Diamonds From Sierra Leone
Lunsar, Sierra Leone. The most populous town in Port Loko district has less than 40’000 inhabitants, and only has that many because of the large iron mine nearby. The mine is still the main economic driver in the area, and working there is tough. If you arrive a minute after 7:00 you’ll get fired on the spot. If you get injured working in the brutal conditions, you’re gone. All of this for just a miserly salary.
Lunsar is like countless towns and cities in the world: it exists only to produce a specific resource. In other places its gold, cacao, salt, palm oil… the list goes on. This makes the current movement here all the more unlikely. Against all odds, Lunsar has become a professional cycling hotspot on the continent.
Cycling in Africa
Professional cycling is a fascinating, unique sport. Its both team based, and individually celebrated. Tactics play a huge role in wins, but the domestiques, the riders who lay it all on the line to allow their leaders to win, rarely get any of the glory. Before going on this trip I got really into the teams and riders, figuring out the tactics and trying to guess who would win stages and make fun of teams who really had no idea what they were doing (Movistar). Cycling is finally getting out of its archaic period, with women’s cycling experiencing a long awaited boom. Its still looked down upon because of the many ridiculous doping scandals, to which I’d argue that every athlete in other sports probably do similar things but nobody cares as much. Its also an issue which is not as simple as its made out to be, and is kind of tedious.
One thing that is very noticeable in the peloton of the Tour de France is that its unbearably white. Italians, Spaniards, Dutch, the occasional American... the sport is dominated by riders from the Western world. To add to the sexism that has plagued cycling (no women’s races, kissed on the podium), many people in the sport never questioned why it was so culturally isolated. Last year, Eritrean Biniam Girmay became the first Black African to win a stage in a Grand Tour. It was a hugely emotional win, you could see it on his face when crossing the line. I may be in a bit of a bubble on Instagram, but the outpouring of love and support to him and to cycling in Africa was huge. It was a really heartwarming moment, slightly spoiled by him having to leave the Giro after injuring his eye when popping the champagne bottle on the podium.
Currently, Eritreans and Ethiopians are gaining ground in World Tour teams. Its not surprising that nations best known for distance running would also produce quality cyclists, but the barriers to entry in cycling are much harder to pass than those for the marathon. That being said, there are many great races held on the continent that have garnered serious attention.
The Tour du Rwanda and the Tour du Faso both have attracted international interest and showcased the local talents. Rwanda in particular is becoming a hub for cycling, with many professional and semi-professional cyclists from Western countries partnering with local teams, enabling them with material that is typically not readily available, like exercise bikes. Rwanda is currently one of the most prosperous countries on the continent, and seems to make space for cycling as a legitimate sport nationally. Another element which race organizers in East Africa have capitalized on is the potential for gravel racing. Gravel, or off-road, long-distance races gained popularity in the US and are booming. This is because it is (in my opinion) much more fun to ride along dirt tracks than risk getting crushed by cars on highly trafficked roads. The scenery is also much more enjoyable most of the time, and the “less-professional”, “Do it yourself” feeling creates a strong sense of community that is unpretentious, quite the contrary to professional road racing. Oh, and its much more inclusive towards women (Lael Wilcox is the face of the sport).
There are huge gravel races held in Rwanda and Kenya currently, with Migration Gravel being a massive hit. Huge stars in the gravel scene like Lael Wilcox and Lachlan Morton went to Kenya and participated, giving name recognition to these great races. And the cool part? The homegrown African talents kicked their butts. Team Amani has become a household name in gravel racing, and its composed entirely by East Africans.
Despite the recent successes, African cycling still has a long way to go. The major advances are mostly isolated to East Africa and South Africa. West African cycling is close to non-existant, especially with the Tour du Faso not enticing international interest due to ongoing security concerns. The barriers to entry are numerous for prospective talents. I’ll go over most of them.
Cycling is the method of travel of the poor in most of West Africa, but cycling as a sport is extremely expensive. Top end bikes can cost more than cars, but even a new low-end bike from a decent manufacturer will cost too much for the average citizen in Sierra Leone for example. Furthermore, most people don’t have access to purchasing a decent racing bike in the first place, as they’re only found in a few major cities. Even in the few places where quality bikes are available to purchase, such as Dakar, Abidjan or Accra, they’re out of most people’s price range.
Quality tools and components is another barrier. Bikes need care, and whilst mechanics are very good at patching issues up and making bike “rideable”, they’re typically far from optimal. Finding a mechanic with an optimal toolkit, stocked with good components (such as brake-pads which last more than a day…), is no mean feat.
Without the possibility of buying fancy new bikes, amateur cycling teams rely on donations of second hand bikes, components, shoes, jerseys, and tools. Coordinating this is difficult, and requires connections with people in Europe or North America. Making these connections is tough, but manageable by creating a team or society. But of course, it will be difficult to garner interest to create a cycling team without actual cycling equipment. For these reasons, starting a cycling team from scratch in West Africa with usable material, without Western connections, is basically impossible. It can be done, and is accomplished in some very interesting ways (the Soweto Street Fighters for example), but will always be seen as amateurish, or fail to create enough interest with the youth in the community.
Cycling, as I mentioned before, is a method of transport in West Africa. It is not seen as a pastime or enjoyable endeavor, but as work. On the roads in the countryside of most countries you will see many people, mainly men, carrying heavy loads on the back of their bikes. You will see children fetching water on over-sized frames. You will see old men, slowly making their way to the next town. Depending on the country and region, you will also see women accomplishing these same tasks, but it is much rarer.
Cycling just isn’t something you do for fun, or for sport. It is for work, with the very specific exception of the elite in major cities who may partake in Sunday rides. When riding in Sierra Leone, I was having trouble with my brakes and stopped to fix them. In typical Sierra Leone fashion, the next two motorcyclists who were passing on the dirt road stopped to see if I needed any help, and we started to talk. They asked questions about my trip, and were shocked that I had come so far with a bicycle. They did not truly believe me when I say I rode the bicycle from Europe, and therefore don’t react much. But when I said I rode from a city 100kms away that day they’re surprised I came so far on a bike. They explained to me “We Africans don’t ride far on the bicycle, because we believe it gives you gonorrhea.”
Men make up the majority of bike riders in West Africa, and this is due to the belief that riding a bike will take the women’s virginity, or violate her in some way. Riding a bike as a women can be interpreted as a sign of “being loose”. If a women wanted to ride a bike, they would have to deal with social and economic stigma. In the eyes of many they would be stating that they are both “impure” and poor. This makes women’s entry barrier into cycling, which as stated earlier is already a sport already heavily imbued with patriarchal values, even more complicated.
Ok, so you have managed to set up a cycling team in Sierra Leone. You managed to get some good second hand bikes and kit thanks to your contacts in Europe. You have a group of strong riders, including very talented girls. They have the level and the drive to participate in international competitions. You now need a national cycling federation through which you officially organize visas for your riders. But what if this organization is unbelievably corrupt? What if instead of organizing visas for cyclists, they are instead granting visas to those who pay them the most money, telling the officials of the host country that these average citizens are competitive cyclists, only to disappear the second they enter the Western country? This erodes any trust that these countries will have with the cycling federation of Sierra Leone, compromising any chance that actual riders will have of competing internationally.
Ibrahim (left) and Sheik (right)
Depending on the country, it may just be difficult to do road racing due to a lack of quality tarmac to ride on. Or that the usable roads have heavy traffic and are too dangerous to ride on, let alone race. Lunsar is actually lucky in this regard. They’re on one of the very few paved roads in the country, and the roads are brand new. Furthermore, traffic is light, drivers are very considerate, and there is a spacious shoulder on the side of the road. In other countries this would be much more complicated.
The Lunsar Cycling Team
Karim Kamara, also known as Stylish for his fancy bike tricks, was a mechanic in Sierra Leone. One day, an American met him and offered him some rare bike tools and said that he would teach him how to use them if he bought them. Karim accepted the deal, which was surprising as the tools and techniques were not necessarily useful for the poor Chinese bikes typically used in West Africa. The two worked together, and Karim advanced quickly with his apprenticeship. Through this connection, Karim was able to expand his bicycle store with second-hand bikes from the US. This prompted him to start a cycling team, but the issue was that most of the used bikes were not made for road-racing. Despite this, Karim motivated many local youth to join his team. They were allowed to work in the shop and learned how to use Karim’s tools, eventually paying for their bikes and kit. With more and more second hand bicycles coming in, with a clear preference for racing bikes, the team has massively expanded.
Mallam and Moses
In 2013, Karim, ambitious as ever, hosted the first Tour de Lunsar. This is a four day race varies its course every year, but stays mostly in north-western Sierra Leone. Karim wanted his team, but anyone in Sierra Leone, the opportunity to have racing experience. The result in 2022 was over 100 participants from all over the country racing mostly on low-quality bicycles, protected from traffic by race organizers on motorbikes. Only around 15 of best riders in the country have access to (second-hand) carbon fiber frames, but for all the competitors deficient equipment is only a small issue which in no way hides their talent.
The Lunsar team has monthly races to keep tabs on the best riders. They keep close track on times, have intermediate sprints and climbs, and have prizes for the first three finishers. This is to keep the team motivated, have data to give to sponsors, and to prove to international event organizers that they’re the real deal. Teams in Africa have to constantly prove that they’re good enough. They will never have the benefit of the doubt.
The team also has some talented female riders. However, as noted in the previous section, it is incredibly complicated for them. There are many more male participants in the team, not because the team discriminates, but because of the social stigma that they face from their family and friends. In Lunsar, its seen as “unwomanly” to race on bikes. The few women who do participate are some of the most talented of the bunch, and through the team have been able to compete in races in Ghana. It is still an uphill battle to be accepted as a female cyclist around the world let alone Sierra Leone, so it will be a long uphill battle for these amazing women to have their passion recognized as legitimate.
Typically in West Africa, the “cool kids” wear hip-hop inspired clothes, or dress to the nines. In Lunsar, the cool kids roam around in lycra and cycling “specs” (glasses). Karim has managed to create a culture in this town where kids want to be cyclists, they want to push themselves to be a part of the team. In no film are the popular kids the ones in bright pink, skin tight, cycling jerseys. Yet walking around town with some riders you can see the respect they have from everyone. Its not just for show either, the riders are obsessed with the sport. I have been told that they fill up their phone’s data to watch cycling highlights on youtube, needing to top-up all the time to stay up to speed with the races Mark Cavendish or Peter Sagan are a part of.
I became rather close with two riders on the team, Moses and Mallam, who happened to be some of the best riders. I was hosted for a night by Karim, and was invited to a local bar for a few drinks and some dancing. Moses and Mallam joined along, but during the whole evening they refused to drink, barely danced, and just argued about the next days race and about their favorite riders. We talked about their hopes and dreams, which involve them participating in international races and teams, getting a chance to express their talents beyond this section of Sierra Leone. This has been compromised by Sierra Leone’s abysmal cycling federation. The situation I mentioned previously applies to this. There are currently two people vying for the job as president of the federation, but neither one really cares about cycling, they just want the job as it comes with ministerial benefits and places them in a position of power. Sierra Leone is usually unable to send athletes to foreign events, because corrupt officials send random citizens who pay them money instead of the deserving athletes. For the Commonwealth games hosted in the UK in 2014 Sierra Leone sent 9 “cyclists”, yet only one person actually participated. Even the most deserving athletes, with opportunities to expand their practice, can be stunted at this hurdle. Back at the bar, I figured that they weren’t going to truly enjoy an evening before a race so we left early, so they could have enough sleep.
I was allowed to follow the team in a car the next day for their race. Being on the countries main roads, these races come with inherent risk, and one of the riders was hit by a bus. Fortunately it was nothing serious, he was able to ride his bike back to Lunsar, but it goes to show the difficulties in riding here. The finish was exhilarating, but Moses broke off from the rest and took the win in front of Mallam, Sheik, and Ibrahim. Sheik and Ibrahim came to talk to me after the race. It turns out that they’re preparing to go to South Korea in December. They have been chosen to represent Sierra Leone at the youth winter Olympics in 2024, thanks to aggressive promotion by Karim. They were invited to practice in the sports in which they would compete: cross-country skiing and skeleton. Both wanted to know what to expect when they got there. Having never been to Asia let alone South Korea, I just responded that they had better pack a lot of warm clothes… This discussion only further cemented my view of the winter Olympics as a rich-country (Switzerland and Norway in particular) compensation for not being good at real sports. I’m only half joking, as the winter Olympics are where the very few countries in the world who have a combination of cold climates, mountains, and enough money to build ski resorts and skating rinks can stroke their egos.
It was reluctantly that I left Lunsar, and Moses (even after his victory) had the energy to ride with me for 5kms before we went our separate ways. It turns out that Lunsar is a very popular stop with cycle tourists in need of repairs. Its one of very few bicycle shops with the technical know-how and available materials to meet the demands of modern European bikes. I am still dumbfounded that all of this stems from one man and his passion, and how he got so many others hooked to his vision.
Conclusion
The cycling scene in Lunsar is incredible. What Karim has been able to accomplish in the face of so many difficulties and bullshit is commendable. Everyone I met in Lunsar was incredibly welcoming to me, but to be fair this is Sierra Leone and the contrary would have been strange. Looking at this project, I see a community led and driven project that is having a massive impact on the youth. Their official website can be found here. This story is, to put it simply, cool and unique. Because of this it has been covered by many other sources, including The Guardian, so if you’re interested in learning more there are resources available online.
If ever you consider donating to a project, I can’t think of one more deserving that this. If you’re a cyclist, and have unused material, you can contact Karim to see how you could get it to him. They’re looking for racing bikes, tyres, jerseys, glasses, and shoes (shoes are actually in very high demand). Show support for the Tour de Lunsar, and feel free to follow them on Instagram.
Supporting African cycling is a way to break barriers in sport. Lunsar is not at all the only team on the continent, and many others, perhaps located in places you know better, also deserve attention. Masaka cycling in Uganda, Kpalime cycling project in Togo, and team Africa Rising in Benin are all fantastic efforts to promote cycling on the continent and have all had huge positive impacts on local communities.
