Our Film Crew

For the first time since its inception five years ago, the world’s longest and most grueling bicycle event is being filmed. Facing enormous challenges, our intrepid film crew, Ed Rice and Jacqueline Donaldson, are producing a documentary for worldwide distribution. The third crew member, Baobab, is their trusty Toyota Fortuner which recently clocked up 50,000 kms while they were in Botswana. We asked them for some feedback on their experiences:

“Before meeting everyone in Cairo, the thought of making a documentary of this years Tour d’Afrique was both incredibly exciting and quite daunting. Over 40 personal stories, 10 countries, racers, expedition riders, staff, logistics, food- the scope was endless. Luckily this is an amazing group of people and documenting their journey has been a pleasure. With the bonus of having an superb 4×4 Toyota Fortuner to assist us on the roads, and the help of all the TDA and African Routes staff, filming has been made much simpler than it should have been. Driving Baobab helps to take me where action is happening and frees everyone up so I can go where I feel the best footage and photographs are. It definitely draws lots of positive attention, which has helped me to meet lovely locals and get through quite a few police roadblocks!”

“Not to say that this hasn’t been a challenge. It’s impossible to be everywhere at once so there is so much more I would have liked to have captured. Everyday at camp there are new stories from riders and staff about adventures they have experienced that I would have loved to have filmed. The biggest challenges to documenting this tour are access to electricity, keeping footage fresh, and time. Everything I use to film needs constant charging and for Ed to edit he needs a constant source of power and many hours to do his work. More time is probably on everyone’s wish list – with so much going on more time would be wonderful, especially since we’re so close to Cape Town.”

“As an observer, I still marvel at the strength of the riders and the patience of the staff. This is a 24-hour a day job and all have made this a smooth and fun experience. And while days can be stressful, there is laughter all the time and a genuine pleasure of everyone being here that you can see in the photos. The logistics of this tour are massive and I’m not sure everyone can appreciate how smoothly things run when the potential for problems are immense. I just hope the documentary can do justice to the experience.”

Visit www.youtube.com and search Tour d’Afrique to view some of the inserts from the road.