Froome - The climb: my autobiography

We have come out of Mai-a-Ihii, leaving his tin house behind us. We have come down the Dagoretti road inhaling the blood scent from the market and from its four death-house abattoirs. I hold my breath as we pass a heap of rotting discarded carcasses. Sometimes in Dagoretti the blood runs down the sides of the road and into the drains. Today we are for the hills and the open road and we dont care.

We have skirted the Kibiku Forest, pedalled a right on to the Ngong road and down past the sad little Ngong Stadium, where the only facility is the grass that the cattle graze on. We have sped past the Kenya Power and Lighting Distribution Centre, which keeps us buying candles for the ambushes of darkness that are sprung on us by the power company. We have raced down to the Forest Line road and cut right past Ngong town, dodging the stray goat crossing the road and the colourfully painted that grind to a halt at a moments notice to collect or drop off their passengers. The chaos passes, and were on to the open road and into the Ngong Hills.

One last ride before I die?

It will be in these hills, for sure. The canopy of blue sky barely above me, the world transforming itself from urban grime to rural safari below me. You can lift your hands up and away from your handlebar grips and stretch your arms skyward in triumph like a stage winner. Your hands will be breaking through the floor of heaven. One last ride before I die? Take me here.

He is Kikuyu and I am chasing him. As always. The land of the Kikuyu people runs out at an invisible seam and this is now Masai country. The Masai named the Ngong Hills. A giant was stumbling, as their legend would have it, from Kilimanjaro with his head in the clouds. He fell heavily and left the indent of his four knuckles in the earth. The Ngong Hills. These four summits. We are riding down the spine of them now, he and I, chasing each other over the giants knuckles. I am sixteen. My head is never anywhere else but in the clouds. I dream of the great races. But first, I must catch him.

Twenty kilometres we race along this brown, arid, corrugated spine. The best views, where you can see the road snaking down for miles ahead of you, come at Point Lamwia where Karen Blixen, the famous author of Out of Africa, buried her lover Denys Finch Hatton. Lucky man. What a place to settle in for eternity. Salute. Then we are heading down into the Great Rift Valley.

For a while in the hills I thought I might get one over on him. I am mad for the climbs. He let me spin away once or twice but always he reeled me in.

Down. Down. The Magadi road has looped out of the green suburbs of Langata from near my old school, the Banda, but coming from Mai-a-Ihii we only join it down here past the bustling, street-side markets of Kiserian. We are on our plunge down into the Rift Valley. Lower and lower. Faster and faster. Past the busy town of Ongata Rongai. Onwards. The road ribbons and twists around the countryside, long straight stretches and big loops which will take us from two thousand metres and set us down on the Rift Valley plains at six hundred metres.

Downhill. No pain. Our calves will complain on the way home but, right now, this is fun. The addicts rush. We are the happy slaves of our own rhythm. We exist in our .

We might see anything here now that the city is behind us. Its clear that we are in Masai territory. Passing through the village of Oltepesi, we stand out like a sore thumb among the local people wearing the traditional red . We ride on.