to fill one's mind and heart without any added "encounters of a close kind."

We have eleven brave souls currently committed or considering the ride.  If you are at all considering this experience--including the effort to together raise $40,000 to build a new ICCM Kenyan school--and you have not yet contacted me, please do so soon.  For planning, training, and fundraising purposes, I'd like to lock-in on our team by the end of October.  Contact me at johnfranklinhay@yahoo.com if you'd like more information about the ride.

Personally, I have been cycling more this autumn than any I can remember. The weather in Indianapolis has been ideal.  Some days I commute to and from work.  Some days, I ride circuits in Eagle Creek Park and northwest of the city.  Some days, I join longer group rides with the Central Indiana Bicycle Association (CIBA).  This weekend is the 44th annual Hilly Hundred, a two-day rolling fun-filled ride through southern Indiana with about 3,000 fellow cycling enthusiasts.  I plan to participate on the Sunday leg of the Hilly.  Whether or not you plan to ride with us in Kenya, I hope EVERYONE will get outside and get on a bicycle and enjoy this season's beauty and wonder.

John Franklin Hay