Geoff Jones

Inveterate dabbler in business, travel, gadgets & life

Category: Africa

Day 15 Biking Africa – Cape Town to Bloubergstrand

A cycleway in South Africa
A cycleway in South Africa

After much humming and harring this morning I finally decided the best way of making a decision on where to go next was just to get on the bike! The owner of The Altona said Blouberg was very pleasant with a cycle path for most of the way! I quickly found a place to stay there on booking.com by the beach too and so I waved goodbye to Cape Town, although it would be fun to do The Argus on a real bike another year 🙂

Table mountain
Table mountain

A bit of a nightmare exiting Cape Town on the motorway system, especially navigating around the broken glass bottles either thrown from cars or at cars 🙁 and as usual at the entry slip roads. I made it to the R27 and then got blasted along with a tail wind so strong I had difficulty stopping the bike in places. It’s truly a gorgeous ride with magnificent views of Table Top mountain, Robben Island and all the local fine sandy beaches.

I quickly made the 14 miles to Bloubergstrand and the accommodation at Blouberg Place where the owner had emailed me to say that she wasn’t there but then  describing the secret hidey place for the key – very civilised and the room had a small barrel of biscuits 🙂

After a high velocity shower I walked up the road, admiring all the total glam houses and musing about their occupants admiring the view to Mandela’s prison from their terraces. I had a lovely salad & beer at the Ons Huisie restaurant which set me back a cool £5, getting expensive around here 🙂

The Strava is here and the days pics here

Day Days 13/14 Biking Africa – Cape Town & The Argus Cape Event

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.

Day 12 Biking Africa Villiersdorp to Stellenbosch

close encounters
Notice the gap between the cyclist, truck and edge of road!

Another 7am start to the day as I wanting to reach the Franschhoekpas and it’s 1535 feet (468m) of climbing to its summit of 2424ft (739m) before the heat of the day. The road as already busy with the wine tankers and fruit trucks. I made excellent progress even though the yellow lines side lane kept disappearing 🙁 On the way up I got chatting to a young guy from near Heathrow who was out training for the Argos ride in Cape Town over the weekend. Thats him in the pic if you want to see just how close the fruit trucks get to you on the roads 🙁

A huge group of Harley motor bikers came down on a tour organised by Oscar-Tours.com accompanied by a back up truck flying a drone that was taking a video for them. I’m almost certainly in the video if anyone finds it please let me know 🙂

I was surprised how easy it was to get the top with it’s magnificent views of the wine valley below. On the descent I was held up by two huge fruit trucks grinding their way down with accompanying stench of hot brakes.

The town of Franschhoek at the foot of the pass just oozes charm and wealth with it’s crowds of affluent tourists, I managed a yummy smoothie then paid a quick visit to the cycle shop but not a lot to see so I progressed on, eventually stopping at The Eikehof Winery which apparently has the oldest Semillon Vines in South Africa dating back to 1902. They were just setting up for a sit down wedding for 96. I was amazed at the huge space required and to think Em is having 120 people! Me thinks the hall will be very, very crowded! The owner told me a lot about Namibia as his family have a sheep farm there. Apparently there is a stretch of road 200km long with nothing at all 🙁

I then came to the second pass of the day, Helshoogte Pass with its summit at 387m it should have been easy but I struggled 🙁 even stopping for a second lunch halfway up 🙂 In the afternoons the heat from the tarmac becomes a real issue for me. Once again they didn’t do a sparkling grape juice 🙁 Then it was a bomb down to Stellenbosch where it was amusing to see kids wearing shorts and long socks like something out of a 1920’s movie 🙂 A very pretty university town with stacks of coffee shops and green spaces. The final coup de grace was that Keith & Irma (Our friends from The Lycian Trail) live on top of yet another hill 🙂

Strava says I did 42.5 iles and 3,258 feet of ascent, although it switched itself of for the final 6 miles and climb 🙁

Some pics are here.

Day 11 Biking Africa Robertson to Villiersdorp

I managed a 7am breakfast and was on the road at 7.40 lovely and cool with a slight wind behind me the road traffic was so heavy for the first 20 miles on the R60 that I was getting pulled along in the draught 🙂 The road is quite wide with the yellow lines so didn’t feel to bad 🙂 although probably not so good if you are the nervous type. Apart from the stunning scenery the surprise was to see a huge baboon giving me a once over at the side of the road 🙁 fortunately it slouched off.

I took the short cut to the R43 thus missing out Worcester. At the junction I popped into the Aan de Doorns Cellar and discovered the delights of chilled fizzy grape juice, 750ml demolished in a few minutes even though I had drunk 1.5 litres of water already. Unfortunately no food, although the girlies wanted my picture for the companies Facebook page.

A couple of hours later found me at The Stettyn Cellar, far more enterprising! The lady rustled up a lovely lunch made from local produce even selling wine by the glass. But with my newly found penchant for fizzy grape juice another 750ml quickly disappeared. I was sat right next to the weigh bridge so as I was leaving she weighed me and the bike 🙂 Combined total 130kg.

After lunch it was another gruelling incline towards Villiersdorp quite why there is always a head wind in the afternoon heat is beyond me.

Villiersdorp tourist office did a fine job after I emailed them my plight this morning and booked me into De Villiers Country Lodge a pleasant place. The biggest drawback for me is no shower only a bath so difficult to administer my scrubbing regime.

The town itself is not so pretty and the Village Kitchen Restaurant won’t be getting any Michelin stars any time soon. Although they did let me buy some booze from the shop next door.

Tomorrow its Stellenbosch, over the Franschhoek Pass, to see Keith & Irma who Sally and I met walking The Lycian Way in Turkey.

The   55.0mi 2,216ft are on  Strava here and the pictures here