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Outside Magazine March 2004
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The Hard Way
Freewheeling (cont.)

ON THE HOUR-AND-A-HALF flight to Tamale the next day, Schroeder and I are joined by Ben Gherardi, 26, a six-foot-four jock from Fort Collins, Colorado, who works for Right to Play, a Toronto, Canada-based NGO that promotes health through sports. Brad and Ben are boon companions, having done everything there is to do within a 300-mile radius of Accra: rock climbing in the Volta region, kitesurfing off Cape Coast, road trips to Togo and the Ivory Coast. We assemble our bikes at the airport, then ride the 12 miles into town.

Tamale, a thriving northern commercial hub of about 150,000 surrounded by savanna, is indeed a bicycling wonder. In the early 1990s, the World Bank funded the construction of 15-foot-wide paved bicycle paths that parallel the main streets on both sides, as well as low concrete barriers that separate motor vehicles from bicyclists and pedestrians. A decade later, more than 15 percent of trips in Tamale are made by bicycle.

We spend all day cruising around town, marveling at the efficiency and pleasantness of it all. Not surprisingly, there are people on bikes everywhere: men in billowing blue caftans, schoolgirls in brown-and-orange uniforms, farmers with hoes tied to the top tube, village women with towering loads of firewood roped to the rear rack.

The next day, we ride to Yendi, bouncing along a rutted mud track through hand-tilled yam and cassava plots. Over the course of 65 miles, only two groaning trucks and an occasional courageous car pass us, but cyclists are numerous—all types of people wheeling from one village to the next on typical Ghanaian bikes: heavy, slow, jury-rigged contraptions.

An hour into our second day, the rough road takes its toll on us: Schroeder's seatpost, raised high to accommodate his lanky legs, buckles under the pressure. His only options are to sit on the rear rack, as if he were on a recumbent, or to pedal standing up. So he reclines on his panniers, singing a riff from Easy Rider and spinning like a circus bear.

"Sure you can ride like that?" I ask.

"No sweat," Schroeder replies, although he's drenched and straining. "It's just a minor design flaw. We're still tweaking the bike to find the right balance of strength and weight."

By the time we straggle into Bimbila, Schroeder has ridden 20 miles on a bumpy dirt track without a saddle, not complaining once. We go straight to the village blacksmith, a stick-thin, barefoot man sitting cross-legged amid a pile of scrap metal. He studies the problem, then goes to work with his tongs, tiny forge, and anvil (a chunk of railroad track). Using a one-inch-diameter piece of solid rebar he's found at his feet, in less than ten minutes he manages to cut, fashion, and fit it inside the hollow seatpost. The homemade heavy-metal splint works perfectly.

Schroeder beams. "God, you gotta love Africa!" he says. "Improvisation is what it's all about."


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