Nope, not all the way to the top. And not anywhere even close to the top. We cycled from Nanyuki to Old Moses, Mt Kenya. Old Moses is one of the stops as you hike Mt. Kenya. The round trip was around 70km.

This was by far the most difficult extreme we had ever done. At least for me. We were 6 of us. 4 of us went all the way to the top. I pushed my bike for 8km up the mountain. My muscles were too drained to cycle anymore. Fortunately, when we got to Old Moses, we found a lady, Gathoni who cooked us eggs and coffee and gave us some of her remaining bread. Wah, that was a life saver. In 30min we were rejuvenated and ready for the journey back.

It was an remarkable ride. We slept on the side of the road next to the forest many times, though we had to keep an eye out for elephants. The advantage is that it’s so quiet you would be able to hear them coming from afar, breaking the bamboos trees as they walked.

This ride was more mental power than anything else. We were at Sirimon Gate at around 12pm and by 3pm were still not at Old Moses. A distance of only 9km. It was all about pushing yourself to take that one more step or one more pedal and giving each other morale to do 100 more metres. But we made it. And we learnt a lot.

The journey back was like an award for conquering Old Moses. What took us 3hrs to go up took us around 10 minutes to go down. That’s from Old Moses to Sirimon Gate. We were speeding down the mountain. My only fear was to encounter an elephant crossing road and I’d be too fast to stop in time. My hands were on the brakes almost the entire time.

We’ll do it again soon, more energized and better prepared. I’m looking forward to it.

Info: For a cyclist, there’s a KWS gate fee of 645/= (August 2022)