Summary: this book by Tim Lewis focuses on the history of cycling in Rwanda, through to 2013. It shares the stories of Rwandan cyclists and people who have supported Rwandan cycling in recent years.
I was interested to read Land of Second Chances because I live in Goma and regularly cross the border to enjoy Rwanda’s smooth roads and epic climbs (at the time of writing, these sorties are on hold due to COVID). I’m also part of Goma Cycling Club; some club mates of mine cycle for the Congolese national team or semi-professionally for a Rwandan club. I wanted to read about the Rwandan set-up in order to fuel my imagination for the potential ways that Congolese cycling could develop.
Message: Tim Lewis seeks to go beyond recounting the history of cycling in Rwanda to ponder the impacts of professional cycling on the cyclists themselves, and the ways that professional cycling could or should be supported in sub-Saharan Africa. Cycling appears to be symbolic of Rwandan post-genocide redemption, but as the book begins to explore: it’s not that simple.
Highlights: personally, I most enjoyed reading about the road races that took place in Kigali in the 1980s. I once ran a marathon on those roads and suffered due to the heat and hills (and, let’s be honest, due to a lack of fitness). Consequently, it was special to imagine riders whizzing around the same roads at breakneck speed on steel racing bikes.
I imagine that other readers may particularly enjoy reading about the colourful cast of characters, comedic moments reminiscent of Cool Runnings, the context on Rwanda’s history and economy, and the redemptive theme: following the horror and hurt of the genocide, the cycling team symbolises Rwanda’s apparent march towards a brighter future.
Limitations: the author’s attempt to dig into the psychology of Rwandan cyclists is laudable, but he does so with limited success. While Lewis demonstrates self-awareness about some generalisations, he readily makes others apparently without blinking. I don’t particularly blame the author for these limitations, due to the fact that he is a journalist rather than an ethnographer, and am grateful that he willing to pose important questions such as “is riding in the Tour de France really ‘The Dream’ for many of these cyclists, or is the concept somewhat foreign and secondary to more locally immediate dreams such as establishing a good life for oneself and one’s family?”
Aside from this limitation, I also feel that the book was unfocused in places, devoting several pages to recounting the backstories of some characters – in particular, Tom Ritchey – whose story (while fascinating) was of negligible importance to the overall narrative. The description of an initiative to support coffee producers with improved bicycles was useful for highlighting the diverse use of bicycles in Rwanda, but was included in a somewhat disjointed way. This indicated sub-standard editing – a conclusion corroborated by the presence of several typos.
Concluding thoughts: I would highly recommend this book to readers interested in cycling or in Rwanda. While there are limitations, the book represents a happy divergence from dominant narratives concerned with African sport and with Rwanda. Namely, it’s a book about African endurance athletes that doesn’t focus on runners from Kenya or Ethiopia, and it’s a book about Rwanda that doesn’t focus on the tragedy of the genocide or President Kagame’s ambitious economic agenda.