When to leave for London to Cape Town
 

Hi all,

I'm vaguely starting to plan for a London to Cape Town ride in 2022 and interested in the collective wisdom about when to leave. I haven't quite worked out if the east or west coast is the best idea and I suppose it makes a considerable difference, but my current logic would be to leave the UK/Europe in late summer in order to catch the best of the weather...before hitting North Africa in a little bit of the cool of autumn. I would assume it would then be possible to hit Cape Town before winter hits.

Climatically is there any more logical way of doing this?

Your departure time sound right to me and I would say from my own experience of long distance bicycle tours going via Cairo which is about 10,000 miles would take me around 8 months but I know other could do it a lot more quickly.
I am not sure if it is possible to cycle the length of Africa and have ideal weather the whole way, it is difficult enough with a faster moving motor vehicle but your departure time will give you the best start and I did meet several cyclists in Sudan who were heading down in October when I was coming up.
The best route depends on the political situation at the time, I would say the east route because I am familiar with it but know that there are problems in Ethiopia at the moment but then there are also problems on the west side of Africa.

For the best timeframe are severall overviews around

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7b3y07P5q...-NYLon2000.jpg

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sAv4ficMh...on-Planner.jpg

Here I collect these, but they all will lead back to Hubb, so using the search here at Hubb will be a good way to start...

https://www.4x4tripping.com/2013/04/...as-wetter.html

Surfy