Meron “Sunshine” Amanuel takes 5th place at UCI 1.2 Fenkel Challenge in Eritrea

Races in Africa are always something special for our team. We already have been reporting a lot about that and due to the special mission of the team – to develop African cycling and athletes – races on this continent are a special interest. This time there is no more superlative. The team is now in Eritrea which has a very special meaning indeed to the team. Eritrea is unique, it is a special country and a huge adventure. The first riders from Africa in the team were riders from Eritrea. It has a bit from: back to the roots!

What makes it so special to be in Eritrea? This small country is located on Africa’s east coast, right at the Red Sea and shares border with countries such as Sudan, Djibouti and Ethiopia but has a big and unique cycling tradition and history. The Italians brought this culture to this country during the colonial times beginning of the 20^th century. Nowadays cycling has a similar or even bigger meaning to the people in Eritrea than Football in our country. You can imagine that every little kid dreams of a big cycling career and talks about their legends and heroes. Not only names like Eddy Merckx or Miguel Indurain are popular, it is more the fact that their own heroes such as Daniel Teklehaimanot and our other former rider Mekseb Debesay – who made it from BIKE AID to the World Tour – are the idols of today’s generation in Eritrea.

Now our guys are there and are allowed to feel this special atmosphere and enthusiasm that is not easy at all to describe. The riders experience many nice and positive people in a country, which gives you astonishing moments.

The first of 4 UCI races has been held yesterday and led over 113 kilometers from the city of Foro to Ghindae. There is always an estimation in Europe that races in Africa are not on a high level, but this is completely wrong when you have ever done races there. In countries like Eritrea, Rwanda or in Northern Africa you find a huge potential and huge talent of riders who all grow to fulfill their dream of becoming a famous cyclist outside of their country. The only thing they don’t have: experience and the opportunity to show their talent outside or in Europe. From a point of motivation, there is no single word to describe that as this kind of motivation and passion simply not exists in our countries. Only in Eritrea there are 1.000 junior riders dreaming to become stars in the cycling world.

 If you take the conditions for instance, it is also very hard for European riders to compete as the capital Asmara is located on altitude of 2.400 m sea level.  Not that easy to get enough of oxygen that is so important to deliver a good performance.

Fortunately there are also 3 Eritrean riders in our team Stradalli – BIKE AID who are perfectly adapted to those conditions. Yesterday it was Meron Amanuel who managed the conditions the best of the team and finished on a great 5^th place just beaten by 37 seconds back on the winner!

Also Meron Teshome delivered a good performance on 11^th place. All in all a good opening of an interesting and unique week that needs to be followed!

Stradalli Cycle - Bike Aid Will Continue Inspiring Charity Work In Africa

You may not know the difference between a Wal-Mart bicycle and a full carbon road bike but you do know about the devastation and poverty that is day to day life in many countries of Africa. There are hundreds of charitable organizations trying to help and a great example is Bike Aid, a German cycling club with over 600 members who help to bring aspiring cyclists to Europe.

The Conti Team has races all over the globe in hopes to raise awareness of their cause and in only two years they have real success stories they can be proud of. Mekseb Debesay, one of the young cyclists from Africa who was given an opportunity to race in Europe because of Bike Aid has signed on to be a teammate of Mark Cavendish for team Dimension Data in the World Tour.

“The story of Debesay is a great success for him as well as for our cause. It is always a challenge to try and educate people on what you are doing and why they should support you but when you have true success stories you can start showing them results for their efforts. With the success of the program we are getting more attention and help than we ever thought possible in such a short period of time and we are excited that 2016 is expected to be our biggest season yet with more African cyclist on the team than before and we will also have the help of our new title and bike sponsor Stradalli Cycle from America.” Bike Aid Racer Spokesman Matthias Schnapka

The full carbon bike manufacturer from Florida has been looking to sponsor a Conti Team for a while but took a special interest in Bike Aid because of what they represent. 

You can read more about the Stradalli Cycle - Bike Aid Conti Team as well as their cause and updates during the 2016 racing season.