OnTap Magazine

ON THE HOP T H E U L T I M A T E S A F A R I M ichael Treloar remembers his 63rd birthday vividly and fondly. “I had cycled 157km that day,” he recalls. “And every last one of them with a tiara glued to my bike helmet! We were cycling through Zambia – the land of my birth and a place I hadn’t set foot in for 50 years. But what I remember most is that on finishing the day’s ride, my wife handed me a cold beer.” It wasn’t always easy to find a nicely chilled beer on the epic ride across Africa, and Michael admits that this day’s brew has to be up there with the best of his life. He stops for a sip of suitably chilled beer as he recalls how this bucket list adventure all started a few months earlier on another birthday – that of his wife, Judith. “I had wanted to do the Tour d’Afrique ever since its inception in 2002 and when I decided to go ahead and book it, it happened to be Judith’s birthday,” says Michael. “He sent me a birthday e-card,” Judith continues, “and said that my gift would be in the next email. And suddenly there it was – confirmation that I had been successfully entered into the 2017 Tour d’Afrique!” The Tour d’Afrique is a four-month cycling trip crossing the continent from Cairo to Cape Town, taking in up to a dozen countries along the way. Riders often set off with the goal of achieving “EFI” – Every F***ing Inch, but Michael had another plan – as well as cycling around 10,000 of the 11,000 kilometres from one end of Africa to the other, he became the first to achieve “EFDB” – Every F***ing Different Beer. Twenty seven riders set off from Cairo and just as they intermittently met up with transitional riders – Four months, eleven countries, 11,000km and 74 different beers. Our editor chats to Prince Albert-based beer and bike lover Michael Treloar about his bucket list pan-African adventure. 40 | Winter 2018 | ontapmag.co.za