Tour De Tuli

Juliet Lemon cycles through sub-Saharan Africa.

By Peak Design

when life gives you lemon

It's about time you meet our long-time London-based friend Juliet Lemon (@juliet_lemon). She came into our lives years ago, back when we were a wee little 3-product company, to inquire about our handy-dandy quick connecting camera straps (which she still uses and abuses to this very day).

A wedding and portrait shooter by day, Lemon has been known to moonlight as a high-speed motorsports photographer, shooting a variety of Formula 1 and endurance racing events throughout the year. And if you really think about it, weddings and motorsports are kinda the same thing.

Last year, Juliet took a break from her daily grind of race cars and love-fests to cycle the 12th annual Nedbank Tour De Tuli. The four-day, 300-kilometer-long ride winds through the unpaved, and often un-trailed wilderness of Botswana, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. The event raises money for the Children in the Wilderness, a nonprofit that support development of environmental and life skills for rural African youth as well as a variety of conservation projects.

Below, Juliet shares her account in her own words.

Bag pictured: Everyday Messenger 13" by Peak Design. Strap pictured: Slide by Peak Design.

We spent 8 hours in the saddle each day for 4 days, cycling as much as 80km through the varied and dramatic landscapes. Split into 19 teams of up to 20 riders, we navigated our bikes over winding elephant single-tracks and wildlife trails, deep sand, steep stone ridges, streams and flowing rivers, dry and sandy river beds, riverine scrub, indigenous forest and open plains.

But it wasn’t just the cycling challenges that the landscape presented us, there were wild animals around too… So while surveying the terrain under our wheels, our eyes were constantly flickering up to scan the treeline for signs of elephants, lions, or leopards.

Our two-wheeled safari in the Tuli Block was such a thrilling experience. We rode past big herds of elephant, giraffe, zebra, rock hyrax, kudu, eland, crocodiles and some feathered sightings of raptors soaring in the thermals up above. One group spotted brown hyena, another had a brief sighting of a leopard.

Seeing packs of lycra clad cyclists whizzing by must have been a tad perplexing for the animals!

There were reports of a lion kill a few of kilometers from our camp one night. We didn’t see the lions but they could be heard at night making their territorial roars in between the tumultuous snoring of the sleeping cyclists.

Photo by Jacques Marais (@jacqmaraisphoto)

Photo by Mike Sutherland (@mikesutherlandphoto)

The riding was hard, relentless and challenging.

One experienced mountain biker in another group fell 19 times on the first day. For our group, we had 85 falls between us over the four days.

Fortunately there were no major injuries in my team, just lots of impressive cuts and bruises. But some were not as lucky… a broken collar bone, a broken ankle, cracked ribs, heatstroke, and a few broken bikes were among the more serious injuries.

The Nedbank Tour de Tuli was tough, so very tough and to have completed it and come away from this amazingly epic adventure in one piece, I am chuffed. It was by far the hardest physical challenge I have done so far!