Busy month for cycle holidays!

It's the last day of November and it's been a great month of cycling around Cape Town with some great new guests.We started off the month with a few short mountain biking trips near Greyton. The first days of summer were felt by all and the riding was pretty fantastic as well, especially on the new full suspension bikes we were using! Steve and Kitt noted how similar the region looked to the Pyrenees (except that we get the luxury of riding in these mountains all year round!). We cruised through some great sections of singletrack that will soon be extended and linked up during the next year to include even more trails. I must apologise to the group about that last big climb though- 7km with some 18% grade sections! Well done for surviving!

2010 Single track tour

We're busy planning a big 10 day singletrack mountain bike trip for February/March.

If you want to ride trails like this contact us now so we can customise your trip for you!

Featured rider: Roan Exelby

Roan has been riding and racing bikes for a very long time. I remember that back in the early 90's he had a weird looking Pacific bike. It was purple and rigid yet had a Y frame for some reason. Then I think he had the first 'dual susser' I had ever seen-a Proflex with flex stem and an elastomer on the rear seatstay.

Anyway, since those days he has been riding and racing and earning his due as one of THE characters of the sport, as well as earning repsect as one of the hardest blokes on the planet. He has so many accolades I wouldn't know where to start (How about 3rd place World MTB marathon champs, and 3rd overall place 24Hours of Moab? PRIVATEER!). With these results and much more, Roan still just gets on with it making sure he's having fun on his bike. Shouldn't we all be following his example?

He answered a few questions for us:-

Upcoming trips-Join in!

Do you want to ride?
Well you have no excuses now!

We have the following trips coming up, why don't you join us, even if it's not for the whole trip?

Singletrack tour:
18th-21st November- 4 days of the best trail riding in the Cape

Burger road tour:
27th Nov-6 Dec- 10 days of beautiful road rides incorporating the famous Burger Cycle Tour

Summer is here!

Jennie Stenerhag wins the Amashova in Durban!

iRide Africa's lead road guide is on top form at the moment-19 race wins this year and counting!.

Last weekend, she traveled up to Durban to take part in one of South Africa's biggest races, the Amashova- a race from Pietermaritzburg to Durban, through the valley of a thousand hills.

The womens bunch consisted of 300 riders
with all the top teams representing, so Jennie had to work super hard to close down the breakaways as well as contending with miserable weather and a wheel change after she punctured!

Jennie was instrumental in whittling down the lead group to 9 riders by the time they reached Durban and had enough 'oomph' in her legs to take the sprint to victory.

Ceres is where it's at!

Yet another weekend away, yet another action packed few days of good laughs, great company and terrific riding. Life is tough!

I took the 'easy' option and scouted for new rides on my MX bike whilst the others partook in racing around this mountain bike paradise on trails varying from 15km to the monster 70km option. Good on you all and I hope you'll all be back next year!

Here are some photos to convince you to come on one of our singletrack tours...

Some days are just too good

OK, so no photos to prove it because we were just too busy riding on the first real day of summer.

• Long hot slog up a mountain followed by kilometers of finger aching singletrack.

• Then a gigantic burger with potato wedges and onion rings and a ice cold beer for the measly some of R50 (under £4!!!)

D.

Spring Clean Tour

A fantastic 4 days of riding in the Overberg area, an hour away from Cape Town.
Here is a small collage but you can see more photos on our Facebook page

Highlights include-

• Casey's donga faceplant
• Graham riding every ride on a rigid singlespeed jump bike
• New black trails at Oak Valley
• Riding in the rain-this doesn't happen very often down here!
• Not one puncture!
• Marcus' face after realising that 'Singletrack is the answer'
  

Bike Fight '09

The inaugural Cape Town Bike Fight took place last weekend on a perfect Spring day. What a blast! I'm building up a fixie as I type just because it all looked so fun.

There was the Fixie race around the parking lot-nice and dangerous with cars everywhere and a couple of tight corners. No idea who won, it was all a bit of a blur really.

There was the skid comp, which came down to the wire between a skinny racer and a not so skinny local bike shop owner-the winner eventually went to Gav, who had a more spectacular 'dismount' into the bushes where the tar ran out.


There were quite a few blow outs but the best one was totally unexpected as the bike wasn't even being ridden at the time.

The bike joust was a bit of a let down but the photo below sums up it quite nicely. Things to note:
Olaf going for Toby's head
Toby's concentration levels
The joy on the spectators faces - "We want blood!"

There was also a trackstand competiton where some serious skills were shown after 2 minutes of standard trackstanding.

And then there was the highly entertaining fixie shark pool (I made that name up because I don't know what i was really called. Anyone know?) Everyone circles in one direction and tries to take anybody else off their bike until they are the last person riding. Here's a photo of one of the last stand-offs.


All in all a great day out, let's make it happen again!

Proudly South African- Burry's first Elite World Cup win!

I'm proudly South African on most days but at the moment I'm bursting at the seams for this kid!

Burry Stander has just had the best week of his cycling career-2 weeks ago a win in the U23 World Champs and last weekend he put the hurt onto the (seemingly unbeatable) Julien Absalon on the final climb of the final lap to take his first elite win in a World Cup hosted in Switzerland.

I don't think this will be the last time there'll be a post on this kind of topic!

South Africa 1,2 & 3 at 2009 UCI MTB World Champs!

Talk about a misleading headline, but I'm so proud I'm not going to change it!

So this is how it all rolled out at the World Championships in Canberra, Australia:
1st Place - Burry Stander crowned world under-23 cross-country champion- Last in the hairstyle stakes tho...

2nd Place - Greg Minnaar missed out on winning the elite downhill title by a mere 0.05 seconds! But Peaty got a well deserved 1st and kept the pesky Aussies away which is always good!

3rd Place - Candice Neethling did us all proud in the junior cross country. I hope she continues with this kind of form!

You've got to wonder how good the riding must be in South Africa to produce such World class talent. Why don't you find out and come on one of our cycling holidays?

Cape Town Critical Mass

Join us every last Friday of the month for a cruise through the streets of Cape Town to highlight alternative travel in this awesome (and small!) city

When last did you experience adventure?

Here's an interesting definition of adventure by Colin Mortlock- apologies to the girls for all the "he's"-it applies to every human out there!

"This is the stage beyond, and often just beyond, the skills learning stage. The person has sudden fear of physical harm and no longer feels complete master of the situation. He feels, however, that he can, with considerable effort on his part, and given luck, overcome the situation without accident.

He accepts that his skills are about to be tested. He is conscious of a definite degree of uncertainty as to the outcome, and feels, as it were, poised on a knife edge between success and failure. I he succeeds, he has experienced adventure.

He has found himself in a situation which becomes firmly etched upon his mind -perhaps forever. He has feelings of satisfaction, if not elation, about the result. The degree of satisfaction and pride is proportional to the scale and intensity of the adventure."

Join us on one of our adventures at iRide Africa. It's not all fear and adrenalin but it'll certainly get you elated and satisfied!

Great products and brilliant events

Want unique, local and well made clothes?
Check out Broken15 for their latest range in hoodies and T-shirts.

Want to explore Cape Town on foot and get a work out in the process?
Check out MyCity running tours. A great new way to experience Cape Town if your time here is too short to go on one of iRide Africa's tours.

Looking for a brilliant event?
Look no further than BikeFight '09. Crazy antics, crazy people and crazy bikes

The perfect winter

Not too much to say really, amazing weather, amazing people, amazing amounts of laziness!
We didn't get out for nearly enough riding but here are some photos of what we did. The potential for perfect trails here is massive!


There are some more photos on our facebook page. Become a fan to keep up with our latest news.