Saturday was Social Cycling Day, a warm up for the main UCI competition on Sunday. Everyone who took part was a winner, with a medal to show for their effort. Few deserved the recognition, more than a group who travelled from Zambia, all the way to Rwanda, to be part fo the event. And to use the word travel, is to grossly understate what was a transnational adventure.
Swept up in the excitement of an estimated 700 cycling enthusiasts for the Social Cycling Day, were a somewhat eclectic family from Zambia. 
“We love sport, and the moment we heard that UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale) was coming to Africa, we begun to think how we could be part of it” said 56 year old Matteo Sametti.
Sametti and his family followed the various campaigns waged by anti Rwanda voices in the media and elsewhere, as they strained to divert the competition away from Rwanda. Would they succeed, sending the competition to Morocco, South Africa or away from Africa altogether?
“When at last we knew it would be Rwanda, it was too great an opportunity to miss. The first time the competition was coming to Africa, and not too far.”
On 21st August, they set off from Zambia, where Sametti and partner Giorgia Marchitelli, run a furniture making business, and a school in rural Zambia. 
The party included severely disabled Richard, whom the family is in the process of adopting, a self confident eight year old Giuditta, brothers Abraham twelve, Osea ten, friends of the family, Winnie Chifele, a budding chef, and Doreen Kunaka, who cares for the disabled Richard.
Like any good cycling team, the group had a support car, driven by Giorgia, with Richard for company. Everyone else cycled the 1,500 kilometres from Zambia to Rwanda.
The route took them from Zambia to Tanzania to Burundi, from where they hoped to cross into Rwanda, only to find that Burundi had closed its border with Rwanda. But they would not be deterred. They cycled back to Tanzania and entered Rwanda from there.
As soon as they entered Rwanda, “it was clear that we were in a different part of Africa” said Sametti” everything was so easy, organised, the barriers directing you to where you need to go, if you need to change money, there is a bank, it was very smooth…”
Not so smooth however was the weather. At one point, they had to stop and shelter from not just heavy rain, but hail. They were distracted from the cold by the ubiquitous motorcycle taxi riders, who had taken up most of the shelter. Inevitably, riders were full of questions for the cyclists.
Originally from Italy, Sametti and Giorgia, have made Zambia home for the best part of twenty years, their children are Zambia born, but neither they nor the children have lost Italians’ love of the sport of cycling. But while the parents are keeping their fingers crossed for Italy’s riders, Abraham’s loyalty lies with the Chinese team, with whom he took a selfie, apparently thereby sealing an unbroken bond.
They were pleasantly surprised to find that Rwandans seem to have caught the cycling bug. As they cycled through the country, they were cheered on by onlookers, who assumed the group was part of the UCI competition, which in a way, they are.
Other than hail storms, the cyclists enjoyed an uneventful, if arduous cycle. The exception was a tumble by twelve year old Abraham, which he described as “almost killing mysel,” an experience he treasures as the best part of the adventure so far. 
As might be expected, they felt the aches and muscle stiffness for the first few days, but that eventually went away. In eight year old Giuditta’s words, the trip has been “good-ish,” not least because after a while, “there was no porridge in our muscles.” Porridge muscles or not however, she remains the most chirpy of the group, fondly remembering hurtling downhill at a hairraising 60 kilometres per hour, as the most fan she has so far had. And who would dare to argue with that.
Burundi did not much impress her, mostly because she would clearly rather careen downhill at breakneck speed, than climb hills. Who wants “porridge in muscles” after all?
For the group, the Social Cycle Day, was a time to relax; what is a fifteen kilometre circuit when you have already completed 1,500 kilometres, only a few kilometres short of the professional women’s race, although that will be at a much faster pace than even the 60 kilometres per hour. 
For Giorgia, in charge of the support car, the Social Cycle Day, was the first time she was able to get on the bicycle with the rest of the party, and three hours after the ride, she was still smiling about it. “I am not the quickes cyclist, and it was nice that people cycling past were urging you on” she said, “one woman was running along offering encouragement” chimed in Winnie.
The Social Cycle Day was intended to be a warm up for the main event, that would spread the joy of cycling, bringing locals and visitors together, encourage more people to take up the sport, and allow everyone to feel more part fo the main event. It seems to have succeeded by expectation.
The first ever UCI championship in Africa, will be a lifetime’s adventure for Giorgia and Sametti’s group, and perhaps many others too. By the end of it all, Giuditta may have forgotten that she ever had porridge in her muscles, remembering only the wind in her hair at 60 kilometres per hour, Osea’s memory will be the waterfalls in Burundi, and Abraham will relive the apparent joy of “almost killing myself.”
