Toronto-based bicycle adventure company Tour d’Afrique has recently been featured in two published collections of epic rides and events. The company’s flagship cycling event, a gruelling 4-month, 12,000 km ride from Cairo to Cape Town, has taken participants across the African continent each year since 2003.
Collins has published World’s Ultimate Cycling Races and alongside the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, and other grand tours is the ultimate race across Africa – the Tour d’Afrique. The book describes the event this way:
Tour d’Afrique takes you through the most eclectic mix of terrain, weather and cultures, and although it sounds a lot like a trip of a lifetime – which it is – it’s also a bona fide bike race.
Even events like the New York Marathon weren’t deemed tough enough to qualify for this next book by Bloomsbury Publishing - The World’s Toughest Endurance Challenges. Alongside ultra-marathons and cross-continental journeys, Tour d’Afrique was described by the authors:
The Tour d’Afrique is unlike many of the challenges profiled in this book. .. From the shadows of the Pyramids to the crashing seas of Cape Town, it is a journey through the heart of one of the world’s most vibrant – and untouched – continents.
Tour d’Afrique has also produced its own book celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Cairo to Cape Town event. Some reviewer copies have been made available and a sample can be viewed here.
Tour d’Afrique Ltd. organizes and runs the annual Cairo to Cape Town event and has developed a variety of other multi-month, multi-country cycling expeditions throughout the world. The itinerary for 2013 includes the Orient Express Cycling Expedition from Paris to Istanbul, the Vuelta Sudamericana from Buenos Aires to Bogota, the Bamboo Road from Shanghai to Singapore and the North American Epic from Anchorage to Mexico City.