Wild Ride

On a bike adventure in Tanzania's Singita Grumeti Reserve, Tom Vanderbilt gets close to the land and the stewards who protect it

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Participating in the Wagora Bike Ride across the Singita Grumeti Reserve Opposite page, clockwise from top: Elephants at Singita Grumeti; a suite at Singita Sabora Tented Camp, the cyclists' home base; decor details at Sabora

I HAVE RIDDEN WITH MANY excellent bike guides across the world, intrepid types who could fix a broken chain in a downpour or talk you over an Alpine climb when you are at your absolute limit.

But I have never ridden with anyone quite like Kabichi Suma Mwarancha.

On a sweltering October afternoon in the Singita Grumeti Reserve, a 350,000-acre conservation parcel in northwestern Tanzania, adjacent to the Serengeti National Park, Mwarancha is leading me and a small group of advanced cyclists on a challenging 31-mile ride. The first of the three legs in an inaugural fundraiser called the Wagora Bike Ride unspools along rocky red clay roads and through rutted jeep tracks, past braying herds of zebra and startled warthogs. “Twendeni!” he cheerfully shouts (Swahili for, roughly, “Let's go, y'all!”) as he sails up a daunting and technical climb. He's got a shotgun slung across the back of his bike jersey. One hand rests on his handlebars, the other works a walkie-talkie, through which crackles news of wildlife sightings.