Twee (continued from Een)

So we had discovered that mountain biking could be loads of fun as well as keep us fit -BONUS! This prompted me to start saving up for a decent bike that could actually go off road without killing me in the process. Before long I made the impulse buy and was the proud new owner of a shining red Nishiki (again?!) Altron. Compared to my first Nishiki this bike was a technological marvel - chrome molybdenum frame and forks (no more hi-tensile steel for me!), cantilever brakes, real Shimano parts and the deal maker, rapid fire shifters!!

Harry was so jealous of me back then. He still had his Invader and you could bend his u brakes with your pinky finger and thumb they were so thin! I'll never, ever, ever forget the first time we attempted 'Kamakazi' hill. We were standing up on top of Beacon hill, overlooking Howick and Midmar dam checking this crazy piece of singletrack that plummeted straight down the face of this hill and eded up hundreds of meters lower. It was uber-steep and carved into a convex shaped hill so you couldn't even see where the trail ended. We both stood up there in silence, both knowing that there was no way in hell that our brakes were up to the job of getting us down in one piece. I mean, even my superior cantilever brakes weren't going to cut it!

Suddenly Harry had mounted his bike and before he could even place his 2nd foot onto the pedal he was at terminal velocity, flying and bouncing down this grassy hill, hanging on for dear life. I could see his brake levers were pressed right against his handlebar -in fact, they were starting to bend and buckle past his bar he was clenching them so hard! Just before he was about to disappear from sight, that supremely crap bike just couldn't take it anymore and flung Harry into the cartwheel of death. As Harry bounded downwards on his head and then ass, then head , then knees and again on his head, I started to crack up with laughter. It was the most comical sight I had ever witnessed. This kind of mayhem is normally seen on some lame TV stunt show, not by your very own eyes!

Harry eventually ground to a halt, pretty dazed and confused with my cackling and howling in the background and it took while to gather himself before shouting up to me, "It's not that bad.... You could make it with your bike!"

I think we took separate rides home that day...

Een

Have you ever wondered how many s(miles) you've ridden? I was pondering this the other day and I got all nostalgic, thinking about all the different bikes that have carried me over rocks, grass,roots, mud and different countries. Here is my list of bikes I've owned over the years and a story that goes with it -go on start your own list, I highly recommend it!

Nishiki (can't remember model)- It was back in '93 or so and my best mates and I had started taking our commuting bikes into the Howick forests after school. We used to just follow our noses down the the dirt roads, taking in the peace and sunshine. We had noticed we were getting fitter but there wasn't too much excitement about it all-certainly not nearly as exciting as our main pastime of skateboarding!

These rides went on for a few months and we were invited to go on a ride in Hilton with a few old guys. This is the ride I'll never forget- the ride that inspired me to save up for my first 'real' mountain bike. We got a lift out to Garlick Forests with Chris's Dad and started out on a typical Natal Forest road. We were ambling along, messing about, trying to take each other out along this road when the ride leader suddenly turned off and disappeared down this narrow little path through the trees. "Eh? Whats this oke up to?", was the first thought and being young and reckless we just turned our bikes downwards and tried to keep up with the guy....Revelation time!

We hacked our way down this path, super sketchy, bikes rattling and totally out of control. Eventually all 3 of us careened into a massive pile of sawdust at the bottom of the trail, got off our bikes and noticed our legs were shaking, our side pull caliper brakes (remember them?) were melted and our headsets had lost all their ball bearings. First singletrack ever. Woah! Suffice to say, the smiles were BEEEEG!

Later on in the ride, we came to this humongous (well, it was back then),rutted firebreak dropping about 30m vertically down to another road level and the old guy assured us that it could be ridden. Well, peer pressure resulted in the three of us skidding, screeching (not much of that with no brake pads left) and finally, endo-ing our brains out down our first drop off. Revelation time again!

The whole trip home in the car, I remember repeating to myself, "Must find more singletrack, must get better brakes, must conquer that drop off next time". So much has changed since that first mtb ride, but I still find myself mouthing those same words, "Must find more singletrack, must get better brakes, must conquer that drop off next time".

So thats the story behind bike number one. Next up, the infamous Nishiki Altron...

Some good mtb-ing places in South Africa

well written in a cool website

Mayday, maday, we're experiencing perfect riding weather!

With the 1st of May having crept up on us, I have to report to the world that Cape Town in April and May is astounding. The wind (infernal wind, if you're not into wind sports) dies down, the midday temperatures are riding-perfect 25 degrees Celsius and the evenings are just chilled enough to really enjoy red wine by the fireside.

A few mild rain showers turns the flora from African tones of Sahara brown to English tones of vivid green, and of course the much needed moisture does wonders for the singletrack scattered around the mountains. Tokai's trails are in the best condition at this time of year -grippy and fast with nary a puddle to muck up your precious linkages and metallic moving bits.

We cram as much riding as we can during these 2 months so that we can never look back with regret during those rainy, muddy days at then end of winter. Why don't you join us?

PS:
Another interesting phenomenon is that dirt jumpers and bmx-ers put down their bikes and pick up their shovels- this is building weather! The intermittent rains means that the earth becomes softer and the jumps can be packed harder. As a result, the awesome little track in Rondebosch is growing daily as a bit of hard labour over a few months means playtime for the rest of the year!

Go!Go!Go!

Phew! It's been a fantastic few weeks of riding, trail reconnaissance and travelling and I am finally back, sleeping in my own bed. My spine has been moaning and it's got nothing to do with all the jump digging I've been doing (and nothing to do with my age!).

All this driving and riding is going to translate into more epic and wonderful trips for iRide Africa's customers. We look forward to opening more and more trails in this country which is perfectly primed for the sport.

We have found some beautiful, smooth, traffic free passes to ride on our road riding tours and have met wonderful people and awesome venues to stay at along the way.

Our back country tours are going to expand drastically with the new remote tracks we have found, which will take you into untouched areas of spectacular scenery and introduce you to some of the best bits of South Africa.

Over this last long weekend, we helped out a bit with Dirtopia mountain bike festival, rode some fantastic singletrack, fine tuned our jumping skills and watched South Africa's best riders battle it out between themselves in the marathon, dual, dirt jumps, downhill and Red Bull freestyle events. The event was awesome and chilled and the level of riding was truly entertaining. Check out some of the photos below if you don't believe me!

Jennie is jamming!

iRide Africa's lead tour guide cleans up in Sweden

News just in! Jennie Stenerhag left us a few weeks ago to compete in the European road season. This weekend she took part in her first race in Sweden, taking top honours and getting being rewarded with a place in the Swedish National Team.

Well done Jennie! We miss you here but know that all your training on this side of the world will pay off big time as you cruise around Europe and continue to race at the top level.

Jennie has been snapped up into the Swedish National team and her next race will be in a few weeks in the Czech Republic.

If you would like to train and ride with Jennie, book a tour with us today- she'll be back in our summer  and ready to take you on the most beautiful rides you can imagine!

Too much riding?

We've been away riding so much I've had to neglect the blog for a while. Don't worry, I'll catch up with posts soon enough. In the mean time here are some photos from Ceres on a riding trip we did 3 weeks ago.

Pro's loving Grabouw

Teams from all around the globe are busy completing the penultimate stage of the awesome www.cape-epic.com. It's been an exciting week of racing and there have been loads of tales of drama, great competitive spirit and amazing examples of team camaraderie.

Reading through the commentary on the race will give you an idea of the class of trails we have here in South Africa and especially Grabouw where our MTB tours will take you on some of our trips. Below are a few quotes from some of the top riders on the world, talking about Stage 5 :-

Christoph Sauser rates this stage in Grabouw "We were riding in good spirits, racing to win the stage and not just chasing down time like yesterday. The last few kilometers were a real cross-country ride - we loved it!"

Burry Stander said "We wanted to win this stage and took over the lead. On the last 2 or 3 climbs, I was struggling a bit. Luckily the last single-track section pulled me through. It was so much fun - I really enjoyed today’s stage. It was definitely the best part of all the courses we've been riding so far.”

In the Mixed category, Alison Sydor and Nico Pfitzenmaier (Adidas Big Tree) are hanging onto their lead by winning their category yet again. At the end of stage 5 , Pfitzenmaier said “We had a great stage today – the single track was unbeatable"

Werner Leitner is one of Austria’s top triathletes and comments that he never expected that the terrain of the route would be so rough. “I thought we would be riding on gravel roads most of the time. The amount of single track is astounding. Despite it being very, very hard, I’m also enjoying it. The scenery and the route are really amazing.”

Bart Brentjen's team mate Chris Jongewaard says the last stretch of single track was loads of fun. “It brought me home. Also, Bart's passion is infectious. We've talked a lot about winning this race. It would be really nice and if there’s an opportunity, we’ll definitely go for it.”

So there you have it, from the horses mouth. If you want to ride great trails in South Africa book a tour with us- we guarantee smileage!

Raging fires, raging rides

It's not in my nature to harp on about negative incidents but it just seems that the Cape fires have been relentless in the last month. So I apologise once again for being the bearer of more bad news with the following photos.

Just a few weeks ago we were riding on Table Mountain and I was commenting on how green it was for that time of year. A few scorching weeks later and the grass was brown and dry and the winds were starting to pick up as is normal for this time of year.

Unfortunately last Thursday night, a fire broke out below Rhodes Memorial and winds quickly fanned it into a horrific scene of destruction. The photos on various blog sites show the magnitude of the area burnt.
www.capetown.travel/blog/entry/fires_on_table_mountain

The good news is that no properties were burnt and fire fighters did an amazing job as usual... The bad news is that the mountain we ride on now resembles a lifeless moonscape.

On Saturday we rode out to watch the prologue of the Cape Epic www.cape-epic.com and we rode through the burnt areas and took the following photos. The one above is what's left of our extreme descent down the face of Plum Pudding - not looking good but at least we won't be getting any branches in our eyes for a while!

The photo below shows some of the damage looking South towards King's block house - OK, it looks bad but after the first few rains, just imagine how green this is going to be!



The last photo is of South Africa's very own Burry Stander leading out Christoph Sauser on their way to win the 19km prologue of the most televised MTB race in the world.

Good luck to all the competitors of this grueling 8 stage MTB race! We plan on holding a special Cape Epic tour next year so if you are interested in taking part, contact us now so we can secure your ticket!

Jonkershoek's grief

I've finally got a photo of what Jonkershoek looks like after this months fires. I have to warn you though, that if you're a sensitive viewer you may want to avert your eyes from the right of the screen! The photo really is quite appropriate for todays date-

Meurant says that about 300ha got burnt and as you can see theres not much cover left. That said, I have to say that the singletrack in the photo looks awesome! So Jonkershoek is probably off the cards for a while :( The loggers will get in there and take care of the dangers and before long we'll be riding through young green saplings and a bit more indigenous fynbos. We've been through this before and while it really saddens the heart we can only look to the limitless possibilities of the future!

Clean Dirt Jumps

On a brighter note the 4X track at Dirtopia is looking wicked and you could easily spend an afternoon there just jamming with mates and learning some new bike skills-I look forward to actually testing it out this weekend! Have a great one! Here's a photo from a few weeks ago of some guys having fun on it.

1st Place Argus Cycle Tour 2009!

Well done to our lead guide, Jennie Stenerhag, for winning the biggest (and most scenic) road race in South Africa!

This weekend was 'The Big One' for cyclists and Cape Town was absolutely full up with riders from all over the world as they descended on the Mother City for the mother of all races. Thirty five thousand (yes, 35 000!) cyclists take part in this annual road race of 110 km around the Cape peninsula, the biggest road race in the world.

Jennie rode a brilliant race in the most testing conditions this race has ever been held in. Winds up to 55km/h blasted through Cape Town, tearing down banners and bowling over cyclists even when they were just standing at the start line! The ladies finish came down to a sprint as it usually does and after a few replays of video footage Jennie was awarded with the number one spot for 2009 and some well deserved national TV coverage. Well done Jennie! This is on top of an already great season in South Africa, where she has won the Burger cycle race, the Herald VW Cycle tour as well as a few podiums and wins in the Alpha Pharm Seeding Series.

We are hosting a Cape Argus Cycle specific tour in 2010, so if you would like to join us then contact us ASAP and we will reserve your place!
D

Cycle of life

Check this photo out. An amazing composition of the fires in Stellenbosch 2 weeks ago. It's taken by a young local photographer with a lot of talent. Check his website out here- www.hougaardmalan.com. Beauty and horror in one package. Unfortunately a new fire is burning in Jonkershoek this week. We're holding thumbs that the plantations are not too badly damaged but from experience we know that trails come and trails go. It's a life-cycle we should all know well considering we spend so much time on round wheels, with round chainrings and round bearings. So some singletrack and a lot of hard work might be gone forever but new trails (with new stories) will always pop up in time and maybe they'll be even better than before. I'm looking forward to it!

Foto Friday!

Post Ride bliss...