The Old Legs Tour is a group of
middle-aged verging on bloody ancient social bike riders who pedal their mountain bikes every year from Harare to somewhere ridiculously far away, to raise money and awareness for Zimbabwe’s pensioners. Normally there is a lot of uphill involved.

Alas. The generation that built Zimbabwe have had their life savings, their wealth and their pensions reduced to zero by decades of ruinous economic policies, leaving doctors and lawyers, engineers and teachers with nothing and entirely dependent upon charity. Enter the Old Legs Tour.

Because things on the ground going into 2021 are tougher than ever for the pensioners, the Old Legs has to keep on riding. We have no choice. This year we will ride our toughest Tour yet; the Silverback Tour, which will take us 3000 km from Harare to Uganda’s
Impenetrable Forest to find the gorillas in the mist. We will be on the road for 30 days and 3020 km, climbing 36,000 meters, riding through Africa’s wildest and most rugged parts. The oldest member of our riding group will be 72, living proof that you are never too old to do epic.

We will be 10 riders with 6 support team members, including 2 photographers tasked with capturing every grueling kilometer. Our route will take us through Zambia, Tanzania, Rwanda and
Uganda. We’ll ride through Zambia’s iconic Luangwa National Park, through Chief Chitambo’s village where David Livingstone’s heart is buried, and on to Ujiji where Stanley spoke those words “Dr Livingstone I presume.” We’ll ride alongside Lake Victoria in Tanzania, through the hills and past the volcanic lakes of Rwanda and finally on to Uganda’s Impenetrable Forest and the gorillas. (As I type, half of me is thinking it is not a clever idea to ride 3000 km plus many hills to get me up and close and personal with animals that I will no doubt be very scared of.)

2021 TEAM
Cyclists
Eric de Jong, Adam Selby, Mark Wilson, Billy Prentice, Al Watermeyer, Laurie Watermeyer, Fiona Semper, Marco Richards, CarolJoy Church, Jaime Selby
Crew
Jenny de Jong, Linda Selby, Aoife Connolly, Vicky Bowen, Ryan Moss, Gary de Jong, 

HISTORY
The Old Leg ethos is to have fun, to do good, and above all, to do epic. In 2018 on their first Tour, the Old Legs rode from Harare to Cape Town on the roads less travelled, via the Kalahari, the Karoo and a town called Hotazel. On this first Tour, we were able to raise $71000 for our pensioners. We pedaled 3186 km and our oldest rider was 72. 

The next year 2019, to make up for choosing a slack, downhill destination, the Old Legs Tour rode from Harare to Tanzania, to the top of Kilimanjaro, the world’s highest free-standing mountain, raising $100,000. 

And in 2020, the Old Legs Tour rode the Lockdown Tour, braving lions, elephants, tsetse flies and the coronavirus whilst pedaling 3035 km around the circumference of Zimbabwe, through the wildest wildlife areas and on the toughest dirt roads, raising over $130,000 for Zimbabwe’s beleaguered pensioners. And when the Zim contingent crossed the finish line, the South African Old Legs team started pedalling - 2400 km from Durban KZN to Lambert's Bay on the West Coast, over every mountain pass in South Africa. At 74 years young, Bruce Fivaz was oldest rider in the peloton.  

Please join us on our adventure. Follow us up through Africa on www.oldlegstour.co.zw and on Facebook But please be warned, we ride slower than paint dries.