EPISODE 39
Connecting Africa with Purpose
Get ready for an inspiring adventure as Ellie Mitchell-Heggs shares her incredible plan to pedal 10,000 kilometers across Africa. As of this episode, Ellie is in Tanzania, one-third of the way to Cape Town. She discusses the motivation behind her ambitious project – which she calls Cycle Africa – to connect with 100 non-governmental organizations and social enterprises to gain a firsthand understanding of local, community-led development. Ellie also tells about her family background and how it shaped her perspective on Africa, her previous bikepacking adventures in Europe, her extensive preparations for this journey, and the realities of being a solo female traveler in Africa. She recounts the highs and lows of her expedition, from the physical challenges of treacherous dirt roads and swarming insects to the heartwarming connections made with local organizations. This is more than just a bike trip; it’s an incredible story of connection and purpose.
Episode Transcript
Ellie: I really wanted to firstly learn about what was going on at a local level and see what kind of initiatives are taking place, obviously with a focus on education, youth empowerment and gender, because that’s been my background for the last ten years. I wanted to intertwine this with something which I’d always wanted to do, which was cycle across Africa.
Gabriel: You just heard Ellie Mitchell- Heggs outlining her plan to complete a 10,000 kilometer- bikepacking expedition across Africa while meeting with 100 non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, and social enterprises. She calls this project Cycle Africa. I caught up with Ellie in Tanzania, nearly one third of the way through her journey. She’d been on the road long enough to experience the highs and lows of such an ambitious undertaking, and had just finished a particularly tough week. Motivating her along the dusty roads are friends, family, and the knowledge that she has an important objective, connecting Africa with purpose.
Sandra: You’re listening to The Accidental Bicycle Tourist. In this podcast, you’ll meet people from all walks of life and learn about their most memorable bike touring experiences. This is your host, Gabriel Aldaz.
Gabriel: Hello, cycle touring enthusiasts! Welcome to another episode of The Accidental Bicycle Tourist podcast. For a long time now, I’ve been wanting to do a complete episode on Africa and I am pleased to announce that today’s guest, Ellie Mitchell- Heggs, has answered that call. In today’s episode, we’ll hear about Ellie’s initiative to bicycle for ten thousand kilometers through eastern and southern Africa for a project she calls Cycle Africa. Before we do, however, I’d like to briefly return to the previous episode, “A Bear of a Ride” with Svein Tuft, where I stated that in the Pogačar did not lose a single second on any stage to either second-place finisher Jonas Vingegaard or third-place finisher Florian Lipowitz. Astute listener Piet from the Netherlands pointed out that on stage 19, although both Pogačar and Vingegaard finished with the same time, Vingegaard received six bonus seconds for finishing second and Pogačar only four bonus seconds for finishing third. Thus, technically speaking, Pogačar’s lead did decrease by two seconds that day. Piet also asked if I knew whether Pogačar was the first man to accomplish this feat. I did not know, but I did write a computer program – in Python, of course, as those of you who listen to the show know about – to figure it out. So, we’ll go into more details later in the episode, but now it’s time for Africa. Ellie Mitchell-Heggs, thank you so much for being a guest on The Accidental Bicycle Tourist podcast.
Ellie: Thank you very much for having me.
Gabriel: Where are you right now? Where are we reaching you?
Ellie: I’m currently in Mbeya, which is a town south of Tanzania, and about 100 kilometers north of the Malawi border.
Gabriel: Out of your 10,000 kilometers, how many roughly have you already ridden?
Ellie: Officially, 3,063 kilometers.
Gabriel: Okay, that’s very good. You’re keeping close track.
Ellie: Yes, I did calculate it today.
Gabriel: Okay, very good. I like that answer. Very specific. I have a feeling that it’s been a chain of events to get to the southern part of Tanzania, close to the Malawi border, and part of it was this project that you have come up with, Cycle Africa. I’d like to go back to the beginning of how this all started, because I think it’s going to take a while to bring us up to speed.
Ellie: I was born in Paris, and I grew up just outside Paris, and moved to the UK when I was dad actually grew up in Africa, in Zambia. I guess my motivation in a way of sort of moving to Africa and being interested in the continent is having that influence and having not just stories, but also my dad’s career was pretty much orientated around economic development and trade in Africa, so I was deeply fascinated and interested in that. I guess what sort of pulled me to spend a lot of my career and working here.
Gabriel: Can you tell us a little bit about how you first became interested in bicycles or bikepacking?
Ellie: I think sort of rewind back to, I guess, maybe around 2017. I think I just started looking at cycle routes across France. At that point in my life, I was very much annually going on a girls’ trip to the Mediterranean and not doing very much, just staying very horizontal and enjoying the sunshine. But at one point, I started looking at the cycle routes and asking my friends, “Would you be up for doing a one week, two weeks of cycling across France, across Italy?” And then, obviously, no one was really up for giving up their annual leave to do a one-week cycling trip. And then in 2018, I got a job in Cameroon working for an NGO. Going back to my degree, which was many, many, many moons ago, I studied biology. I was interested in zoology that would probably be because I was interested in Africa because of my dad. So I started biology, which sort of led to working in healthcare developments in the UK for a while with a focus on maternity care and neonatal care. And that’s what took me to my initial role in Cameroon, which was working with an NGO that had a focus on maternity initiatives. I ended up focusing actually more on the business development side of the NGO and looking at fundraising, communication, partnerships, and that sort of became my area of expertise. And so I got this job and I ended up spending my weekends doing mountain biking. There wasn’t much else to do really in the city, and it was still the only way, getting some exercise. And I fell in love with that. I really enjoyed it. And then on my return to the UK, I just decided on a whim, right? Waiting for my next job to come up. I thought, right, that’s the time to do a cycle trip. And I actually dragged my cousin along with me and we cycled down the west coast of France and we used WarmShowers. And I think that was a big part that both inspired me and motivated me. We had an incredible time. We were very much “zero gear, no idea.” I think my cousin, like, she initially didn’t have any cycle shorts with her. She was like, “Oh, I’ll just stuff for a pair of socks down there or something.” Halfway through Day One, we were like, “Shall we just go and get some more bits and pieces?” Through WarmShowers, we just met some extraordinary people who were telling us about their incredibly long bikepacking trips, doing the Silk Road, going across the Stans, going across Europe, Africa. And I think that’s when I was like, right, there seems to be a big community out there. And a lot of people doing this. And then after that, every year or so, I did a trip. A lot of the time it was across France, because it’s just sort of such a wonderful country to cycle through. It’s sort of really accessible for cyclists. And I’m also bilingual, knowing the language. So it was very much in my comfort zone, I guess.
Gabriel: Did you go alone?
Ellie: So a few times I managed to get some people to come along with me. And I think they enjoyed it. But most of the time, yeah, I did my trips alone. Yeah, I quite enjoyed cycling on my own, enjoying the solitude. But also, I think it opens up opportunities for connection and meeting people. You’re more likely to reach out to people, I think. I mean, personally, in my experience. But yes, the most of the time it’s been alone. But on a few occasions, I’ve managed to convince some people, especially, you know, there’s cheese and charcuterie.
Gabriel: What made you decide to pursue bicycling instead of some other sport?
Ellie: I will put my hands up and admit straight away that I’m not a keen road cyclist. Bikepacking, I think, is obviously very different to, you know, getting on a road bike that weighs three kilograms versus a touring bike that weighs 20, 30 kilograms of your tent and your belongings. It’s the concept of getting from A to B. I think there’s sort of this real sense of accomplishment and achievement that I don’t think I felt in other parts of my life. So this is sort of, yeah, maybe quite sort of a deep explanation behind it. But when you talk about the pressures of academia and your career and achieving a pay rise or getting an A-star on a paper, I think, you know, managing to get from one city to the next in one piece as well, with all your gear, there hasn’t been a feeling like it. And I think that is my class-A drug. That is like what I live off. It is amazing. And yeah, I guess that’s why I, you know, really got into this and any sort of chance of, you know, long, like annual leave I had, I would try and do long trips.
Gabriel: I actually had the same feeling myself. I lived in the United States at the time, but I loved bicycle touring in Europe. And so I would scrape together the money to fly to Europe and bicycle tour as much as I could. So that was a really cool way to spend summers.
Ellie: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Gabriel: I know about the mountain biking and I know about all the different bike tours you did in Europe. How does that lead to cycling across Africa? It doesn’t necessarily follow.
Ellie: I know, I know. I think it’s interesting, because I’ve met some other bikepackers who would did the Kenyan Bike Odyssey, if you’re familiar with it, through the bikepacking.com. They were asking me about my previous trips that I’ve done and I said, “Oh, you know, I’ve done a trip in Italy, done a trip in Spain and done a few trips in France and enjoyed staying with my lovely WarmShowers hosts. Someone said, “You haven’t earned your stripes to cycle across Africa. Like most of us doing Africa have cycled across the Balkans or cycled across Southeast Asia. Like, you’re really jumping in the deep end here, like cycling across Africa.” Which made me laugh. Yeah, just to kind of give you a bit more context. So I worked in Zambia for a while and I did a lot of traveling around East and Southern Africa during that time, you know, whenever I got a chance, I would go to Malawi or go to Botswana and Zimbabwe. Hearing stories of Zimbabwe, you know, feeling like, oh my gosh, what is it going to be like? And then arriving and getting there and seeing that actually it’s an incredibly peaceful country and people are really welcoming, kind, and warm. And wherever new I went, I was blown away with how kind people were. And I think, um, yeah, working in Zambia spent a Sunday a year working in a very rural location. So I used to live in the bush. And so whenever I’d come into the city, I would go and stay in the backpackers’. I would often see people and their bikes and their paniers passing through and would obviously chat to them and they’d tell me that it was cycling across Africa and, you know, how positive it all was. People who I’d never, I hadn’t imagined.
Gabriel: Can you just tell a little bit more about their stories?
Ellie: Everyone is so different. There are some very quirky people, very free-spirited people, a lot of people who are just doing it for the sport. Yeah, like, “I want to get from A to B in under two months,” and you’re just like, “Wow, okay.” Retired couples as well, just, you know, doing this and taking the time out, you know, having finished working to do something they’d always dreamt of doing. And yeah, just sort of seeing people doing it makes you realize that it is possible. It’s not just something that people do on a motorbike or in a cruiser, you know, a Land Rover. Yeah. So I think I was very much motivated, inspired by them. But I think the real push was Instagram. I do think that Instagram and social media have been an amazing way to see solo women doing this trip and realizing that it is possible, it is safe. Not that I didn’t think it was safe, but it was something that people did. And it wasn’t like totally unusual. There’s also these amazing WhatsApp groups, Cairo-to-Cape Town WhatsApp group and so many cyclists on Instagram who encourage each other, are behind each other, and obviously to a lot of my friends and family in the UK, they think I’m absolutely mad doing this.
Gabriel: That’s actually an excellent point, and I’ve had several solo female travelers on as guests, and the confidence that they have gained from being part of Instagram or WhatsApp or other groups, it can’t be underestimated, because…
Ellie: No.
Gabriel: Especially solo female travelers maybe just thought, “I can’t do it or it’s unsafe.” And then there is such an encouraging spirit that is in these groups that it’s really motivated people to do it. It’s a wonderful thing and you are echoing that as well.
Ellie: There’s that sort of question about why people undertake such a colossal journey going through these different countries, different landscapes, different cultures. I came back from Zambia in 2022. Ever since then, I think every six months, I’ve just randomly said to either friends or family, I’m going to cycle across Africa.” And everyone kind of goes, “Yeah, yeah, okay.” You know, “Sure, sure.” And then I saw an opportunity to do this journey around this time last year. I moved out of London and saved and planned this entire trip. And yeah, I needed some time away from distractions. And obviously London, the cost of living is horrendous that you needed to save some money.
Gabriel: Can you tell a little bit about the preparations? How do you even set up a 10,000-kilometer journey through Africa? What did you have to do?
Ellie: Yeah, good question. I did a lot of turbo training on a Zwift.
Gabriel: Nice.
Ellie: Which, to be honest, I don’t think it was sufficient at all. To an extent, it prepares you maybe physically, but you know, mentally, not so much.
Gabriel: Was it one of these where you had a screen and you could choose a course or something like that?
Ellie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Gabriel: Could you choose one in Africa? Do they have African courses?
Ellie: No, I mean, there wasn’t one there, I don’t think. It was mainly like Scotland, France, London, and obviously it’s got its own little sort of worlds that it creates. So I think, you know, getting on a turbo trainer for an hour or so, a day, and doing some exercise, doing some stretch, something like that, that’s sort of the physical aspect. But I think there was lots of things going on behind the scenes. A lot, a lot of research around like what bike I wanted to take and, you know, what sort of equipment. Like I said, on my first trip, I ever did, it was very much a “no gear, no idea” kind of person. I think over the last few years, I’ve continued to be a “some idea,” but still “no gear.” I say “no gear.” I’ve always just very happily used the most basic equipment. I know that social media is wonderful, but I think it might put people off doing these trips because they think they need to have, like, this kind of bike to do it. They need to have this sort of equipment, this technical equipment. And I’m, you know, I’m terrible with and bike computers and Garmins and things like that. I don’t Strava. And people think that’s strange that I don’t record anything on Strava or on Komoot. But I was doing all this research, I guess, to try and, you know, make sure that I had the right gear and, but if I’m being perfectly honest, I did so much research and I was just so torn between what to get. I didn’t get my bike until two weeks.
Gabriel: Oh, wow.
Ellie: Oh, I think it arrived a week before I left.
Gabriel: Oh, no. It’s like, “Okay, it’s arrived in a box. I can just take that box to the airport.”
Ellie: It was literally, I didn’t…
Gabriel: And I could just go!
Ellie: Yeah. But I was really lucky. I contacted a bike company and they sponsored me. They gave me the bike. It was amazing.
Gabriel: Oh, nice. Who’s this?
Ellie: So it’s Genesis UK. So I’ve got a Tour de Fer 30. She’s been my trusty noble steed, Shania Chain.
Gabriel: That is a good name.
Ellie: You know, the preparation, I put a lot of pressure on myself, if I’m honest, in these sort of scenarios. And I don’t think there was a minute, because I was working full time, after work where I wasn’t either trying to work on my website, trying to make sure the narrative was right, researching the gear, researching the NGOs, researching the route, looking at the route, looking at the terrain, and talking to other bikepackers, talking to other cyclists, trying to get as much information as I could to think that I was prepared. But, in all honesty, I think there’s been some helpful suggestions from bikepackers, but you know, there’s only so much you can find on the internet. Every single experience is going to be different. For example, I’m glad we ended up doing this podcast now rather than a week ago, because I just spent the last six days on dirt road. And there was a day where I was chased and bitten by a swarm of tse-tse flies for like 70 kilometers straight. And it was just like a nightmare. And you’re like, no one told me about this.
Gabriel: Oh, wow!
Ellie: No one told me and this would be a horrendous experience and how you could prepare for that. We didn’t see this on anyone’s Instagram stories or highlights. I think there’s only so much you can prepare. There’s just like a state of mind that you need to have. And like I said, I’ve experienced travel through East Africa and I’ve never been worried about my safety. I think the only thing that is quite scary sometimes is just the traffic. Crazy bus drivers and lorry drivers on main roads. You can’t account for that on a Zwift.
Gabriel: No, you’re unlikely to get hit by a truck on a Zwift. That would be quite an achievement.
Ellie: Yeah.
Gabriel: You got your bicycle just before your trip started and where did you fly to to get started?
Ellie: So I flew to Kigali. That was my first stop. Basically, I would have loved to have done the Cairo to Cape Town route, which is the famous road, which people honestly take either by four by four or cycling. But Sudan and even Ethiopia now was no- go zones. Never been to Rwanda. Never been to Uganda. Actually, never been to Kenya. Those three countries were countries I’d never visited. So I flew to Kigali and spent 10 days there meeting organizations and fixing up my bike.
Gabriel: Okay. You set off from Kigali. What are some of the other adventures that you’ve had between then and now?
Ellie: Like I said, this past week has been the toughest week I’ve had so far. So 400 kilometers of the 3,000 kilometers I’ve done. It was just like a very long, very sandy washboard dirt road. And I think, you know, really sort of tested my limits. The final stretch when you eventually came off the dirt road onto tarmac, it was a 100-kilometer slow climb up to 800 feet. So whilst you sort of don’t have any more energy to pedal or oxygen the lungs, you’re just basically running on a few fizzy drinks and some encouragement from friends and family saying, you can do it. I was just so tempted to stick my thumb out and hitch a lift to the top of a hill. Yeah, it’s definitely been a trying week. And this is what I mean with bike packing is that you think, you think you can’t do it. And I definitely was convinced that I wouldn’t be able to make it over the hill after like such a challenging and testing week. Being in rural locations, although it’s very beautiful and I’ve connected with some really beautiful souls and met some amazing people, Tanzania is a country where very little English is spoken. There’s also the inability to have a conversation with anyone. It’s definitely been an interesting week. But I think in terms of other adventures, gosh, cycling down the Great Rift Valley in Kenya. I was in Kenya in June and July when there were protests taking place. Again, you know, going back to thinking that these countries aren’t safe places. There are political demonstrations that take place, but they’re planned. So you know about them the day before or a couple of days before they’re going to take place. And your sort of guest house or locals inform you about it and you end up laying low for a day. And while you’re laying low, you just hear the sound of tear gas being thrown because it gets quite violent between the police and the protesters. So that was something that was, I don’t want to say scary because I didn’t feel worried. I didn’t go into this, but when I lived in Cameroon, I was actually in the conflict zone. And I was used to hearing AK47s going off every night.
Gabriel: Wait, where in Cam…? Okay. Where in Camer…?
Ellie: Yeah.
Gabriel: Okay, where in Cameroon were you?
Ellie: I was in the Anglophone region. Cameroon is obviously divided into Anglophone and Francophone. And you’ve got this sort of horrific situation going on where the Anglophones are trying to gain independence because they are subjected to a lot of discrimination and sort of violence. So they want to become independent and obviously the government and the president – who, by the way, has had the longest term in Africa. I think he’s been president for sixty years, Paul Biya – he doesn’t like the fact that the Anglophones want to become an independent Ambazonia. Or I think some of them want to be independent, but some them just want to have, for example, English-speaking judges and head teachers. All the heads of ministries are all French- speaking. So there’s just no opportunities for the English- speaking Cameroonians. So yeah, you’ve just got protesters and police every night, just sort of shooting at each other. Or police just shooting in the air. And then every day, I would just come across people coming into the office and being just so grateful to be alive, you know, having somehow been caught in the crossfire the night before. But yeah, so I was used to that happening.
Gabriel: Yeah, what happened in Cameroon, I think, is a microcosm of what happened in all of Africa, which was that the British and French almost arbitrarily divided it up. Is that true?
Ellie: Yeah, I think it was previously colonized by Germany. And then maybe after the Second World War, I think…
Gabriel: First World War.
Ellie: Yeah, First World War. France and Britain decided to split up. Anglophone region is much smaller. There was a genocide going on. Young men would just assume to have been protesters, activists, and you just have police forces going in and killing them. It was horrendous.
Gabriel: And that conflict is still ongoing today.
Ellie: It’s still going on. Funny seeing some of it, you know, in the media. I remember going there when there was nothing. You would type in to Google “Cameroon news” and nothing would come up. Got there, and on my first day, there were gunshots, you know, and I sort of threw myself in a cupboard. But my colleagues found it absolutely hilarious. They’re like, “No, you have to get used to that. It’s going to happen every day.”
Gabriel: Oh, wow. All right, so now let’s go back to Kenya and the tier gas.
Ellie: Yeah, sorry.
Gabriel: No, no, no problem. This all good stuff. Were you in Nairobi or Mombasa?
Ellie: So I was in Eldoret, which is actually where the current president, where he’s from. So that’s why the demonstrations, like, were getting particularly violent there. What’s really interesting is that, yeah, there’d obviously be some demonstrations taking place and, yeah, it gets quite violent between the police and the activists. But the next day, it’s almost as if nothing happened. I cycled through the town center and everything had been cleared up. But the media will just paint this picture that this country is out of control and you’ve got young people on the streets looting and causing a nuisance. So for the next few days after that, I had friends and family and people on LinkedIn as well, messaging me and telling me to be careful, get off the streets and get out of Kenya. Like, it’s not safe. Even some diplomats who I’d engaged with ahead of my trip, telling me, like, I shouldn’t be in Kenya. I shouldn’t be there at all. I wasn’t safe. That same day, I actually got really emotional because I was cycling and bumping into people and talking to them and connecting with these just extraordinary individuals and, you know, children being inquisitive and interested. And, you know, meanwhile, it was just strange having so many messages pinging through saying, “Be careful. You know, you’re not safe.” But like, it’s not the case at all. You know, it’s the media paints the country in such a way. If anything, I really wanted to sort of show people that the reality was that everything’s fine.
Gabriel: That’s definitely come up multiple times, right?
Ellie: Yeah, yeah.
Gabriel: For the United States, the State Department warnings that, oh, look out, Kyrgyzstan is not safe. Watch out. And then people in Kyrgyzstan say, “Oh, the people are so friendly.”
Ellie: This is the thing with media. And I guess in the UK is anything that comes on the news about the African continent is usually something negative. It’s usually something violent. I’ll tell you the issue I have. I think a lot of people have seen the film Blood Diamond.
Gabriel: Yes, I have even seen it myself. And I don’t watch too many movies. Leonardo DiCaprio.
Ellie: Yeah, yeah. So obviously, you know, it’s based around the Civil War in Sierra Leone, isn’t it?
Gabriel: Yes, Sierra Leone.
Ellie: A lot of people just think, that’s Africa. It’s just violent.
Gabriel: Right. Mercenaries everywhere.
Ellie: Exactly, exactly, yeah.
Gabriel: To be fair, we do have to say there’s a number of very sketchy governments that do, that do employ mercenaries.
Ellie: Absolutely. I have met some people who work in humanitarian aid. I’ve got a good friend who spent some time in Chad. When the war broke out in Sudan, you can see it there, that it’s not a stable, safe country to travel, explore, you know, safely. So whenever I tell people that I was cycling through Africa, and they’re like, “It’s not safe.” I’m not going to the Sahel region. I’m not going through DRC. I’m not going to northern Mozambique. You know, there are areas which I know are hotspots. But don’t think that because there’s political instability in one small location, or in one country, doesn’t mean like the whole continent is the same, right? It’s almost like saying, don’t go to Yorkshire because there was a mugging in London.
Gabriel: Right, well people tend to lump everything together, except maybe South Africa has a special place, but the rest of Africa is one big lump. How has it been being a solo female traveler then?
Ellie: There’s the positives and negatives being a solo woman cycling. I’ve had a discussion quite a lot over the last few days because, like I said, this has been a challenging week and I’ve been really tired, and my patience has been fairly low. You kind of get catcalled and harassed a lot by men, and it really grinds at you. And that happens everywhere. I think on a daily basis. It’s all just like in good humour. Half the time it’s young men trying to make their mates laugh. I don’t think, yeah, there’s any malicious intent there. There’s that side of it. A lot of men want your telephone number, basically. Sometimes you just have to say yes, because it’s easier to say yes, rather than have an argument and explain to them why you’re not just going to give your telephone number out to some person you’ve just met. I say “you’ve just met,” they’ve just followed you on their motorbike and said, can I have your number? But at the same time, being a solo woman has opened up doors. People have been very, very kind and helpful. Sometimes I don’t want them to be, I want to be a strong independent woman. I want to fix my puncture on my own. But, you know, just get crowds of people coming over and helping me. And even yesterday, I arrived at this guest house and I was just about to take my bike to a welder and the owner just said, “Where are you going?” I was like, “Oh, I’m going to cycle around town trying to find a welder.” And he just said, “Okay, put your bike in my car. I know where the welder and we’ll go find him.” And then, you know, help me negotiate a price to fix my bike rack. You know, there’s things which I’m sure, I say “I’m sure,” I’ve spoken to lots of other male cyclists and bikepackers and they said they have had that same level of care. People would just assume that they’re okay. And so there’s ups and downs to it. But I think the main thing is like, I haven’t felt unsafe here. I’ve never felt like anyone’s going to be physically, like, aggressive towards me. Sometimes the verbal stuff, that just sort of grinds on you a little bit. But, you know, there’s just part of it, I guess.
Gabriel: Yeah, it’s part of it, unfortunately. And it’s also not unique to Africa. It can happen in a lot of countries.
Ellie: Yeah. But like I said, it’s all in good humor. And when you do sort of reject someone when they’re trying to ask for your number, you don’t get the same aggressive feedback that you might get back in the UK, for example. Don’t know whether that retaliation is ingrained in you. And as a woman, you just learn how to diffuse and, you know, react with diplomacy and grace because you’re like, oh, I don’t know how they’re going to react if I say no. So you’re kind of like nice about it. But actually, like I said, if I’ve turned around and said no about eight times to a guy who just wants my number, he just then gets on his motorbike and continues, he doesn’t shout anything at me, like, oh, you’re stuck up or whatever, you know. I don’t want to use any swear words because that’s what you’d probably get in the UK. It’s interesting. I’ve actually seeked solace and support a lot of the time from middle- aged men. My experience working in Zambia is that the village elders are very well respected. If you hang around someone a bit older, the likelihood of someone coming and harassing you and saying, “Hey, baby, can I get your number?” is limited. So I tend to migrate towards middle-aged men. I somehow feel safer around them.
Gabriel: Now I’d like to talk about the Cycle Africa project, which you write, focuses on “amplifying voices, driving collaboration and contributing to sustainable impact.” How did you get the idea to launch this project?
Ellie: In Cameroon, when I was developing all these partnerships, I met all these other incredible organizations, NGOs, startups and social enterprises that were doing incredibly inspiring activities. And then I ended up working in Zambia for a few years with an education NGO and doing similar activities there, just meeting incredible leaders, local leaders. And I think I just found that there’s just some really incredible, resilient community-led solutions on the continent. The purpose of this trip was to try and spotlight how development is achieved on the continent and also try and change the narrative. I think there’s a massive misconception that development is achieved through big international development agencies. And I’m not saying that they’re not doing a great job. Of course they are, but also a lot of the initiatives, a lot of the solutions that have been put in place are being delivered by local organizations that have been founded by local leaders. They understand the need, they understand the context. So I really wanted to firstly learn about what was going on at a local level and see what kind of initiatives are taking place. Obviously with a focus on education, youth empowerment and gender because that’s been my background for the last ten years. And yeah, I guess sort of learn about what challenges they’re facing and how they’re overcoming them. I wanted to intertwine this with something which I’d always wanted to do, which was cycle across Africa. With this sort of side quest of spotlighting and connecting with organizations came some sponsors who wanted to support the journey, because they saw there was obviously some more purpose, more behind it than just, I say, “just,” someone cycling 10,000 kilometres. They were very interested in what local organizations are doing across the continent and particularly how they’re adapting to the shift in the donor landscape with USAID sort of withdrawing, dismantling itself.
Gabriel: Interesting. I’d like to hear more about the organizations that you are working with and visiting. Did you plan this out all in advance? Do you have a checklist of organizations you are visiting or are you finding them as you are approaching?
Ellie: I have this, what I can only describe as an incredible Excel spreadsheet. I have identified organizations ahead of the expedition. So this has been through my own research, also through my old colleagues and contacts, and I’m also partnered with an organization called GlobalGiving, and they’re basically a crowdfunding platform and they sort of help NGOs get on their feet and become, I guess, donor-ready. I’m fundraising for them and also they supported me and have connected me with the NGOs and obviously, as I mentioned, as a focus on education, youth empowerment, and gender. I have identified ten organizations in each country, most of them in the capital cities. I’m passing through ten countries and the aim is to connect with by the time I get to Cape Town.
Gabriel: Wow, that’s a lot.
Ellie: That’s a lot. It was probably a few weeks before I left that I realized that because I decided my head, “Easy. Ten organizations in each city. That’s a morning and afternoon dedicated to each organization, having a conversation with the founder.” What works well in different locations, who you have to engage with and who your key barriers are. Is it political barriers? Is it cultural barriers? You know, environmental? There’s a lot of networks between organizations, charities, NGOs that are founded by Westerners. There isn’t necessarily that network and support and resource available in some of the countries. There’s definitely opportunities for organizations to learn from each other. So the aim is to capture their insights and then be able to disseminate that information back to them. But also very key is to connect them with each other. So a lot of the organizations I’ve met, the founders have talked about a particular challenge and I’ve said, “Oh, you know what, I met an organization in Kenya that had a very similar issue and area and this is how they overcame it. And that founder asked, “Can you connect me with that founder? I’d like to have a conversation.” A big part of this trip is also connecting individuals with each other and helping create an ecosystem, which I think is already there, to be honest, but just amplifying it a bit.
Gabriel: Well, with so many organizations that you’ve seen and talked to, you are a super connector. You must recognise all kinds of patterns. This problem is similar to the one faced by this other organization or you should talk to these people. You’re going to have an incredible amount of knowledge by the time your bicycle trip is over.
Ellie: That’s the aim. But looking forward to, I think, building something with it and creating something practical that I want to share back with the organizations as a thank you for sharing their experience.
Gabriel: Out of all the many groups you’ve met with, is there a specific one that you’d like to highlight, as far as the work they’re doing or their impact, just to make it a bit more specific?
Ellie: Oh, my goodness. There’s an organization in Arusha called the Twende Innovation Center. It’s a youth-focused social enterprise that supports young people with technical skills to become inventors and be able to build machines that can obviously support the local context. So looking at supporting farmers and actually working in agriculture, trying to reduce importing machinery from other countries that actually aren’t going to be useful to small- scale farmers, for example. They have had an incredible impact because they now work in universities. So they obviously started off as a very small local NGO and they engage with the government and they go into the communities. You know, I was there, they were delivering a workshop for some Maasai people and showing them about like how they could sort of address some of the issues they had with farming in their community. That was one of the organizations I was really blown away by.
Gabriel: That’s cool, because I’m an engineer and I’ve devoted a lot of my career to product development. So that’s one that’s exciting.
Ellie: Yeah, absolutely. There was one guy in particular who I met, one of their alumni who built a machine that would extract oil from avocados and so that was the initial product, to help farmers turn their avocados into oil. But then he realised that he could do more with it and they could turn the avocado waste into animal feed, so for pig feed and fish food. This young guy is now working for the government and he’s providing fish food and pig feed to these massive farms across the country. Another organization which I think was, you know, really incredible is Tumende – very similar name – in Kenya. This was in Eldoret, so actually the day before the protest took place. And this organization recruits street youth, which while I say children, they’re obviously in their late teens, mainly haven’t finished school. So a lot of girls who have early pregnancies and weren’t able to finish school or young men who have finished school but don’t have the means to go to university or don’t have the support to go on to anything further. They provide their vocational training center but it’s mainly targeting street youth. Very similar to the other organization, they help them with their technical skills and there’s obviously different types of training they can do. They can also finish school. And what was really wonderful about it is that they had like a nursery on site so those women, those young women who had toddlers could actually focus on their studies and have their children looked after. I thought that was just such a holistic way of supporting your students. Kenya and Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, you’ve got a very high youth unemployment rate and you know you’ve got a high young population so you know a lot of young people just don’t really know what their opportunities are, so that’s why I think these particular organizations that support young people who are from a, you know, low-income household and supporting them, providing them with the skills to get into work I think is really inspiring.
Gabriel: Those are amazing examples. If someone wants to find out more about the Cycle Africa project and your trip, how should they best follow you?
Ellie: I am spotlighting and talking about the organizations on my socials. So there’s obviously Instagram which is @projectcycleafrica. You can also find me talking about these organizations on a more detailed level on LinkedIn as well, because like I said my aim is to also connect these organizations and leaders with the wider development landscape. If they just type in LinkedIn, Project Cycle Africa or Cycle Africa should come up.
Gabriel: Okay.
Ellie: And also my website, cycleafrica.
Gabriel: Dot org?
Ellie: Exactly.
Gabriel: Got it.
Ellie: We’re also, with one of my sponsors, we’re doing some podcasts with some of the founders of the organizations. It’s something to look out for, because there’ll be some really, really interesting NGO, social enterprise founders on there. It hasn’t been launched yet but it’s underway.
Gabriel: When something comes up, just let me know about it.
Ellie: Cool. Thank you.
Gabriel: So here we go. You had said earlier that you’re not a keen road cyclist. Ellie, from a scale of one to ten, how would you rate yourself as a follower of professional road cycling?
Ellie: On a scale of one to ten, I think I’m maybe a two or three.
Gabriel: Okay. To return to the introduction at the top of the show, according to my Python program, using unofficial data, prior to 2025 the Tour de France winner had not lost any time on any stage to his two closest rivals on only five other occasions. The first time it happened was during the inaugural race, all the way back in 1903, but that race only had six stages and the bikes were heavy with no gears, no freewheel and sometimes no brakes. So that was a different kind of a race, and the last time it happened was in 2005 by a rider from Texas who later got disqualified. So the other three times it was done by the same person, which is just incredible. Do you have any idea who that person could have been, who managed to complete the tours without losing any time on any stage to these closest rivals? Any ideas?
Ellie: Honestly, not a clue, I’m afraid.
Gabriel: Well, you know, I put you on the spot so I wasn’t expecting you to come up with the right answer but if I said Eddie Merckx, does that ring a bell?
Ellie: Yes, it does.
Gabriel: Really?
Ellie: No.
Gabriel: Well, now you know. Eddie Merckx was a cyclist from Belgium. His nickname was The Cannibal and he managed to do this in 1969, 1970 and 1972. So that is the level of dominance, which is just unreal.
Ellie: Yeah, awesome.
Gabriel: I have to say sorry it’s been a difficult week. I think that everything you’re doing is just incredible from even dreaming up this trip in the first place to actually undertaking it and persevering with these different obstacles that you encounter. You have this amazing cause, to try to work with these various groups that are doing amazing work. With this interview coming at the end of a long week it’ll hopefully give you a boost, that you are doing something amazing and it’ll give you energy as you go forward in the coming weeks and months even. It’s such a long journey.
Ellie: Thank you and thanks so much for reaching out as well. You know, like we said, having that sort of recognition is really nice sometimes. And you know, for selecting my journey and my project as well. It’s great to talk about the NGOs and the organizations that I’m connecting with and what they’re doing. I do hope that it sort of engages people and makes them sort of slightly more interested in that side. Development isn’t just about the people in Europe coming over and making all the decisions. It’s local leaders who are very much involved in that change and that impact.
Gabriel: The transcript for this episode is available on The Accidental Bicycle Tourist website. I welcome feedback and suggestions for this and other episodes. You’ll find a link to all contact information in the show notes. If you would like to rate or review the show, you can do that on your favorite podcast platform. You can also follow the podcast on Instagram. Thank you to Anna Lindenmeier for the cover artwork and to Timothy Shortell for the original music. This podcast would not be possible without continuous support from my wife, Sandra. And thank you so much for listening. I hope the episode will inspire you to get out and see where the road leads you.
Gabriel: Should I call you Eleanor or Ellie?
Ellie: I mean Eleanor’s a bit, it’s quite serious, quite formal.
Gabriel: Yeah, it sounds like how you might be addressed when your parents are very mad at you.
Ellie: Yeah, exactly.
Show Notes
The Cycle Africa Instagram is @projectcycleafrica and its website is cycleafrica.org.