Micheal has been involved
in five bicycle expeditions between
1993 and 1998. The first expedition
in which he took part was Africatrek.
Africatrek set out to achieve three
main objectives:
1. Ride bicycles from the northernmost
to the southernmost points of the African
continent in record time in a bid to
promote the bicycle as a pollution-free
mode of transportation.
2. Engage 5o,ooo classrooms, mostly
in the USA, in a real time study of
the geography, history, and current
state of Africa, as they followed the
progress of the expedition.
3. Africatrek was commissioned by NASA
to take air samples from the Sahara
desert to facilitate a study on the
amount of contamination in the atmosphere
above the Sahara.
The expedition achieved the goals that
it set out to and was noted by the Guinness
Book of World Records. Compilation of
video footage from the expedition also
won an Emmy Award.
On concluding Africatrek, Micheal then
undertook DHL Cycle for Youth and the
Environment, a solo bicycling expedition
which set out to make young people in
Africa more aware of the environment.
With the support of DHL, an international
courier service, they planted trees
in every capital city between Johannesburg
and Kampala. In every city in which
Micheal stopped he visited schools and
set up environmental and geography clubs
and challenged the students to take
a more active role in regenerating the
natural environment around them.
In 1996, he joined 90 other bicyclists
to take part in the Bike-Aid
‘96 ride across the USA.
Bike-Aid
is an annual event that is done with
the aim of promoting various causes,
from awareness of AIDS to environmental
issues. The primary goals of Bike-Aid
'96 were to raise awareness
of alternative methods of transportation,
along with sustainable agriculture and
environmental justice, among other things.
On Returning to Uganda, Micheal coordinated
the new Bike & Build ’97
project for Habitat for Humanity
Uganda, a subsidiary of Habitat
for Humanity International. The group
had around 80 participants and their
major accomplishment during the ride
was the construction of 15 low-cost
houses in the outskirts of Hoima Town,
western Uganda.
Africaquest,
the most recent expedition in which
Micheal was involved, was centered around
school children. The journey set out
to clarify details on the origin of
humankind and to help unveil the mystery
of the disappearance of big game in
the Rift valley region of Eastern Africa.
The expedition was guided by U.S. school
children via the Internet; throughout
the adventure classes and their teachers
would take a vote to determine the group’s
next move.
