A Request

We're taking a year off from the Tour Game. Instead, we're hoping you'l consider following our African journey, and supporting two organizations doing important work.

These girls are proudly carrying the feminine hygiene kits they received from Achon Uganda Children’s Fund.

If you’re reading this post, there’s a strong chance you’ve played the Tour Game: Every July for something like twenty years(!), we’ve convened up to 150 people who participate in a Tour de France fantasy game (for which I can’t seem to come up with a more clever name than “The Tour Game”). All proceeds go to small, grassroots nonprofits doing great work; participants follow along by reading my daily updates, and have a chance to win donated prizes.

But not this year.

We’re not skipping July 2025 because this year’s Tour de France may well be a yawner, though the timing is convenient. Instead, I’m spending this summer gearing up (as it were) for a different kind of cycling endeavor, one which I’m hoping you’ll support.

I wrote about this year’s alternate activity at length last fall, so I’ll summarize here: This September, a small group will travel to Kampala, the capital of Uganda, where we will pick up bicycles that 88bikes has sourced locally. Most of those bikes we’ll load onto a trailer; a handful we’ll ride 200 miles over four days, all the way to the clinic operated by Achon Uganda Children’s Fund. There we will deliver the bikes to clinic staff, who will use them to deliver medicine, care and education to Ugandans in even more remote villages, and to local girls and women who will use them to travel to school and work.

This is where you come in: We’re paying our own way, but we’re hoping to fund purchase of the bicycles, along with assembly of feminine hygiene kits that we’ll also deliver to local girls, with your…subscription fees.

That’s right: I’m asking you to pay to read what I write here.

Instead of hosting the Tour Game, my plan is to pass all subscription fees on to AUCF and 88bikes. In return, and in addition to the satisfaction of knowing your fee will enable these organizations to continue their important work, I’ll post updates about our travel, our ride, delivering the bikes and kits — and then about the World Cycling Championships in Rwanda, which we’re also planning to visit. So you’ll get your pro cycling fix after all.

Those who play the Tour Game know that I always make requests and suggestions clear and bold. So here’s what I’m asking you to do:

1. Subscribe to this Substack. (You can always unsubscribe later.)

2. Pick a paid subscription. (I’m going to post copies of the donation receipts so you can see that I indeed pass along these subscription fees!)

3. Consider making an additional donation to 88bikes or AUCF.

4. Feel free to post a comment here or to send me an email (mike@teamfee.com) letting me know that you’ve donated — especially because I’ll send anyone donating $250 or more a 2025 Uganda/Rwanda Cycling Adventure jersey — watch for the design here!

Simple as that. Unless, that is, you’d like to do a bit more:

We’re still hoping to bring a larger group to Africa this fall. I hope you’ll consider joining us. I’m not kidding! Everyone who has ever joined us on a trip to Africa has remarked that it was indeed the trip of a lifetime — and this one promises to be particularly special. (And don’t worry: you won’t have to ride a heavy, single-gear, coaster brake bicycle 200 miles the entire way. Even I’m not planning to do that.)

Thank you in advance for supporting Cyclanda! 2025.¹

1. I’m also hoping to come up with a better name for this adventure.