12.17
This mourning after a quick breakfast, everyone is ready to go again. I decide to ride in the support truck for this stage so I can take pictures and because I would have had a tuff time doing this 100 mile stage after the race yesterday. Kennedy from Kenya is very happy to ride my bike back.
After about a two hour delay while we changed the starting place and sort out a protest, (some of the riders thought a rider had cheated yesterday and would not ride until he had been disqualified) the race is off again. I sit up front with the driver and David. In this truck are all the bikes that broke or were not being ridden from the day before. Plus I also count between 16 to 20 people now riding in the back. I am not sure how they all stayed in as we went flying down the road dodging pot holes, people, goats and trucks. About halfway we get a flat. So we unload people then some of the bikes and change the tire. Next we run low on gas. So we pull into a gas station and while an armed guard keeps the curious away, we fill up and are off again. As we catch up to the riders we find many motorbikes have joined in pursuit of them. There is much honking and yelling. One little bike had four men on it. Many are carrying branches of trees on the back to show support. We now race ahead to get to the finish line before the bikes come in. Thru town we go with horn blaring. Three ladies crossing have to run to get out of our way. We do not even slow down. I doubt we could have stopped anyway with the load we were carrying. This time the bikes come in to finish from the right direction. There is much yelling, clapping and people running everywhere. Somehow the riders manage to get through the mob to the finish line. And so ends three days of racing in Uganda.
Rick
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