Well I finally biked to the Cape from Port Elizabeth! Even arriving in time to do 101 km of The Argus Cape Event, dropping in as a laggard and racing to prevent the broom wagon from catching me.
I had a very pleasurable rest day in Stellenbosch with Keith, whilst Irma went to a spa day day with her daughters :-). I managed to get a mirror for the bike and even fix it to my butterfly handlebars with the help of a clamp from my Cateye light. So hopefully no surprise trucks now!
The biggest discovery was the new Specialized Concept Store just around the corner from where I was staying. The store is actually owned by Specialized USA. This store comes complete with a creche area, outdoor kiddies track, MTB test track, workshop and The Cave cafe area. Cycles are displayed rather than grouped en-masse so it provides a much better experience. I also had the pleasure of chatting to Bobby who is Mr Specialized SA. Overall an excellent concept and many thanks to the young technician who fixed my squeaky brakes and front derailleur 🙂
I left for Cape Town early on Sunday down the deserted 12 highway (apart from loads of runners) straight past the airport and it’s townships and on to Newlands where I had booked into The Mantra, arriving the place looked deserted and there was no reply to the bells so I emailed them and pedalled on for a look around the area.
I bumped into a guy who was carrying his bike having had a mechanical, he pointed to the motorway and said it was The Argus (Apparently the world’s largest timed cycle event over 35,000 riders). So I pedalled up onto the motorway where some other guy on a moped said did I want a push up the hill as the broom wagon was just behind, I declined, but then I saw the 101km marker and thought I might give it a go as I could always get a lift back 🙂
Argus is a fabulous ride down the very hilly Cape peninsular and back the other side. Every hill I came to loads of folks were walking up so I kept going until the bus was a good 30mins behind me. I did 63.2 miles of The Argus at an average of over 12mph, not bad considering I had all my baggage and had just cycled the 29 miles from Stellenbosch plus all those hills. Strava says over 7,000 feet of them! All done on a couple of rusks and loads of the Powerade drinks (they filled my bottle in less than a second 🙂 Unfortunately being a straggler all the food had disappeared 🙁
Great fun especially all the comments about bringing the kitchen sink!
I had an awful nights sleep at The Mantra as at 1.30am there was a commotion outside followed by someone having a shower 🙁 I left in the morning ans spent most of Monday snoozing at Altona Lodge a real b&b in the town centre.
My pics of Stellenbosch and Argus Tour plus a few hours in Cape Town harbour can be found by clicking the relevant links.
https://t.co/LUMPwsC7jn