TEAM AMAN SEES THE FUTURE

BEFORE HIS DEATH LAST YEAR, SULE KANGANGI HAD AN AMBITIOUS PLAN FOR TURNING EAST AFRICA INTO A CYCLING POWERHOUSE. HIS KENYABASED TEAM IS COMMITTED TO DELIVERING ON HIS LEGACY

- BILL DONAHUE

IN EARLY JUNE, FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, A TRIO OF AFRICAN PROS LINED UP FOR GRAVEL’S most prestigious, most intensely fought race. Unbound Gravel takes riders through the Flint Hills of eastern Kansas, along winding prairie roads littered with sharp rocks and steep climbs. Kenya-based Team Amani sent John Kariuki, a 26-year-old Kenyan, along with two Ugandan teammates, Charles Kagimu, 24, and Jordan Schleck, 20, to face off against the world’s top gravel racers on the 200-mile course.

There was a gaping hole in the Amani lineup, though. The team’s founder and captain, Sule Kangangi, was not in Kansas. 

Sule was a visionary and a leader in African cycling. He’d had an inauspicious early childhood; neither of his parents were a meaningful presence in his life after age 11. He essentially raised himself. His sister went to live with their grandparents while he stayed behind in Kapsuswa, a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Eldoret. He was old enough to find work, the thinking went, old enough to contribute financially to the family.

So Sule sold secondhand clothes. He swept the veranda at a local shop. He herded cattle. School wasn't an option-he couldn't afford the tuition-and Kapsuswa was in the process of being demolished on account of crime, which forced Sule to couch surf, moving from the home of one alcoholic uncle to another. Sometimes he had a mattress; sometimes his mattress got stolen.