Zambia: Sharing The Road

After getting an early start from Lusaka, our journey took a sour turn… into a ditch.

PUBLISHED Feb 21, 2014

We awoke bright and early to start the five-hundred-some-odd kilometer route across the massive and wild country of Zambia. Moving at a good clip through the bustling capital, we had settled into a nice relaxed pace as the city sights and sounds pushed us along. The traffic and drivers were not nearly as bad as we had anticipated. Then, out of the blue, Gin’s drive side pedal met the hard edge of a concrete block that separated the pedestrian walkway and the two-lane Great East Road. She managed to get slung into a fairly large ditch and fortunately landed gracefully enough to have only a few scrapes and a bruise or two. Her trusty Surly Troll didn’t have the same luck. Everything was intact except the drive side crank arm. It was bent like a banana to about thirty degrees.

In the days just preceding the accident, I had noticed and studied a lot of the Zambian bicycles—Chinese steel, mass-fabricated, inexpensive numbers with double top-tubes, single chain rings and bolt on cranks. Most had some sort of reinforcement, decoration, or add-on made from sticks and branches. They are everywhere here. They are used for hauling loads (including live goats and chickens), commuting, farming, or anything else you could think of. Zambians are proud of their bikes. Especially the cabbies… pedicabbies that is. Their trusty steeds get decorated and customized with bells, mirrors, stickers, wire, beads, baskets, tape, ridiculous mudflaps… every and anything to attract attention.

With all of the bikes here, I thought to myself as I was staring at her crank arm, there have to be stocked bike shops. Well, as we found out, there are… kind of. After several men rushed over to help and make sure Gin was OK, we started asking where we could find the nearest bicycle repair. Luckily they pointed about two blocks West and we started walking. That was when we met Salamano. Here is the rest of the story in photos (more on our trek through Zambia in coming days, including some wildlife shots):

Bike Touring Zambia - Bicycle shops in Lusaka

Salamano’s shingle. Salamano shown above with his shop. This is about the extent of shops here in the bustling capital.

His parts department…

South wing of the parts department.

Salamano didn’t have a crank extractor tool, so we went on a hunt and found this shop, which happened to have one… not a common tool in Zambia.

Tools of the trade.

For a bit I thought we’d have to order an extractor tool, but luckily there was one in one of the tin-roofed shack shops in town.

Here is their parts department.

I didn’t think this was going to work, but once they pulled the crank, four men diligently went to work hammering it back to shape. A few whacks, then a conference analysis to compare it with the other crank arm. It turned out almost as good as new, and we were off.

Bikes are used for everything here. In many cases, putting our loads to shame…

… like this.

Wooden rack struts.

A motley crew.

We stopped to help this family get their bike sorted. Our Leatherman plyers came in handy.

A campsite in a village that doubled as a parking area.

We started smelling the culture of Cairo to Cape Town cyclists. Here is a map we found in a backpacker lodge. My favorite note is ‘BAD SHITS/FEVER’.

Within a couple of days I saw these folks tucking down a nice hill. Check out their blog at rothar-africa.tumblr.com. They are raising money for Doctors with out Borders; you can donate here Ammado.