How the Other Half Live
Reported by Bob Chitt
You think cycling is tough in England? News from South Africa Watch out for Rhinos . . .
An avid mountain biker is “lucky to be alive” after a head-on clash with a furious Rhino during a race in the Drakensberg, South Africa. Grant Shortridge was knocked off his bike by the Rhino but escaped with minor injury because of his quick reactions. Shortridge was among a group of riders going through the game reserve near Emseni camp when they encountered six Rhinos. “We were riding up a hill on a jeep track when we suddenly saw them 20 metres away, charging us,” Shortridge said, “they must have been angry with us because we were in their space.” Shortridge said he instinctively veered towards a tree for cover, but the animal followed him and rammed into his bike head-on. It wrecked the front wheel and forks of his £1300 bike but he escaped with five stitches in his lip! Think of the Poor Paperboys too . . .
For the last 26 years Tony has been delivering newspapers throughout Durban. For the past 10 years, he's had one bike to help get the job done. Tony's bike was well worn, it’s frame was rusted. The front tyre was flat, the back tyre riddled with repaired punctures. Tony is married with two children. and has been working two shifts a day for as long as he can remember. He leaves his home before sunrise and gets home well after dark. For the past few months he has been unable to ride his bike, but has to load it up with papers and push it. A photographer asked to take his portrait with his bike and assured him that he would put his photograph on the Humans of Durban Facebook page with a request for anyone or anything that could help him or his bike. That night he uploaded the photograph of Tony and within seconds received messages from people who wanted to help, one from a homesick South African living in New York City, another from a mother and daughter who recognised
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Cycle Ink #171